#stan rogers

[sonofcelluloid]

in the Canadian Arctic straight up “not finding it”. and by “it”, haha, well. let’s justr say. The nornthwest pessage

[future-crab]

People who insist on changing the pronouns in songs while they’re singing along are so weak. “But I’m not gay!” Okay?? And I’m not a broken man on a Halifax pier, the last of Barrett’s Privateers, but for the length of this song I can be.

[tallmadgeandtea]

Who up tracing one warm line through a land so wide and savage to make a northwest passage to the sea

[whumpster-fire]

Stan Rogers Songs Categorized By Status Of The Boat

Northwest Passage: The Boat(s) sank a long time ago.

Barrett's Privateers: The Boat sank. It was a terrible boat anyway.

The Flowers Of Bermuda: The Boat sank.

Rolling Down To Old Maui: The Boat didn't sink.

Take It From Day To Day: The Boat didn't sink.

Bluenose: The Boat didn't sink.

White Squall: The Boat didn't sink, but somebody fell off.

The Mary Ellen Carter: The Boat sank, but goddamnit we're gonna unsink it!

Man With Blue Dolphin: The Boat sank again. This poor fool is going to waste his money unsinking it again. What an idiot. This boat is a piece of junk.

The Last Watch: The Boat didn't sink, but it's being broken up for scrap.

The Wreck of the Athens Queen: The Boat sank! Hooray, free stuff for us! (Also we almost sank the boat we used to grab stuff off the boat that sank because we were all drunk)

The Idiot: There are no boats in Edmonton or wherever. This sucks.

[lucybellwood]

Working on something for all you Stan Rogers stans

[boatcats]

Just so we're clear, I was told we'd cruise the seas for American gold, fire no guns, and shed no tears. I think there may have been some miscommunication.

[victusinveritas]

[spineless-lobster]

Are you fucking kidding me right now?! I was told we’d cruise the seas for american gold, that we’d fire no guns AND shed no tears, but NOW I’m a broken man on a halifax pier, the LAST of barrett’s FUCKING privateers!!! Honest to god the nerve of some people

[technofinch]

[lilaccatholic]

Who up ready to just one time take the Northwest Passage

[edward-little]

ah for just one time babeyyyyyyy

[sonofcelluloid]

Captain Crozier’s severed hand in unloveable hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

When I go for walks I like to sing along to my playlist. I've become a big fan of Canadian folk singer Stan Rogers over the last few years, and one of my favorite songs of his is The Mary Ellen Carter. It's about the crew of a sunken ship defying their boss's orders and raising it back up to the surface against all odds. Well, I JUST realized how a burly white guy singing "rise again, rise again" in a southern accent in North Florida may come across to an outside observer...

I probably shouldn't sing that one too much.

[chiropteracupola]

i was told we'd cruise the seas for american gold, fire no guns shed no tears &c, and all i got was this lousy t-shirt

[whumpster-fire]

Recently I've become obsessed with "The Last Saskactchwewan Pirate" after some glorious individual recommended it on that one post I made about Stan Rogers songs, but only just now did I realize the incredible comedic juxtaposition it has with "The Idiot."

One song is about a working class guy from somewhere in Eastern Canada but I'm gonna say somewhere near the Great Lakes or Atlantic because it's funnier, who loses his job in a recession but he's too proud to go on welfare so he moves to the prairies and gets a crappy job at an oil refinery that he hates.

The other song is about a working class guy from the Canadian Prairies who loses his farm in a recession and can't get a job but he's too proud to go on welfare so he... becomes a fucking pirate. And remains on the Canadian Prairies having the time of his life (except for winter when he goes down to New Mexico

I cannot stop giggling about the idea of the protagonists of these two songs meeting. Imagining the guy in "The Idiot" commuting home from his crappy job after another overnight shift when he sees a fucking pirate ship cruising down the river blasting sea shanties, and thinking that maybe he chose the wrong line of work.

And then he joins the crew

[alexandramrobertson]

An Annotated Northwest Passage

Are you a Due South fan? Do you wonder about all the references in Stan Rogers’ song “Northwest Passage”? Sure you do! So here are your annotated lyrics!

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 wild and savage And make a Northwest Passage to the sea

In 1845, Captain John Franklin’s expedition set out from England to find the Northwest Passage: a sea route from Europe to Asia via the Arctic. His ships were trapped in ice and all aboard died.

You probably knew that, but did you know that the Beaufort Sea is the part of the Arctic Ocean that lies north of the Yukon and Alaska, at the western end of the Passage?

Westward from the Davis Strait 'tis there 'twas said to lie The sea route to the Orient for which so many died Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones

Davis Strait lies between Greenland and Baffin Island, south of Baffin Bay. Franklin sailed through it into Baffin Bay and then north of Baffin Island into the Passage.

The “cairn of stones” likely refers to the cairn on King William Island where Franklin’s crew placed the Victory Point note. The only written record of the lost expedition, it was depicted in The Terror TV show.

Three centuries thereafter, I take passage overland In the footsteps of brave Kelsey, where his Sea of Flowers began Watching cities rise before me, then behind me sink again This tardiest explorer, driving hard across the plain

Henry Kelsey was a 17th century fur trader working for the Hudson's Bay Company. He was likely the first European to visit the present day prairie provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta.

I have no idea where "Sea of Flowers" came from, but it's a lovely way to describe the prairies.

Canada’s Great Plains are incredibly flat. Cities really do appear to rise up and sink as you cross them, due to the curvature of the earth.

And through the night, behind the wheel, the mileage clicking west I think upon Mackenzie, David Thompson and the rest Who cracked the mountain ramparts and did show a path for me To race the roaring Fraser to the sea

Alexander Mackenzie, David Thompson, and Simon Fraser were all explorers who travelled what is now Western Canada. They were all instrumental in finding routes through the mountains to the sea - routes we still drive today!

Mackenzie completed the first recorded transcontinental crossing north of Mexico in 1793, 12 years before Lewis & Clark. When he arrived in what is now Bella Coola, BC, he wrote an inscription on a rock that said he came "from Canada by land".

Thompson mapped almost 5 million square kilometres of western North America. He found routes through the Rocky Mountains and was the first European to travel the entire length of the Columbia River.

Fraser was in charge of the North West Company's fur trading operations west of the Rockies.

And they all had rivers named after them!

The Mackenzie River flows north from Great Slave Lake to the Beaufort Sea. The Mackenzie has the second largest drainage basin of any river in North America. You've probably never heard of it, but it flows right past Inuvik.

The Thompson River flows through the valleys and canyons of southern British Columbia to Lytton, where it meets with...

The Fraser River! The longest river in British Columbia meets the ocean just south of Vancouver, where it forms an enormous delta. Though it seems placid, if you travel upstream beyond the city you'll find a turbulent - well, roaring - canyon. If you drive the Trans-Canada Highway to Vancouver, you'll travel through the Fraser Canyon.

How then am I so different from the first men through this way? Like them, I left a settled life, I threw it all away To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of many men To find there but the road back home again

While Franklin lost his life, Kelsey, Mackenzie, Thompson, and Fraser all survived their journeys. They all returned to a "settled life" after their adventure. They went home, wherever that happened to be.