The Franklin Expedition.
Kelly Graham
The one thing I'm pretty sure of this song- Gordon Lightfoot
DID NOT do it!!!
A few years back- I think- CBC(?) had a special on Dicovery
Channel (it might have been) on Franklin's 19th-cent. expedition
to find the Northwest Passage.[ The show theorized the icebound
expredition's demise could be attributed to lead-poisoning.]
Anyway, there was a song that went in this special, "...the
icy hand of Franklin [is/keeps] ponting to the sea". Every now and
again I remember tne song.
Who did the song, and can I get a copy of it stateside?
Kelly Paul Graham.
'
Ed Seedhouse
KGrah...@gnn.com (Kelly Graham) wrote:
> A few years back- I think- CBC(?) had a special on Dicovery
>Channel (it might have been) on Franklin's 19th-cent. expedition
>to find the Northwest Passage.[ The show theorized the icebound
>expredition's demise could be attributed to lead-poisoning.]
> Anyway, there was a song that went in this special, "...the
>icy hand of Franklin [is/keeps] ponting to the sea". Every now and
>again I remember tne song.
> Who did the song, and can I get a copy of it stateside?
I suspect the song you are thinking of is "Northwest Passage" by the
late Canadian singer Stan Rogers. The chorus of that song (quoting
from memory so it may not be exact) goes:
"Ah for just one time
I would take the northwest passage
To find the hand of Franklin
Racing for the northern sea.
Tracing one warm line,
Through a land so wide and savage,
And make a northwest passage to the sea."
Given the fact that Rogers, who died in 1983 in an aircraft accident,
was supported by the CBC among others, and composed songs for their
shows, I'm betting you are thinking of that song. It may be found on
the album of the same name and this album is still around. I bought a
tape of it last year and I'm quite sure it is on CD because I heard a
radio article on Stan pointing out that his albums are out on CD and
still sell very well more than a decade after his death.
Of course I never watch TV so maybe I'm all wet. Never mind, you
should hear the song anyway.
Ed Seedhouse
Victoria, B.C.
"If it wasn't for Long John Silver
all of us pirates would have been martyrs."
FAWNSMOM
It's the late great Stan Rogers you hear singing the song "Northwest
Passage." ("To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea".?
sound familiar?) I think the album is entitled "Northwest Passage." Look
in the folk section of larger music stores. Even if you can't find that
album, you'll probably like any Stan Rogers album.
Without music, life would be a mistake.----Friedrich Nietzsche
Trevor Prior
FYI, there is a very interesting article on the Franklin Expedition in
the May/June Issue of "The Beaver" (the house journal of the Canada's
History Society ( and which used to be the house journal of the Hudson's
Bay Company)) regarding the oral tradition of the Inuit regarding the
Franklin Expedition and the subsequent search parties. As I recall my
readings on the Expedition, Franklin and his men were doomed in part
because of their insistance on clinging to European survival techniques
instead of learning from the Inuit.
On a further note on the Plains of Abraham, Ian and Sylvia recorded
"Brave Wolfe" as an 'a capella' song on their album Northern Journey.
They attribute this song as being a traditional ballad which is one of the
oldest surviving North American folk songs. It tells the story of the
betrothal of Wolfe to Katherine Lowther just before his departure for the
New World, and then about his death on the Plains.
Cheers, Trevor
--
"Technology was supposed to set us free
but that ain't the way it turned out to be
A little bit of leisure is harder and harder to find"
"Non-Pro Song" - Ian Tyson
Dan Davis
If it was a song done in acappella, it might have been the late Stan
Rogers song titled Northwest Passage, on an album by that same name. (A
great album)
You can acquire the album through mail order to Fogarty's Cove Music Inc.
14 Hess St. South, Hamilton, Ontario. L8P 3M9