“Mayday! Mayday!”
The Goliath is fighting gale force winds. It’s hauling tons of iron and it’s taking on water.
from Big Ship Rescue!
written and illustrated by Chris Gall
Norton Young Readers, 2022
I’ve never really been a true “water person.” When I close my eyes and imagine my favorite place, it’s almost never a beach or an ocean isle or a river bank. So it’s still a little odd to think of myself as a sailor (in the loosest definition of the word) on the Great Lakes aboard our own 27’ sailboat with my husband riding the waves on Lake Erie.
We traveled across the lake to Canada many times, in the days before we needed to bring passports. We cruised from Ashtabula to Perry’s Monument on Put-in-Bay and Kelly’s Island to see the glacial grooves. We docked often in Fairport Harbor and Geneva and enjoyed many a lakeside dinner.
Although the Great Lakes are often thought of as one unit, each lake has its own characteristics and personality. Together they cover more than 94,000 square miles and supply drinking water for more than 40 million people in the United States and Canada.
Lake Erie is the shallowest lake. With its depth ranging from 62 to 210 feet, it freezes over in the winter, but warms quickly in the spring.
Lake Ontario is home to the National Museum of the Great Lakes. It is the smallest Great Lake. The Iroquoian word means both great lake and beautiful water. It's the most famous Great Lake because of its baseball connection. It was September, 1914, and Babe Ruth was 19 years old, playing his first professional game. He hit his first home run ball right into the lake. It (or what’s left of it) is probably still at the bottom of the lake.
It was Lake Huron that Samuel de Champlain set his eyes on to became the first European to see the Great Lakes. It was the early 1600s, and Champlain was exploring for France. He reported back about the customs of the native people.
Lake Michigan is the only Great Lake that lies completely within the borders of the United States. The sand dunes located on the east shore of Lake Michigan are the largest freshwater dune system in the world.
Lake Superior is the largest Great Lake in both volume and depth. It holds about 10% of the world's fresh surface water. The Ojibwa name for Lake Superior is Gitchi-Gumee which translates to “Great Sea.”
But Lake Superior’s biggest claim to fame is its setting for Gordon Lightfoot’s song and recording of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." The ship was carrying processed iron ore pellets from Superior, Wisconsin to Zug Island, in Detroit, about 750 miles. The trip was expected to take about 11 hours.
Many events and circumstances can alter intentions, and many did. When Captain Ernest M. McSorley of the Edmund Fitzgerald set sail on November 9, 1975 with Captain Bernie Cooper in his ship, the Arthur M. Anderson, traveling the same route, decided to alter their course to avoid an approaching storm. But conditions continued to worsen and the storm continued to grow. At its height, the storm produced hurricane force winds and gusts of up to 100 miles per hour. The waves crashed unceasingly. Both captains recorded 12-15 footers. Before she sank, it’s estimated that the waves reached between 25 and 35 feet high.
The first mate of the Anderson watched the Fitzgerald until the radar went out. The captains lost radio communication with each other before the Edmund Fitzgerald went down for the last time. Ironically, Captain McSorley’s last words to Captain Cooper were “We are holding our own.”
Gordon Lightfoot was inspired by the story he saw in Newsweek’s November 24, 1975 article. His song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” has been called the greatest ballad ever written. As Lightfoot changed his lyrics to reflect new research, crew members were exonerated, manufacturers were absolved, and the “ultimate cause” remains elusive.
In an interview with author John U. Bacon, Tina Sawyer asks why this tragedy matters. His answer is both revealing and instructive. “For once,” Bacon says, “we did learn…Forecasting improved, communication with the captains improved and frankly,…common sense improved. It’s been a great legacy, a positive one.”
He continues in the same interview, “…the families are proud of…the fact that incredibly from 1875 to 1975…there were 6,000 commercial shipwrecks on the Great Lakes. And that is the conservative estimate. That’s one per week every week for a century…Since November 10th, 1975, there’s been zero. And the families know that it’s because the Edmund Fitzgerald got so much attention that the industry finally woke up.”
Many times when disaster strikes, the cause in not a pinpoint, but a cluster of unfortunate decisions made, details left unattended, and weather conditions unpredictable. And while our human nature prods us to find cause and rectify errors, sometimes the variables are too many, the blame is too widespread, and the tragedy is just that, a tragedy.
No book review this week, but you might want to take a look at The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon (Liveright, October 7, 2025). It’s #1 on Amazon’s best seller list in U.S. State and Local History.
Be curious! (and prepared for the unexpected)
The Goliath is fighting gale force winds. It’s hauling tons of iron and it’s taking on water.
from Big Ship Rescue!
written and illustrated by Chris Gall
Norton Young Readers, 2022
I’ve never really been a true “water person.” When I close my eyes and imagine my favorite place, it’s almost never a beach or an ocean isle or a river bank. So it’s still a little odd to think of myself as a sailor (in the loosest definition of the word) on the Great Lakes aboard our own 27’ sailboat with my husband riding the waves on Lake Erie.
We traveled across the lake to Canada many times, in the days before we needed to bring passports. We cruised from Ashtabula to Perry’s Monument on Put-in-Bay and Kelly’s Island to see the glacial grooves. We docked often in Fairport Harbor and Geneva and enjoyed many a lakeside dinner.
Although the Great Lakes are often thought of as one unit, each lake has its own characteristics and personality. Together they cover more than 94,000 square miles and supply drinking water for more than 40 million people in the United States and Canada.
Lake Erie is the shallowest lake. With its depth ranging from 62 to 210 feet, it freezes over in the winter, but warms quickly in the spring.
Lake Ontario is home to the National Museum of the Great Lakes. It is the smallest Great Lake. The Iroquoian word means both great lake and beautiful water. It's the most famous Great Lake because of its baseball connection. It was September, 1914, and Babe Ruth was 19 years old, playing his first professional game. He hit his first home run ball right into the lake. It (or what’s left of it) is probably still at the bottom of the lake.
It was Lake Huron that Samuel de Champlain set his eyes on to became the first European to see the Great Lakes. It was the early 1600s, and Champlain was exploring for France. He reported back about the customs of the native people.
Lake Michigan is the only Great Lake that lies completely within the borders of the United States. The sand dunes located on the east shore of Lake Michigan are the largest freshwater dune system in the world.
Lake Superior is the largest Great Lake in both volume and depth. It holds about 10% of the world's fresh surface water. The Ojibwa name for Lake Superior is Gitchi-Gumee which translates to “Great Sea.”
But Lake Superior’s biggest claim to fame is its setting for Gordon Lightfoot’s song and recording of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." The ship was carrying processed iron ore pellets from Superior, Wisconsin to Zug Island, in Detroit, about 750 miles. The trip was expected to take about 11 hours.
Many events and circumstances can alter intentions, and many did. When Captain Ernest M. McSorley of the Edmund Fitzgerald set sail on November 9, 1975 with Captain Bernie Cooper in his ship, the Arthur M. Anderson, traveling the same route, decided to alter their course to avoid an approaching storm. But conditions continued to worsen and the storm continued to grow. At its height, the storm produced hurricane force winds and gusts of up to 100 miles per hour. The waves crashed unceasingly. Both captains recorded 12-15 footers. Before she sank, it’s estimated that the waves reached between 25 and 35 feet high.
The first mate of the Anderson watched the Fitzgerald until the radar went out. The captains lost radio communication with each other before the Edmund Fitzgerald went down for the last time. Ironically, Captain McSorley’s last words to Captain Cooper were “We are holding our own.”
Gordon Lightfoot was inspired by the story he saw in Newsweek’s November 24, 1975 article. His song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” has been called the greatest ballad ever written. As Lightfoot changed his lyrics to reflect new research, crew members were exonerated, manufacturers were absolved, and the “ultimate cause” remains elusive.
In an interview with author John U. Bacon, Tina Sawyer asks why this tragedy matters. His answer is both revealing and instructive. “For once,” Bacon says, “we did learn…Forecasting improved, communication with the captains improved and frankly,…common sense improved. It’s been a great legacy, a positive one.”
He continues in the same interview, “…the families are proud of…the fact that incredibly from 1875 to 1975…there were 6,000 commercial shipwrecks on the Great Lakes. And that is the conservative estimate. That’s one per week every week for a century…Since November 10th, 1975, there’s been zero. And the families know that it’s because the Edmund Fitzgerald got so much attention that the industry finally woke up.”
Many times when disaster strikes, the cause in not a pinpoint, but a cluster of unfortunate decisions made, details left unattended, and weather conditions unpredictable. And while our human nature prods us to find cause and rectify errors, sometimes the variables are too many, the blame is too widespread, and the tragedy is just that, a tragedy.
No book review this week, but you might want to take a look at The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon (Liveright, October 7, 2025). It’s #1 on Amazon’s best seller list in U.S. State and Local History.
Be curious! (and prepared for the unexpected)
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