The Witch of November: Edmund Fitzgerald Edition

MOTUS A.D. ^ | 11-10-19 | MOTUS

[EvilCapitalist]

I prefer this version of the song.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=xOwSaSl_PGk

[11th_VA]

44 years ago? During another Sunspot minimum? (They occur in 11 year cycles)

[Eric in the Ozarks]

For 16 years, I was general manager of a tanker fueling service in Duluth-Superior.
Our tanker captain had helped put the last quantity of Number 6 oil aboard the Ed Fitz.
He recalled the boat's cook was taken ill so a replacement cook was called in from the union hall. The replacement said he had a foreboding of the trip to the lower lakes in November.
He was right.

[MarMema]

She’s on her way, radio says she left Duluth yesterday.

Great post for Michiganders! Thank you.

[WildHighlander57]

“does anyone know
where the love of God goes
when the gales of November come early?”

[grey_whiskers]

+1 from Minnesota.

[crz]

She broke her back on the Caribou shoals.

She ran, something like a 27 or 29 foot draft. The shoals are about 36 feet.

Then, they claimed that the three sisters hit her at that moment since the boat that was following had those three waves hit it at exactly ten minutes after.

The Fitz had a loose keel. They would drive steel wedges in, weld them in, to try and tighten the keel. They say that she was not to make that last run since she was to go in for repairs or be scrapped.

[Carriage Hill]

+1.

[P.O.E.]

The Song of Hiawatha

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.....

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

[Deplorable American1776]

The Edmund Fitzgerald might be the most famous wreck in the Great Lakes, however, Lakers are still in danger. Heard that EdFitz was not supposed to have a load, as she was scheduled for an overhaul.

May the EdFitz live on!!!

[MD Expat in PA]

I like this video of the Gordon Lightfoot song. It starts with a news broadcast that I remember watching in real time and contains some actual footage of the ship, actual radio broadcasts from other ships in the area, and ends with a list of all the crew, their pictures, their ages, positions and hometowns, and footage of the finding of the wreck.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

[Arlis]

One of the greatest secular songs ever written, IMHO........

[KarlInOhio]

Witch of November? That’s what I called Hillary three years ago.

[IronJack]

There are parts of Minnesota where the Edmund Fitzgerald is less a ship than it is an industry.

[MD Expat in PA]

One of the greatest secular songs ever written, IMHO........

I’m not sure I’d go that far. But it is a great song. Very true to the historical events.

[F450-V10]

I spent decades on the Detroit River within 3/4 mile of the shipping channels. There is such a mystique about Great Lake Freighters...their sheer mass and the fear and respect they command when operating a boat near them. You’d think they would produce large waves, but instead they displace water...the water level drops 2 or 3 feet in seconds along the dikes as they approach, and later surges back in, as thousands of cubic feet of water are pushed around. More than once I’ve had my boat swamped by doing a half-ass beaching job pulling up on the rocks or shore. Yet the actual wake is only inches high. In winter, a mile away from a cut in the channel, you’d hear the ice crack as the freighter’s huge displacement pulled out water.

I was 17 when the Fitzgerald sank. Like 9-11, if you’re from around there you can remember what you were doing when you heard. Friends of mine duck hunting that day or the day before got stranded by extreme low water in the lower Detroit River since the same November NW winds pushed it all out to the east end of Lake Erie. November is always our extreme low water mark. The Great Lakes water archives have graphical data, it’s fascinating to look up these historic days.

In 1972 the first thousand footer, Stewart J. Cort came down the Detroit River. The whole junior high came outside on our riverfront-school lawn to watch.

[EvilCapitalist]

click the link at post 2.

[Gay State Conservative]

One of Gordon Lightfoot’s best works.

[Jane Long]

The lake, it is said,
Never gives up her dead.