QUILTY: North West Passage (official video)

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Description

Official music video for "North West Passage", from the album "Out on the Ocean" (gammalthea 2022), performed live in concert by Quilty at Nyköpings Teater.

About the song:
The song was written by Stan Rogers, a Canadian folksinger/songwriter (1949-1983). Quiltys arrangement was inspired by a version of the song that we heard "Odenwälder Shanty Chor" perform on a festival many years ago.
In the lyrics Stan Rogers recalls the history of early explorers who were trying to discover a route across Canada to the Pacific Ocean, especially Sir John Franklin, who lost his life in the quest for the Northwest Passage. Through history many expeditions have searched for a possible sea route from Europe to Asia - a passage along the coast of North America through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Already the Vikings sailed, traded and hunted in these waters and so continued the Europeans until midieval times when the Little Ice Age would set a stop to the sailing trips. However, in time, sails were set again in search for a North West Passage… In 1845 a large expedition consisting of two ships led by Sir John Franklin set out to explore the mythic route. Both ships got stuck in the ice half way through the passage. Franklin and the whole of his crew died when trying to save themselves on sleighs across the ice. Rescue expeditions set out to look for them found the remains and traces of the men, but no survivors. All of the 129 sailors had died from hunger, cold and diseases, and maybe also from led poisoning as the tins with canned food – a novelty at the time – were soldered with led. Only in 2014 the two ships were found, as the arctic ice had melted due to climate change.
Quilty is a band from Sweden that has been playing Irish and Scottish music together since 1993. The members are:
Dag Westling, Gideon Andersson, Staffan Lindfors and Esbjörn Hazelius.