Northwest Passage

Ah, for just one time

I would take the Northwest Passage

To find the hand of Franklin

Reaching for the Beaufort Sea

Tracing one warm line

Through a land so white and savage

And make a Northwest Passage to the sea

Westward from the Davis Strait

'Tis there 'twas said to lie

The sea route to the Orient

For which so many died

Seeking gold and glory

Leaving weathered, broken bones

And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones

Ah, for just one time

I would take the Northwest Passage

To find the hand of Franklin

Reaching for the Beaufort Sea

Tracing one warm line

Through a land so white and savage

And make a Northwest Passage to the sea

Three centuries thereafter

I take passage overland

In the footsteps of brave Kelso

Where his "sea of flowers" began

Watching cities rise before me

Then behind me sink again

This tardiest explorer

Driving hard across the plain

Ah, for just one time

I would take the Northwest Passage

To find the hand of Franklin

Reaching for the Beaufort Sea

Tracing one warm line

Through a land so white and savage

And make a Northwest Passage to the sea

And through the night, behind the wheel

The mileage clicking west

I think upon Mackenzie

David Thompson and the rest

Who cracked the mountain ramparts

And did show a path for me

To race the roaring Fraser to the sea

Ah, for just one time

I would take the Northwest Passage

To find the hand of Franklin

Reaching for the Beaufort Sea

Tracing one warm line

Through a land so white and savage

And make a Northwest Passage to the sea

How then am I so different

From the first men through this way?

Like them, I left a settled life

I threw it all away

To seek a Northwest Passage

At the call of many men

To find there but the road back home again

Ah, for just one time

I would take the Northwest Passage

To find the hand of Franklin

Reaching for the Beaufort Sea

Tracing one warm line

Through a land so white and savage

And make a Northwest Passage to the sea