Robert Service

In this darkest time of the year, Robert Service has brightened up our lives. Shelby took out a Robert Service poetry book from the library. Both kids have figured that he knew what it was like to live at Tuscarora:

“Listen to this Mom” ( snippets from The Spell of the Yukon)

The summer — no sweeter was ever;
The sunshiny woods all athrill…….

And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop;
And I've thought that I surely was dreaming,
With the peace o' the world piled on top…….

The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,
I'd bade 'em good-by — but I can't……..


“Doesn’t it sound just like he’s been here?”

It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder,
It's the forests where silence has lease;
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,

It's the stillness that fills me with peace.



So when the Cook County Herald was having a poetry contest, Shelby wrote a Robert Service-style poem on the bus.


The Moose
By Shelby Ahrendt
Age 11
218-388-0408
193 Round Lake Road
Grand Marais, MN 55604



On a November Day we were making our way
Down the Gunflint Trail
The bus was cold, the silence was old
And the air was awfully stale.
Then the scene changed when something strange
Charged out of the underbrush,
It was dark as night and it gave me a fright
As it broke the silence and hush.

“A moose” said Chet and the brake his foot met
And we can screeching to a halt,
The moose looked at us and with all its must
It turned and began its assault.
At us it ran, horns out in a fan
And someone began to cry,
Then it swerved away, which saved the day
For we all thought we would die.

On that November Day we continued our way
Down the Gunflint Trail,
More fuel was burned, the silence returned
And the air was still awfully stale.
The bus rumbled on and we welcomed the dawn
Like any other day.
Just another moose, out on the loose
On the bus ride to Grand Marais.