There's places where they say its cold
At 45 degrees
And places where it gets so cold
It makes you lock your knees.
There's regions where the cusswords hang
All frozen through the winter
And come to life at the start of Spring
Making raucous roars a-splinter.
There are lands where the sun never shows its face
Throughout the winter's day
And places where the white bears live
Where it's too damn cold to pray.
But the coldest stretch I ever saw
And the toughest winter's way
Was the trek where Ma nearly broke her neck
Making Thirty Four of Kay.

It was warm enough when we started out
Down in Thirtythree and Six.
And when Mom said she'd had a thought,
We thought we knew her tricks.
So we lazed around by the fire bright
In a warm and friendly snow,
And Mom explained what she had in mind,
And where she planned to go.
Wal, the dogs were stretched in their snow-hole beds
Dreaming of canine beers,
But when she spoke each raised his head,
And flattened out his ears.
And they all shivered, as if a chill
Or a williwaw, as they say,
Had come sweeping down from the northern peaks
Out by Thirty Four of Kay.

Now Ma, she knew them dogs clear through
Each blooded breed and line
And in those parts, the people said
She had half a canine mind.
So she knew what she would have to do
To break them from their beds,
And she uttered a cry like wolves in heat
And her whipped snapped over their heads.
So one by one the dogs stood up
And snarled with an awful sneer
But Ma she stood and stared them down,
And pretended not to hear.
And one by one those hell-hounds flinched
ANd into their traces lay,
They could tell that Ma would brook no stop
Til the Thirty Four o' Kay.

The boss-dog there was B.S. Buck,
Her was long in tooth and fur.
There wasn't a bitch the length of the line
But Buck and conquered her.
And there wasn't a dog in the whole damn team
As they snarled right whar they stood
That didn't remember some frozen night
When Buck had drawn his blood.
And Buck was the last to creep to the trace
And he stared in an evil way;
You could his heart warn't inclined to start
On the trail to another Kay.