<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201c<\/span>The Lake, it is said, \u00a0never gives up her dead, when the skies of November turn gloomy<\/span><\/i>\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n If there is a more haunting lyric about Lake Superior than this, I have never heard it. \u00a0This is the second line in the first verse of the song he wrote about the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in a historic storm on November 10, 1975 that begins with \u201c<\/span>The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down, of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee<\/span><\/i>.\u201d \u00a0It came out on his <\/span>Summertime Dream<\/span><\/i> album and reached #1 in Canada on November 20, 1976, #1 in the United States in <\/span>Cashbox <\/span><\/i>and held the #2 spot for two weeks on the <\/span>Billboard Hot 100. <\/span><\/i>I was only in my third month of my new teaching career in Ontonagon when the Fitz went down so the remembrances that pop up every November 10th bring back a lot of memories for me as well.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Back then, Detroit native John Nakas was our Elementary and Junior High School librarian and resident Gordon Lightfoot fanatic. \u00a0I had been fortunate to see Lightfoot perform with his acoustic trio at NMU in 1972 so even though I wasn\u2019t as deep into his music as he was, John made sure that I heard everything in Lightfoot\u2019s collected works. \u00a0He was impressed that I could do a rudimentary pick and sing of \u00a0Lightfoot\u2019s earlier hit (<\/span>If You Could Read My Mind)<\/span><\/i>, a little parlor trick I learned from Tom Bailey when we worked at the Huron Mountain Club together in the summer of 1971. \u00a0Being more of a strummer dabbling in guitar gave me just enough skill to plunk along on with a borrowed bass guitar during Bailey\u2019s informal \u00a0performances in the employee\u2019s recreation room. \u00a0In return for following him around a few songs (and proving to myself I would never become a bass player), Tom showed me the basic chord forms for <\/span>If \u00a0You Could Read My Mind<\/span><\/i> and a few picking cheats to make it sound more or less like the song. \u00a0Unfortunately, not playing this song on guitar enough over the past thirty years means I would need to learn it again from scratch as it was never formally written down in my book of songs.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When Lightfoot and his expanded band appeared in Marquette the next spring, we made it a point to get tickets. \u00a0Perhaps it was performing the song so close to the shores of the big lake that added to the atmosphere, but one could literally hear a pin drop as he wove this tragic tale in concert. \u00a0Some years later, I was able to see Lightfoot for a third time (again with his bigger band) and the effect was the same. \u00a0An avid sailor who spent much time sailing the Great Lakes (<\/span>Christian Island<\/span><\/i> from his 1972 LP <\/span>Don Quixote<\/span><\/i> is another good maritime song), Gordon was able to impart his knowledge of plying the lakes and make you feel the waves and cold water.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The day that the Fitz went down, I happened to be in Marquette for the weekend. \u00a0As we had done countless times in the past, we took a drive to Presque Isle to watch the surf breaking over the upper harbor breakwall. \u00a0Having an older brother who loved to fish meant going out on both the Marquette harbor breakwalls (yes, all the way to the lighthouse at the end) on nice days. \u00a0On days when the surf was large, but not Fitzgerald huge, we wouldn\u2019t take the chance of being that far from the shore. \u00a0The lake\u2019s demeanor, as we all knew, could change in a a very short period of time. \u00a0Northern Michigan University actually built a warning into their new student orientation that those new to the area should never venture out on the breakwalls during high waves, yet every few years, someone doesn\u2019t get the message and perishes in the icy depths.<\/span><\/p>\n The hazard isn\u2019t confined to those new to the area. \u00a0The recent incident involving a couple of Upper Peninsula residents swept off the Black Rocks on Little Presque Isle is a sad reminder that no one should underestimate the lake. \u00a0I have walked the Black Rocks numerous times. \u00a0I have jumped off of them and snorkeled beneath the cliffs but I have never seen waves breaking over them up to the tree line as they were when the unfortunate couple were washed away. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The only time I was actually scared to be out on Lake Superior happened in the mid-1960s. \u00a0My dad had purchased an 18 foot Dunphy runabout with a front deck, windshield, steering wheel, mid-deck, \u00a0and an 18 horse Johnson outboard motor. \u00a0He decided that it would be fun to take the lakeshore route and boat our way to our camp at the foot of Huron Bay. \u00a0My brother was going to drive the trailer to camp and the rest of us were going to meet him there. \u00a0It was a beautiful day with a slight breeze blowing as we rounded the breakwall at Presque Isle. \u00a0There were moderate waves but the Dunphy handled them just fine as we were still on the lee side of Presque Isle. \u00a0There must have been terrible weather on the northshore because as we came around Presque Isle, the waves got bigger and bigger to the point where we couldn\u2019t see land in the troughs and felt like we were on top of a mountain going over the crests. \u00a0My mother suggested in no uncertain terms that it was time to turn around. \u00a0My father informed her in no uncertain terms he was going to but not until there was a trough wide enough in to turn around in without getting swamped. \u00a0Brother Ron had taken a stroll part way out on the breakwall before heading for camp and when he saw the peaks of the waves on the horizon to the north, he stayed put figuring that we would be coming back into the harbor. \u00a0The subject of boating to camp was never raised again. \u00a0I am not scared of Lake Superior, \u00a0but on that day the lake was terrifying. \u00a0I will suffice to say I am just fine looking at it from the shore these days.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I can count my other experiences out on the big lake on one hand. \u00a0My good buddy Jim took me Sunfish sailing across the bay from Presque Isle at Middle Island Point on a borrowed sailboat. \u00a0A Sunfish was more of a sailboard with a small open cockpit than a sailboat, but I was game as it was a hot June afternoon. \u00a0We misjudged the winds and found a mile off shore they were brisk and changeable. As we turned to begin the tacking maneuver needed to get back to shore, a particularly strong gust of wind caused us to roll over and take a dunking in the frigid waters. \u00a0Jim had instructed me how to right the Sunfish if this had happened so when I didn\u2019t see Jim surface, I grabbed the keel, pulled back and then grabbed the gunwale and leaned into pulling the mast and sail up and out of the water. \u00a0What I forgot were his instructions to right it into the wind and sure enough, the sail cleared the water, caught the wind and kept right on rolling over me. \u00a0To my right, I was surprised to see Jim sailing right over the top of the rolling deck and his last words before he was dunked again were, \u201cI am caught in a rope!\u201d \u00a0This disturbed me a bit so I collected my wits and remembered him distinctly saying \u201cright the sail into the wind, not with it.\u201d \u00a0I swam around to the other side and when I did it right the second time (pun intended), we were both pleased to see Jim resurface. As I joined him topside, he said that he had been treading water with his head in the small compartment at mid-ship trying to untangle his leg when I rolled him over the top the first time and back to the top the second time. \u00a0He asked if I had thought about swimming for shore if he hadn\u2019t come back up and I said \u201cNope, we are too far out and the water is too cold.\u201d \u00a0We chuckled nervously about our reminder of how cold the lake is in June and spent the better half of the next hour carefully tacking back and forth against the offshore wind to get back to where we had started our little sailing adventure. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Prior to my first and last Sunfish sailing adventure, I had puttered around the lower harbor with Paul Bush\u2019s family. \u00a0Paul\u2019s father was our pastor at St. Mark\u2019s and this little cabin cruiser was his labor of love and he spent many hours refurbishing it in their backyard. \u00a0When they took it on it\u2019s maiden voyage, we were near the outer end of the breakwall when Pastor Bush announced that he would love to go all the way to Munising . . . but he didn\u2019t trust that the inboard motor would behave long enough to get us there. \u00a0Needless to say, one of us was relieved to be back at the dock a short time later. \u00a0It was an interesting little boat as it was pointed at both the bow and the stern, but not interesting enough for me to sign on for another cruise. \u00a0I can\u2019t say for sure if they ever made it all the way to Munising.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As a freshman in highschool, we had a former iron miner turned teacher for Social Studies.\u00a0<\/span>One day we began talking about fishing for some reason and he mentioned that he used to love to fish on the big lake but stopped when he and a buddy got caught in a storm in a sixteen foot aluminum boat outside Presque Isle harbor. \u00a0They had been trolling near the White Rocks off Presque Isle when a sudden squall turned the lake from placid to a \u00a0roaring caldron in a matter of 15 minutes. \u00a0They couldn\u2019t navigate in the big waves with their small motor so they sat in the bottom and held on for dear life knowing that they were about to be dashed onto the outside of the breakwall. \u00a0We asked what they did as he obviously had survived and all he said was, \u201cWe prayed.\u201d \u00a0It must have worked because one minute they were riding a roller coaster of waves and troughs outside the breakwall and the next minute they were inside the harbor. \u00a0They happened to reach the breakwall on the crest of a wave that washed them over the wall and into the harbor instead of bashing them into the outside wall. \u00a0\u201cI went home and sold my boat,\u201d was his final summation of his future relations with Lake Superior.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As for lake adventures in Ontonagon, they have been mostly conducted at the beach. \u00a0My only trip out on the big lake was aboard the <\/span>Port of \u00a0Ewen<\/span><\/i> with Captain Ted Trudgeon at the helm. \u00a0We had invited Fred Rydholm from Marquette on an excursion up the mighty Ontonagon River to see the pyramids on the big bend several miles up the river (another story for another day). \u00a0On the way back to the marina, Bruce Johanson suggested we take a spin out of the river mouth. \u00a0Captain Ted obliged and we went about a quarter mile out past the end of the piers, turned around and came back. \u00a0I have proof because in my photo archives there are some nice pictures of Ontonagon taken on that occasion. \u00a0Since then, I have been content to paddle around the foot of Huron Bay (which is part of the big lake after all) and observe the lake from the beach.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We used to take our Junior High honor students on a trip to Duluth each spring, \u00a0stopping every other year to tour the retired ore freighter the William Irving docked in the Duluth harbor. \u00a0One one such trip, the chartered bus driver and I got talking about the Edmund Fitzgerald. \u00a0He pulled out a tape and put Lightfoot\u2019s song on the bus PA. \u00a0It was a perfectly beautiful day but there was something about sitting next to a ship the size of the Fitz and hearing the song that sent an actual shiver up my spine. \u00a0I get the same shiver anytime I hear a report of some unfortunate people disappearing in the lake knowing what Lightfoot sang so long ago is still true today: \u00a0<\/span>\u201cThe lake it is said never gives up her dead, when the gales of November turn gloomy.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top Piece video – Did you even have to ask?