I believe that the last line of the chorus should be:

"And make a Northwest Passage to the sea"

I have heard that when Stan Rogers was recording the album that Northwest Passage is on he had not written the song yet. Now I may not be getting the story exactly right but he needed one more song (or a title song) to complete the album. Apparently he was working under a time deadline so he stayed up that night in the studio and composed a song to complete the album. He presented the song to the rest of the crew the next morning and "Northwest Passage" completed the album.