Gales of November

Now, for something completely different.

Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.

Fifty years ago I was a 12 year old boy living in Minnesota. I have vague memories of Dave Moore reporting about this during the evening newscast on WCCO tv.  

What I remember more than the newscast was the song released by Gordon Lightfoot the following year. 

You see, my older brother had a massive Marantz stereo and it was impossible not to hear the music he played through our adjoining bedroom walls. 

Slow Ride, Back in the Saddle Again, Do You Feel Like I Do?, More Than A Feeling, Kashmir, and many, many more songs and albums that are now considered “classic rock”.

He was, however, a well rounded audiophile and owned a lot of albums from different genres. Neil Young, Muddy Waters, Elvis Presley, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, John Prine, and yes, Gordon Lightfoot.

When he bought a new album, he would play it and play it and play it.

If he really liked a song on an album, he’d repeat it long enough until he knew all the lyrics.

By default and proximity, I too would learn know most of the lyrics. “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” happened to be one of them.

Shortly after the jangly guitar intro, Gordon and my brother would start to sing,  “The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee…”

If Gordon was at an 11, my brother was at a 12. 

You’ll have to admit, to this day it’s still a hauntingly, beautiful ballad. 

Because this is the 50th anniversary of the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, documentaries and news clips have been popping up everywhere. It’s still a mystery how a 730 foot ship with 29 men aboard sunk without even a MAYDAY radio call. 

Speaking of mysteries, my father-in-law Bill Matthies, loves one especially if it involves anything underwater. A scuba diver since 1958, he’s been a presenter at the annual Gales of November conference sponsored by the Lake Superior Maritime Museum Association. (I touched on Bill’s scuba career in a blogpost over 12 years ago. It can be found here.)

Anyway, I recently asked Bill about the 50th anniversary. He said he wished the ship would have sunk in shallower water so divers could solve the mystery. It rests in 530 feet of water which is too deep for scuba diving. He feels the families deserve closure.

For now, the mystery will remain unsolved. The wreck site sits in Canadian waters and the government considers it a gravesite. It will remain undisturbed.  

So, the legend lives on…