Stan Rogers -- Northwest Passage -- "CANOL Road"

Well you could see it in his eyes as they strained against the night,
And the bone-white-knuckled grip upon the road,
Sixty-five miles into town, and a winter's thirst to drown,
A winter still with two months left to go.

His eyes are too far open, his grin too hard and sore,
His shoulders too far high to bring relief,
But the Kopper King is hot, even if the band is not,
And it sure beats shooting whiskey-jacks and trees.

Then he laughs and says "It didn't get me this time, not tonight,
I wasn't screaming when I hit the door."
But his hands on the tabletop, will their shaking never stop,
Those hands sweep the bottles to the floor.

Now he's a bear in a blood-red mackinaw with hungry dogs at bay,
And springtime thunder in his sudden roar,
With one wrong word he burns, and the table's overturned,
When he's finished there's a dead man on the floor.

Well they watched for him in Carmacks, Haines, and Carcross,
With Teslin blocked there's nowhere else to go,
But he hit the four-wheel-drive in Johnson's Crossing,
Now he's thirty-eight miles up the CANOL road.
He's thirty-eight miles up the CANOL road,
In the Salmon Range at forty-eight below...

Well it's God's own neon green above the mountains here tonight,
Throwing brittle coloured shadows on the snow,
It's four more hours til dawn, and the gas is almost gone,
And that bitter Yukon wind begins to blow.

Now you can see it in his eyes as they glitter in the light
And the bone-white rime of frost around his brow,
Too late the dawn has come, that Yukon winter has won,
And he's got his cure for cabin fever now.

Well they watched for him in Carmacks, Haines, and Carcross,
With Teslin blocked there's nowhere else to go,
But they hit the four-wheel-drive in Johnson's Crossing,
Found him thirty-eight miles up the CANOL road.
They found him thirty-eight miles up the CANOL road,
In the Salmon Range at forty-eight below,
They found him thirty-eight miles up the CANOL road...

There are numerous sites devoted to the great folk singer Stan Rogers, and tons of references to the CANOL Road. But nowhere could I find the lyrics to this song, with its incomparably powerful imagery. I decided to rectify this deficiency. Any transcription errors are my own.
(Yeah, I suppose I could break the shrinkwrap on my virgin vinyl LP and read 'em therein, but...)

All the locations referenced are real places, including the Kopper King bar in Whitehorse. The CANOL Road goes north from Johnson's Crossing, and is not maintained during the winter months. 38 miles is roughly to the middle of Quiet Lake.
(Sorry about the size of the graphic; it couldn't be further reduced without compromising legibility.)

Whiskey-jack is another name for the Canada Jay.

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