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…”
Whitefish Bay, from a vintage 35mm transparency
Like it or not, we live, die or survive at Momma Nature's pleasure.
ReplyDeleteI've always been particularly content with that. It's only when Death's delivered by the barbaric hand of man that I'd most recoil...
DeleteThis is a great account of a tragedy that affected most anyone from Michigan. I was a child when this happened, but I remember the reverence we all paid to the lost sailors in school when the news was announced over the intercom. Like the Titanic disaster, the Edmund Fitzgerald reminds us of human frailty and nature’s immense power.
ReplyDeleteThank-you. I've seen Superior in all its faces and am in awe of the brave folk who work it.
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