Northwest Passage (song)

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Northwest Passage is one of the best-known songs by Canadian musician Stan Rogers. An a cappella song, it features Rogers alone singing the verses, with several guest vocalists harmonizing with him in the chorus.

While it recalls the history of early explorers who were trying to discover a route across Canada to the Pacific Ocean (especially Sir John Franklin, who lost his life in the quest for the Northwest Passage), its central theme is a comparison between the journeys of these past explorers and the singer's own journey to and through the same region. The singer ultimately reflects that, just as the quest for a northwest passage might be considered a fruitless one (in that a viable and navigable northwest passage was never found in the days of Franklin and his kind), a modern-day sojourner along similar paths might meet the same end.

The song appears on an album of the same name released by Rogers in 1981, and is considered one of the classic songs in Canadian music history. In the 2005 CBC Radio One series 50 Tracks: The Canadian Version, "Northwest Passage" ranked fourth, behind only Neil Young's "Heart of Gold", Barenaked Ladies' "If I Had $1,000,000" and Ian and Sylvia's "Four Strong Winds". It has been referred to as one of Canada's unofficial anthems by Prime Minister Stephen Harper^[1], and former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson quoted the song both in her first official address ^[2] and in her speech at the dedication of the new Canadian embassy in Berlin ^[3].

The song also appeared in the final episode of the television series, Due South and has been covered in acoustic form by the British duo Show of Hands on their album Cold Frontier. Show of Hands do not perform the song a capella but use guitar and violin to provide musical backing. It also appeared on an episode of the PBS series NOVA about the discovery of gravesites belonging to members of the Franklin Expedition. The exhumation and study of the bodies revealed that the crew of the Franklin Expedition suffered from lead poisoning, possibly contributing to the catastrophic failure of the men to survive.

The song was used on October 9, 2007 by the BBC World Service's World Today programme during a story about the expansion of Canada's efforts to confirm its sovereignty over the arctic region through which the Northwest Passage runs.

1 Lyrics
2 Covers
3 External links
4 References

[edit] Lyrics

The chorus is:

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 wide and savage

And make a northwest passage to the sea

The narrator states that he is taking "passage overland in the footsteps of brave Kelso" three centuries after. This refers to Henry Kelsey, an English explorer of what is now northern Canada, who had explored the area 290 years prior. Whether the name "Kelso" is an itself error or a diminutive nickname is unclear. The lines "To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea" and "seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered broken bones/and a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones" commemorate the Franklin expedition. Stan Rogers indicated that he was unsure of details in writing the song, and worked from memory.^[4]

[edit] Covers

The song has also been performed by Show of Hands in the 2001 album Cold Frontier, by Coyote Run in Don't Hold Back, by Clishmaclever in Hearing Double, and by the Browne Sisters and George Cavanaugh in Ready for the Storm. It was performed by Modabo on the 1995 tribute album Remembering Stan Rogers. It was performed by Paul Gross in the season finale of Due South. Rogers's own version appeared over the credits.