Canol Road

(album: Northwest Passage - 1981)

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 till 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