Why

Why is it Alaskans all come back
    When they've quit this land for good?
Why is it that no man stays away
    When he's sworn to his friends he would?
Where lies the grip this country hath
    All tangled around the heart
That takes a grip that can never slip
    And can never be torn apart?

Is it the lure of the summer sunshine
    That goes to the head like wine?
Is it the lure of the far flung meadows
    Of the shadowy scented pine?
Is it the lure of going where none have gone
    Of just being alone in the wild?
Is it the lure of the ancient glaciers
    That were old when Christ was a child?

They come here wild, athirst for gold
    They would win and run away,
They lose the stake they brought along
    And then they have to stay.
Here each one follows his own bent,
    The mines, the hills, the mart,
Work's but a name, the end's the same,
    The country steals your heart.

There's a lure to the land of the poppy,
    There's a lure to the land of your birth,
You swear you abhor it, and yet you'll long for it
    As no other land on this earth.
There's the lure of the snow mantled vastness,
    There's the lure of each valley and hill,
Of friends that you've met, that you'll never forget
    And you'll want to come back, and you will.