First published on November 10th, 2011
Some years ago when I was sitting on the beach at Whitefish Point just north
of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, a couple of old men ambled past and stood
close together on the sand hard by the shore. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but
couldn’t help overhearing what passed between them, which was far more than
mere words.
These men spent their lives as mariners on Superior. They spoke of the
big lake as a woman, spoke of her with reverence, awe and regret. In old age
these men still both loved and feared the lake. Even though the day was bright
and calm, with the surface of Superior as placid and blue as ever it gets,
their conversation turned mostly upon hard times spent trying to escape their
love’s final embrace.
I recall those old men sometimes, when sitting beside Superior in her
many moods. But I think of them always on November 10th, which
was the date in 1975 when the Edmund Fitzgerald went down with all hands.
No one knows for certain why the Fitzgerald sank, though the question continues to be asked because
that’s what we do -- we try to impose a sense of certainty upon an uncertain
world. We do that so we might fool ourselves into believing that our constructs
provide some final measure of control over a world utterly indifferent to human
concern. That’s bald conceit. What’s true is that Lake Superior is big and men
are small and sometimes we can’t survive its embrace no matter how mighty our
lifeboat.
Superior serves as grave to untold thousands of human souls, from
native peoples plucked out of canoes to Voyageurs caught between safe harbors,
from pleasure seekers run afoul of sudden weather to seasoned crews serving
aboard the mightiest ships men can construct. So please take a moment out of
your busy day to remember those souls lost and to consider, however briefly,
that no matter the might of human industry, it’s never greater than a speck of
dust in the eye of a storm…
“If they’d put fifteen more miles behind her…”
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