Northwest Passage (song)
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Northwest Passage is one of the best-known songs by a 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".
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.
[edit] Sample lyric
- 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 song has also been performed by Coyote Run in their album "Don't Hold Back" and by Clishmaclever in their album "Hearing Double"
[edit] External link
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