I know it's cold but we have to carry on Find us someplace to build ourselves a home Can't say when we'll see our day in the sun If we die before all is said and done here, well have no fear For there is a force that cradles the sea And shimmers in the daylight hours How do you feel? Is anything real? Behind the Canadian shield Mountains watching every migratory flight Northern waters watching over Eastern nights Lay back, observe the way the lights fade As you venture into subarctic unknown, traveling alone Here is a land that colors the Earth and cultivates a natural fire How do you feel when you're asked to kneel before the Canadian shield? Oil and stone, the last of the people who live off the land as best as they can Fire and ice, the fuel of glaciers that flatten the plains Snow and rock claim many a life of the people who come to feel reborn Across the sea, the people lie waiting to tear up the trails Protect the ground before it gives way, before the creatures are absorbed Green and red, recreate the destruction of warriors proud and strong Speaking no words, mimicking the sound of beasts Feeling the bare ground, soft beneath their feet For there is a force that cradles the sea and shimmers in the daylight hours How do you feel when you're able to wield the mighty Canadian shield?

The men who rushed for gold ten years before Challenged for the cup back in 05 Mining men from a mining town, dog sleds on the snow Dreams of Ottawa warming their minds The silver seven stood in line, right there on the ice Dawson City boys got off the train After three long weeks they knew they had an awful lot to prove Have to play one hell of a game And as they took their positions The puck came down, sticks held way down low Just Klondike boys, playing for the chance To see the crowd screaming Yukon Ho Offside goals and high-sticks brought their numbers to a peak 9 to 2 the first night brought their spirits down Northern men and city boys could treat each other nice That is until they're fighting for the crown 23 to 2 cried out the board held high above Dawson City falling ever further off the map Though Forrest on the goal kept dignity afloat Fortune found the mines had all been tapped And as they took their positions The puck came down, sticks held way down low Just Klondike boys, playing for the chance To see the crowd screaming Yukon Ho

Pierre, it's time for you to campaign It's 1968 and you're on your way Pierre, with your youth appeal, All us Canadians feel that today's your day Pierre, you're multi-cultural, you're bilingual, and that's alright Pierre, you had it under control, when they murdered LaPorte We're all safe tonight Pierre, you're back in power again Doing everything that you can for Canada Though your economic policy Not without controversy among the Quebecois Pierre, you've fostered nationalism, you've prevented a schism, kept the country as one Pierre, we tried to live without you, but we can't bring ourselves to, your work's not done Pierre, now your work is completed, You were the man that we needed, best we've ever had Although your legacy in the prairies May be slightly contrary, but don't listen to that Pierre, you've kept a glimmer of light on, a Canadian icon just like Tim Horton's Pierre, you know we need you again, but until then we can take Justin

You were wearing a load bearing tuxedo when you walked out of the door It was December and I remember you saying you were sick of being poor Tired of failure, grain elevators elevate you onto something more You left Yorkton, you went to Portland left everyone to even up the score But there's something you should know I could never really go Saskatchewan, I could never love anyone else but you, girl Saskatchewan, I'm no silo but I think you know, girl You can see it through the peep-holes Getting strength from many peoples Please don't call me just a yuppie cuz' I've got my interests out in town I'm just wary of the prairie see everything in shades of golden brown Not to mention your condescension we really ain't that folksy or too proud So why pretend, and why extend the time that's only spent hanging around? Conversations with a mirror Ain't never been any clearer Saskatchewan, I could never love anyone else but you girl Saskatchewan, I'd love to go but I need you so, girl Saskatoon might be the answer Regina don't do what we ask her Saskatchewan, why would anyone live anywhere but you?

There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run when the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun Long before the white man and long before the wheel when the green dark forest was too silent to be real But time has no beginnings and history has no bounds as to this verdant country they came from all around They sailed upon her waterways and they walked the forests tall built the mines, mills and the factories for the good of us all And when the young man's fancy was turnin' to the spring the railroad men grew restless for to hear the hammers ring Their minds were overflowing with the visions of their day and many a fortune won and lost and many a debt to pay For they looked in the future and what did they see They saw an iron road runnin' from the sea to the sea Bringin' the goods to a young growin' land all up through the seaports and into their hands Look away said they across this mighty land from the eastern shore to the western strand Bring in the workers and bring up the rails we gotta lay down the tracks and tear up the trails Open 'er heart let the life blood flow gotta get on our way 'cause we're movin' too slow Bring in the workers and bring up the rails we're gonna lay down the tracks and tear up the trails Open 'er heart let the life blood flow gotta get on our way 'cause we're movin' too slow get on our way 'cause we're movin' too slow Behind the blue Rockies the sun is declinin' The stars, they come stealin' at the close of the day Across the wide prairie our loved ones lie sleeping beyond the dark oceans in a place far away We are the navvies who work upon the railway swingin' our hammers in the bright blazin' sun Livin' on stew and drinkin' bad whiskey bendin' our backs 'til the long days are done We are the navvies who work upon the railway swingin' our hammers in the bright blazin' sun Layin' down track and buildin' the bridges bendin' our backs 'til the railroad is done So over the mountains and over the plains into the muskeg and into the rain up the St. Lawrence all the way to Gaspe swingin' our hammers and drawin' our pay Layin' 'em in and tyin' 'em down away to the bunkhouse and into the town a dollar a day and a place for my head a drink to the livin' a toast to the dead Oh the song of the future has been sung all the battles have been won On the mountain tops we stand all the world at our command We have opened up the soil with our teardrops and our toil For there was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run when the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun Long before the white man and long before the wheel when the green dark forest was too silent to be real when the green dark forest was too silent to be real And many are the dead men too silent... to be real

Un Canadien errant, Banni de ses foyers, Parcourait en pleurant Des pays étrangers. Un jour, triste et pensif, Assis au bord des flots, Au courant fugitif Il adressa ces mots: "Si tu vois mon pays, Mon pays malheureux, Va, dis à mes amis Que je me souviens d'eux.

We built this town around the sea and fishing nets were family crests 500 years of destiny built up to a sudden death Where do we go from here? That's not our concern What do we do with ourselves? We'll never learn What will the harvest bring if there ain't no more cod? Where will I hang up my wires and rod? As a boat rocks in the harbor, somebody spreads the news Writes a check and says 'good luck', though we know he thinks us fools What do we with ourselves? That's not our concern Where do we go from here? We'll never learn What will the harvest bring if anything at all? Where will I hang up my seine and trawl? Time to go and bait the rods for the water Time to go check the traps, and make some money But there ain't much here to take from the water The cod don't seem to wanna bite, they're all sleeping Or maybe they are all just gone 500 years they swam the water, St John's must follow the path they find on the bottoms of watery graves that keep us tethered to the sea Here we find just another example of our tendency to plunder from ourselves and dig our graves But we can't seem to dig any other The cod don't seem to wanna bite, they're all sleeping Or maybe they are all just gone

Your Honors, gentlemen of the jury: It would be easy for me to-day to play insanity, because the circumstances are such as to excite any man, and under the natural excitement of what is taking place to-day (I cannot speak English very well, but am trying to do so, because most of those here speak English), under the excitement which my trial causes me would justify me not to appear as usual, but with my mind out of its ordinary condition. I hope with the help of God I will maintain calmness and decorum as suits this honorable court, this honorable jury. It is true, gentlemen, I believed for years I had a mission, and when I speak of a mission you will understand me not as trying to play the roll of insane before the grand jury so as to have a verdict of acquittal upon that ground. I believe that I have a mission, I believe I had a mission at this very time. What encourages me to speak to you with more confidence in all the imperfections of my English way of speaking, it is that I have yet and still that mission, and with the help of God, who is in this box with me, and He is on the side of my lawyers, even with the honorable court, the Crown and the jury, to help me, and to prove by the extraordinary help that there is a Providence to-day in my trial, as there was a Providence in the battles of the Saskatchewan. As to religion, what is my belief? What is my insanity about that? My insanity, your Honors, gentlemen of the jury, is that I wish to leave Rome aside, inasmuch as it is the cause of division between Catholics and Protestants. I did not wish to force my views, because in Batoche to the half-breeds that followed me I used the word, carte blanche. If I have any influence in the new world it is to help in that way and even if it takes 200 years to become practical, then after my death that will bring out practical results, and then my children's children will shake hands with the Protestants of the new world in a friendly manner. I do not wish these evils which exist in Europe to be continued, as much as I can influence it, among the half-breeds. I do not wish that to be repeated in America. That work is not the work of some days or some years, it is the work of hundreds of years. Up to this moment, I have been considered by a certain party as insane, by another party as a criminal, by another party as a man with whom it was doubtful whether to have any intercourse. o there was hostility and there was contempt, and there was avoidance To-day, by the verdict of the Court, one of these three situations has disappeared. I suppose that after having been condemned, I will cease to be called a fool, and for me it is a great advantage. I consider it as a great advantage. If I have a mission, I say "If " for the sake of those who doubt, but for my part it means "Since," since I have a mission, I cannot fulfil my mission as long as I am looked upon as an insane being-human being, at the moment that I begin to ascend that scale, I begin to succeed. think the verdict that has been given against me is a proof that I am more than ordinary myself, but that the circumstances and the help that is given is more than ordinary, are more than ordinary, and although I consider myself only as others, yet by the will of God, by his Providence, by the circumstances which have surrounded me for fifteen years, I think that I have been called to do something which at least in the North-West nobody has done yet, and in some way I think that to a certain number of people the verdict against me to day is a proof that maybe I am a prophet, maybe Riel is a prophet. He's suffered enough for it

Take off to the great white north Take off, it's a beauty way to go Take off to the great white north