Locked in Ice

In the year of 1831
I sailed towards the setting sun
Bringing food and fuel and guns for the Hudson Bay Company
From Vancouver to the North West shore
Like I'd done these fifteen years or more
Little did I know what lay in store on the icy Beaufort Sea

Trading cargo for the finest furs
Trapped by Eskimos and voyagers
It was early winter came that year
Through closing pack ice I did steer
Just a narrow patch of sea lay clear
Now I was homeward bound

But as I crossed the Beaufort Sea
The pack ice, it closed in on me
It was a fearful guarantee that I'd be run aground
To Barrow then, the crew did go
To shelter from the wind and snow

Locked in ice
Half a hundred years
Drifting with the flow
Where the ice goes, I go

It seemed that fortune looked my way
For early on, the following day
The ice broke up and moved away
And the crew came back aboard

But two miles from Alaska's shore
The pack ice, it closed in once more
Cut the skyline where I'd sailed before
Like a white and deadly sword

Captain and the thirty crew
To the safety of the shore withdrew

But I was locked in ice
Half a hundred years
Drifting with the flow
Where the ice goes, I go

So without a crew, I drifted slow
Stuck fast within the pack ice floe
Till a group of hunting Eskimo found me floating just offshore

Two years later, I was seen again
Heading Northward through the snow and rain
The salvage men, they tried to stake their claim
But the ice made them withdraw

It was in the year of '69
I was sighted for the final time

Locked in ice
Half a hundred years
Drifting with the flow
Locked in ice
Half a hundred years
Where the ice goes, I go

I'm a little ghost ship on the Beaufort sea
Doomed to travel endlessly

Locked in ice
Half a hundred years
Drifting with the flow
Locked in ice
Half a hundred years
Where the ice goes, I go
I go
I go