Actually, the site I looked at from the link about says the line is " a land so WILD and savage". I must admit however, since the first time I heard this song was as part of the music on a PBS program about the Franklin Expedition, and since most of their problems were with being iced in trying to find the Northwest Passage I assumed the "one warm line" was open water through the ice fields, which were " a land so WHITE and savage". I guess you hear what you want to, no matter what the composer really meant.