CHORUS

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 wide 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. 

CHORUS

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. 

CHORUS

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.

CHORUS

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.

CHORUS x 2