In the year of 1831 I sailed toward 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 voyageurs
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 floe
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 sky-line where I’d sailed before like a white and deadly sword
The 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 floe
Where the ice goes, I go
So without a crew I drifted slow, stuck fast within the pack-ice floe
‘Til 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 floe
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 floe
Locked in ice, half a hundred years
Where the ice goes, I go, I go, I go
