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 broken weathered 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 wild and savage   And make a Northwest Passage to the sea      Three centuries thereafer I take passage overland   In the footsteps of brave Kelso, where his "sea of flowers" began   Watching cities rise before me, and 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 wild and savage   To make a Northwest Passage to the sea      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 showed a path for me   To race the roaring Fraser to the sea      How then am I so different from the first men to this way   Like them I led a sheltered life and 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 wild and savage   And make a northwest passage to the sea   And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.