<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2018The church bell chimed until it rang 29 times, for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.\u2019<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n It hardly seems possible that Gordon Lightfoot\u2019s ode to the Fitz turns 50 this year.\u00a0 Of the thousands of ships that have gone down in the Great Lakes, none are as universally known as the <\/span>Edmund Fitzgerald<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 When the Fitz disappeared in one of Lake Superior\u2019s notorious \u2018<\/span>gales of November<\/span><\/i>\u2019 in 1975, it was by far one of the fiercest storms I have ever seen in the 73 years I have lived on its shores.\u00a0 When I began reading John U. Bacon\u2019s 2025 book <\/span>The Gales of November:\u00a0 The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald <\/span><\/i>(Liveright Publications), I was expecting another blow by blow narrative about the tragic loss of the Great Lakes equivalent of <\/span>The Titanic<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 Bacon\u2019s account was a deeper dive into the entire history of shipping on the Great Lakes intercut with profiles of <\/span>\u2018that good ship and crew <\/span><\/i>(that) <\/span>was a bone to be chewed<\/span><\/i>\u2019.\u00a0 The legacy and humanity of those proud sailors made this one of my favorite accounts of the many Fitzgerald books that have been written in the past 51 years.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The night the <\/span>Edmund Fitzgerald <\/span><\/i>went down, I happened to be in Marquette for the weekend.\u00a0 I was only two and a half months into my new career teaching seventh grade Geography \/ Earth Science in Ontonagon.\u00a0 As we had done many times when I was growing up in Marquette, we drove down to the harbor at Presque Isle Park to watch the waves thundering over the breakwall.<\/span><\/p>\n My buddy shook his head and said, \u201cMan, I would hate to be out there in this weather.\u201d\u00a0 These words came back to me when the news reports about the Fitz began coming in.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The entire episode came back in full force the next fall when Lightfoot\u2019s <\/span>The Ballad<\/span><\/i> of the Edmund Fitzgerald <\/span><\/i>was released as the lead single off his <\/span>Summertime Dream<\/span><\/i> album.\u00a0 John Nakas, our Elementary \/ Jr High Librarian, was a big Lightfoot buff and he had already loaned me enough of Gordon\u2019s albums to make me a fan.\u00a0 <\/span>Summertime Dream <\/span><\/i>and the <\/span>Ballad of the Fitz <\/span><\/i>raised his profile and attracted a whole new batch of the record buying masses.\u00a0 A lifelong sailor himself, it was obvious Gordon put a lot of thought into the lyrics to give the chilling tale the right amount of historical authenticity.\u00a0 In later years, Lightfoot modified one of the lyrics as we learned more about the sinking, but we will get to those in due time.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bacon\u2019s first task in <\/span>The Gales of November<\/span><\/i> is to give people some perspective on exactly how big the Great Lakes are.\u00a0 As an example, one can describe in words the vista that unfolds when one views a natural wonder like The Grand Canyon.\u00a0 The Great Lakes, according to Bacon,\u00a0 can not be described with words alone – \u201cYou simply have to see them to believe them.\u201d\u00a0 Their volume can be quantified – the five lakes (HOMES for Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior*) hold more than 80 percent of North America\u2019s freshwater – 20 percent of the world\u2019s total.\u00a0 If North and South America were flat with sides like a kiddie pool, draining the Great Lakes into said pool would cover the land with a foot of standing water.\u00a0 The physical size of the lakes is also hard to fathom – if one sails along in the middle of Lakes Superior, Huron, or Michigan, one can not see land in any direction.\u00a0 They truly are more like an \u2018inland sea\u2019 than a \u2018lake\u2019.\u00a0 *(If I may make a brief editorial comment here:\u00a0 Besides the obvious wrong-headedness of trying to rename Lake Ontario, the proposed name would change our lake name memory hack to SHAME – and yes, that would be a shame).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bacon reaches back to the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville who traveled and wrote about the United States in the 1830s.\u00a0 He described the Great Lakes in <\/span>Democracy in America:<\/span><\/i> \u201cThis lake without sails, this shore which does not yet show any trace of the passage of man, this eternal forest which borders it;\u00a0 all that, I assure you, is not grand in poetry only;\u00a0 it\u2019s the most extraordinary spectacle that I have seen in my life.\u201d\u00a0 This led the author into a discussion of the vital role the lakes have played in the history of first North America (and later the United States).\u00a0 Bacon goes on to compare the difference between oceanic waves to those generated on the big lakes.\u00a0 How local weather patterns can whip the lake waves into a frenzy that can spell peril for ships trying to ride them out is a key part of why the lakes are so dangerous.\u00a0 With all the perils involved in traveling the Great Lakes, what compelled people to take such risks?\u00a0 To quote one of political strategist James Carville\u2019s three core points that people care about during election cycles, \u201cIt\u2019s the economy, stupid!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The first French explorers began the initial wave of European exploitation of the region when beaver hats were in fashion in Europe.\u00a0 A crew of 16 voyageurs could load a thousand beaver pelts in their 30 to 40 foot long canoes to get them to market.\u00a0 By the time fashions changed in the 1800s, the estimated beaver population of the Great Lakes Region of 200 to 400 million was almost extinct.\u00a0 Attention then turned to harvesting the great northern forests.\u00a0 Logging these virgin forests, \u201cEarned far more than all the gold found by all the miners in the California Gold Rush,\u201d according to Michigan author Jerry Dennis.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Farmers in the GLR found conditions favorable to grow more grain than they could economically ship to eastern markets in any kind viable manner.\u00a0 Turning their bounty into whiskey, however, provided them with a money making product that was much easier to ship.\u00a0 The copper boom began just as electricity was coming into wider use.\u00a0 All of these industries needed cost effective methods for shipping their wares to places like Chicago, Detroit, and other\u00a0 growing eastern cities.\u00a0 Building ships capable of navigating these temperamental waters became an industry unto itself.\u00a0 All of these extractive activities eventually suffered from the ups and downs caused by the depletion of the resource (beaver and trees) or the changing market prices (copper).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bacon points out that an estimated six thousand ships were lost on the lakes between 1875 and 1975.\u00a0 Some estimates place that number at between ten and twenty-five thousand.\u00a0 This means a minimum of thirty thousand sailors also lost their lives.\u00a0 Bacon writes, \u201cEven the lowest estimate marks an average of one shipwreck per week, and nearly one casualty a day, every day, for a century.\u201d\u00a0 The first economic booms came and went, but the one that really spurred the development of larger shipping vessels was the iron boom.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When the Lake Superior Iron Ranges were first discovered, the amount of iron shipped from the area was miniscule compared to the modern era.\u00a0 When purchasing his brother Frank\u2019s Mesabi mining company in 1887, John D. Rockefeller saw the economic opportunity it posed.\u00a0 John D. pumped $40 million ($1.5 billion in today\u2019s dollars) into the mines and trains needed to get the ore to the docks in Duluth, Minnesota.\u00a0 He invested in improved shipping methods through the lakes to Cleveland and in railroads to get the ore to the Pittsburgh steel mills.\u00a0 The Iron Rush began in earnest and with it, the need for bigger and faster ships.\u00a0 Rockefeller\u2019s investment even gained the University of Wisconsin a mascot:\u00a0 the badger.\u00a0 The tough miners who survived the cold Minnesota winters by living in caves were called \u2018badgers\u2019, but apparently UW\u2019s \u2018Bucky Badger\u2019 took the image in a different direction.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Once Bacon established why Great Lakes shipping was vital for so many aspects of the country\u2019s economy, he turned his attention to other wrecks that predated the Fitz disaster.\u00a0 One truly horrendous loss was that of the pride of Rogers City, Michigan – the <\/span>SS Carl D. Bradley.<\/span><\/i> \u00a0 Launched in 1927 and named after the president of the Rogers City based Michigan Limestone Company, the <\/span>Bradley<\/span><\/i> was a record breaking 639 feet in length.\u00a0 It was the longest freighter on the lakes for twenty-two years and was described by president Bradley himself as, \u201cThe last word in freighter construction.”\u00a0 On November 17, 1958, just sixteen days after the Mackinac Bridge opened, the <\/span>Bradley<\/span><\/i> would drop its last load of limestone in Gary, Indiana before heading to Green Bay to have her cargo hold and bulkheads replaced.\u00a0 U.S.Steel decided to send the ship back to Calcite, Michigan (near Rogers City) for one last load.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A southwestern storm that had dumped six inches of snow in Tucson, Arizona roared into Lake Michigan with winds up to sixty-five miles per hour.\u00a0 The crew wasn\u2019t overly concerned at least until 5:35 p.m. when there were two loud thuds.\u00a0 Frank Mays, a twenty-six year old deckhand, looked toward the stern of the ship but he could not see it – it had begun to break off.\u00a0 Captain Roland Bryan ordered \u2018all stop\u2019 on the engines and directed the crew to don life jackets and make for the life boats.\u00a0 They were not able to launch the two at the stern as one was entangled in cables and the other dangled precariously, making it impossible to board.\u00a0 As Mays ran toward the lifeboat at the bow, he looked back and saw a chilling sight:\u00a0 \u201cI could see John Fogelsonger running toward the stern\u2026Then, as if it were paper, the huge steel plates of the deck began to tear apart somewhere near the tenth hatch on the port side\u2026The tear quickly ripped across the deck,\u00a0 As the gash began to grow, I saw John run toward the crack and leap into the air.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t see him land.\u00a0 He just disappeared between the two parts of the ship.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Right after Fogelsonger disappeared, a huge wave rocked the ship and twisted the bow violently to port.\u00a0 Mays had just climbed in the life raft as the wave launched it twenty feet in the air.\u00a0 Miraculously, it landed upright and Mays was still aboard.\u00a0 Three other crew men managed to find May\u2019s raft and climb in.\u00a0 They watched in disbelief as the <\/span>Bradey <\/span><\/i>went under just as the boiler exploded.\u00a0 They had three flares, two of which they fired and the third they tried to keep dry.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it was soaked and did not fire when a German cargo ship passed within a hundred yards of their life raft.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Thirty to forty foot waves pounded the four men until a fifty footer upended the raft and dumped them in the frigid waters.\u00a0 It took all their strength to regain the raft and there they hung on for dear life.\u00a0 Mays wrote in his memoirs, \u201cTime has lost all meaning.\u00a0 The night is black as coal, and we get little warning before the monster waves hit us.\u00a0 I\u2019ve never felt so cold and helpless.\u201d\u00a0 The waves turned them over two more times with their fourth crewman, unable to summon the strength to return to the raft,\u00a0 perishing face down in the lake.\u00a0 As dire as the situation was, Mays repeatedly told himself, \u201cIf we make it \u2018til daylight, we will be found.\u201d\u00a0 As daylight neared, the third crewman could take no more and dove overboard, disappearing beneath the waves.\u00a0 When the Coast Guard cutter <\/span>Sundew<\/span><\/i> finally found the two remaining survivors, two from their crew had to tie ropes around their waist and be lowered to retrieve Mays and Flemming from the raft – their hands were too frozen to grab the rope themselves.\u00a0 As miraculous as their rescue had been, the news for Rogers City was devastating.\u00a0 Twenty-one of the lost crew from the <\/span>Bradley <\/span><\/i>were local men.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There are many stories about other shipwrecks and too many about the Fitz and her crew to relate here.\u00a0 I will spend a few words on Captain McSorely as the end of his lake faring life illustrates how fickle fate can be.\u00a0 McSorely was due to retire at the end of the 1975 season but he signed on for one more run.\u00a0 The captain\u2019s wife was ill and no doubt the extra run would have helped with her medical expenses.\u00a0 When the incoming weather reports suggested how bad the approaching storm would be, McSorely altered their route from the normal course around the Keweenaw Peninsula to a more northerly path.\u00a0 Had the captain made the more familiar\u00a0 Keweenaw run, there is a good chance they would have made Whitefish Bay before the worst part of the storm hit.\u00a0 In this case the more cautious approach, choosing the northerly route, may have doomed the ship as they were caught in mid-lake when the worst weather hit.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The less familiar course also placed the<\/span> Fitzgerald<\/span><\/i>\u2019s path in proximity to the Lake Superior Shoal.\u00a0 This outcropping rising from the depths of the lake was known by the fishermen who plied these waters, but freighter captains were not as familiar with it.\u00a0 Some had suggested that the Fitz may have struck the top of the shoal in the unusually heavy seas.\u00a0 Of course, this was just speculation until a dive expedition to the very same shoal by famed nautical investigator Dick Race found the distinctive red-orange paint common to most lake freighters.\u00a0 Race had signed a non-disclosure document with Oglebay Norton Company (the ship\u2019s owners) and never broke that agreement.\u00a0 Three of his close friends that he did confide in later said Race confirmed he had found paint on Six Fathom Shoal consistent with ore freighter red\/orange.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0What if McSorely had stayed the course and beat the storm to Whitefish Bay?\u00a0 What role did his failing navigation gear play in bringing the Fitz over the shoal?\u00a0 What if the navigational data about these shoals had been more specific about the danger they posed?\u00a0 In the final outcome, these questions are all moot.\u00a0 There were many hands of fate at work in the sinking of the Fitz.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When Gordon Lightfoot wrote the lyrics about the demise of the<\/span> Fitzgerald<\/span><\/i>, his only source of information was the original assumptions made by the Coast Guard.\u00a0 They suggested that improperly secured cargo hatches may have allowed water to penetrate the hold and doom the ship.\u00a0 Knowing how professional the ship\u2019s crew was, relatives of the Fitz\u2019s crew dismissed this line of thought immediately.\u00a0 When actual footage of the wreck was obtained by a robotic vehicle, it proved that the hatches were properly secured and had played no part in the sinking.\u00a0 In deference to the families who were stung by his song apparently laying blame on the crew, Lightfoot altered one lyric when he performed the song live.\u00a0 The original lyric was, \u201c<\/span>When supper time came, the old cook came on deck \/ he said \u2018fellas it\u2019s too rough to feed ya<\/span><\/i> \/ <\/span>At 7 p.m. a main hatchway gave in \/ He said, fellas it\u2019s been good to know ya.\u201d<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 While he never re-recorded the song, he did modify one line to, \u201c<\/span>At 7 p.m. it grew dark, it was then \/ He said, \u2018Fellas it\u2019s been good to know ya.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bacon\u2019s book is available at the Ontonagon Township Library and even if you have already read other accounts, I highly recommend you check this latest take on the ill-fated <\/span>Edmund Fitzgerald.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 A live version of – what – you did not think Gordon would get the last word here?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2018The church bell chimed until it rang 29 times, for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.\u2019 It hardly seems possible that Gordon Lightfoot\u2019s ode to the Fitz turns 50 this year.\u00a0 Of the thousands of ships that have gone down in the Great Lakes, none are as universally known as the Edmund Fitzgerald.\u00a0 When […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3973"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3976,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3973\/revisions\/3976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}