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The end of this year will mark the 41st anniversary of one of those most memorable shipwrecks in my mind. It's urban tale lives on in the place that I call home, and it's still said that to sail those waters in November is a death wish.

The Edmund Fitzgerald was a large ship travelling with 26 thousand tons of taconite pellets. Taconite, to my knowledge, is a rock with a percentage of iron. Mostly chert and jasper. Sorry if I'm wrong, and please correct me.

Nonetheless. The ship was on its way to Detroit on November 10th of 1975 when a storm started to stir. Superior, often referred to as the coldest lake in the world, was also widely known for ferocious and destructive storms.

"When the witch angrily stirs her cauldron, no ship, no matter how large, is safe on the great lakes." - Steve Horstmeyer.

29 men, crew and captain alike died on the water that day. The freighter was capsized and sank 17 miles away from whitefish bay where it was heading to seek sanctuary from the storm. It sank 530 feet after being thrown about by 65 mile an hour plus winds. The storms of the lakes in November are said to rival that of hurricanes in the seas. Producing waves of 30 plus feet and wind gusts nearing 100 miles an hour.

From what I've read, somewhere in the neighborhood of 35-45% of the shipwrecks on the great Lakes happen in November because of a polar jet stream pushing south and creating these destructive storms.

Gordon Lightfoot, a very talented song writer and singer produced a song a year after the shipwreck. 'The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' is a lyrical explanation of the events that happened on November 10th of 1975, and one of the reasons we keep the witch of November in our memories today here at home.

"The legend lives on from the chippewa on down,
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee.
The lake it is said never gives up her dead,
When the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a load if iron ore 26 thousand tons more,
Then the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty,
That good ship and crew was a bone to be chewed,
When the gales of November came early.

The ship was the pride of the American side,
Coming back from some mill in wisconsin,
as the big freighters go, it was bigger than most,
With a crew and good captain, well seasoned.
Concluding some terms with a couple steel firms,
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland.
And later that night, when the ships bell rang,
Could it be the north wind they've been feelin'?"

Gordon Lightfoot, wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

I recommend any to listen to the song and follow the story.

Dear Jaglada,

Welcome to the Oracle Forum and thank you kindly for your contribution which is actually close to my heart. I went to watch Gordon Lightfoot perform about 3 months back and of course he did The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, being a musician of similar ilk at least part of the time, I used to cover his songs In the Early Morning Rain and If You Could Read My Mind. At 79 the soaring honeyed vocals are sadly but a whisper of their former selves. however he is a fine songwriter. Are you Canadian, if so I apologise if I upset you with my disappointment in one of your national musical treasures, but Joni Mitchell still flies the flag occasionally and Neil Young certainly does.

However, as Gitche Gumee is the Chippewa or Ojibwa (one and the same tribe) name meaning 'be a great sea' then I am massively interested. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow also mentions Gitche Gumee in The Song of Hiawatha.

Lake Superior, I much prefer Gitche Gumee, is indeed more like an inland sea, 350 miles (560 kilometes) long and 160 miles (260 kilometres) at it's maximim width. Average depth is 80.5 fathoms (483 feet; 147 metres) with a maximum depth of 222.17 fathoms (1,333 feet: 406 metres).The water surface area is 31,700 square miles (82,103 kilometres) so the weather conditions have space enough to evolve into something grim, whipping up some severe storms. According to shipwreck historian Frederick Stonehouse, the southern shore of Lake Superior between Grand Marais, Michigan, and Whitefish Point has become known as the 'Graveyard of the Great Lake' with more ships lost around the Whitefish Point area than any other part of Lake Superior. The shipwrecks are now protected by the Whitefish Point Underwater Preserve.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was the last major shipwreck on Lake Superior, sinking 15 nautical miles (28 kilometres: 17 miles) from Whitefish Point in a major storm. The Fitzgerald went down so violently that the 729-foot (222 metre) vessel split in half; her two pieces lie approximately 170 feet (52 metres) apart in 91 fathoms 4 feet (550 feet or 170 metres) of water.

Anyway enough statistics, in no way belittling the lives of passengers and crew lost in the deep, dark, unforgiving waters of Gitche Gumee, but perhaps more art a link for the full poem can be found below the excerpt beneath.

The Song of Hiawatha (excerpt) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1855 On the shores of Gitche Gumee,
Of the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood Nokomis, the old woman,
Pointing with her finger westward,
O'er the water pointing westward,
To the purple clouds of sunset.
Fiercely the red sun descending
Burned his way along the heavens,
Set the sky on fire behind him,
As war-parties, when retreating,
Burn the prairies on their war-trail;
And the moon, the Night-sun, eastward,
Suddenly starting from his ambush,
Followed fast those bloody footprints,
Followed in that fiery war-trail,
With its glare upon his features.
And Nokomis, the old woman,
Pointing with her finger westward,
Spake these words to Hiawatha:
"Yonder dwells the great Pearl-Feather,
Megissogwon, the Magician,
Manito of Wealth and Wampum,
Guarded by his fiery serpents,
Guarded by the black pitch-water.
You can see his fiery serpents,
The Kenabeek, the great serpents,
Coiling, playing in the water;
You can see the black pitch-water
Stretching far away beyond them,
To the purple clouds of sunset!
"He it was who slew my father,
By his wicked wiles and cunning,
When he from the moon descended,
When he came on earth to seek me.
He, the mightiest of Magicians,
Sends the fever from the marshes,
Sends the pestilential vapors,
Sends the poisonous exhalations,
Sends the white fog from the fen-lands,
Sends disease and death among us!
"Take your bow, O Hiawatha,
Take your arrows, jasper-headed,
Take your war-club, Puggawaugun,
And your mittens, Minjekahwun,
And your birch-canoe for sailing,
And the oil of Mishe-Nahma,
So to smear its sides, that swiftly
You may pass the black pitch-water;
Slay this merciless magician,
Save the people from the fever
That he breathes across the fen-lands,
And avenge my father's murder!"

http://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=283

Redbeck, always with the worming welcomes. Thank you, friend.

I am not of Canadian origin, nor do I live there. I live here in the states, born and raised in Michigan. I wish I had the vocals necessary to cover any of his songs, but no matter that.

Superior was a lake that I, and family, visited often. We would frequent the upper peninsula during fall to watch the leaves change and stop at the lake with our little 19 foot Bayliner. Of course one of the pass times of Michigan is fishing, so we would spend our time there doing just so.

Thanks for filling me in on some of the missing areas, I type from memory and it seems I'm running low on free space if you will.