The Bard & Banker - Robert Service

 By Maryanna Gabriel

"There's a race of men that don't fit in,a race that can't stay still..." -Robert Service 

Robert Service

A  Victorian beauty of a building caught my eye in the same historic section on Government Street in Victoria. After checking out of the Bedford, I rolled along with my suitcase to The Bard and Banker. It was a bank for decades, then a Christmas shop, and now it is a restaurant, named after our famous Canadian bard, Robert Service.

When Robert Service left England at 21, he was drawn to the wild west. He worked in this bank amid all the excitement in Victoria that was the gold rush, from 1896 to 1903. Later he was to work in the Duncan area (across the pond from me) before going to the Yukon where his poetry

made him famous. I have seen his cabin in Dawson City, perched on the edge of town. I sat on a stump outside the open door while an enormous rook crowed rudely. Robert Service went on to live an even more varied life. The earnings from his publications made him wealthy. He hobnobbed with the rich and famous in Europe, married, had one child, and eventually died at 84 in his home in France.  

The breakfast menu at the Bard and Banker was an appetizing one, and I enjoyed sitting back and gazing at the architecture, thinking about this intriguing man.