"BALLAD OF THE YUKON" by Steve Hites, Skagway, Alaska (c) 1972

Look to the North Country
Up where few men have been
Listen there in the virgin country
There's gold upon the wind

And the wind blows 'cross the countryside
Spreadin' the word both far and wide
There's riches here for the takin'
The dreamers are a-wakin' to the cry

CHORUS: Lift up my feet and I'm movin' along
Be by horse or by ship or by train
The golden hills at the end of the trail
Resound to the sound of my name

Up through the coastal mountains
The cold wind blowin' at my back
Pull my coat around my shoulders
'Twould be a sin to turn back.

Look at all the eager faces
Drained empty from the strain
A pick in one hand, a pan in the other
With metal more precious than grain

(Chorus)

And the snow is black with blood
Count the corpses of the dead
Stiff and lifeless in the snow
In death I wonder if they know

But others followed, thousands more
Opened up that Yukon door
They took the millions from the ground
And laid five hundred bodies down

(Chorus)

(END)

Thanks for your interest in this old tune. I have been performing it as part of my "North to Alaska" show on board the cruise ships that come into Skagway for over 20 years (I think I will have had 243 shows this summer alone, so I will have done the song 243 times by the end of the summer), and it has been on three different albums since 1978 (in three versions). This is the version I from my CD "Inside Passage" (2001), and the version I have been performing for the shows.