The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
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[li] The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - YouTube http://www.ssefo.com/[/li][/ul]
The National Weather Service tweeted in real time tonight as if Twitter had existed then.
I was a child when we moved away from the Great Lakes area so I had no idea how dangerous those lakes could be until this happened. I remember hearing about it from the song since we had moved away by then.
I grew up knowing how dangerous the Great Lakes could be, my Grandfather had a sailboat and pleasure sailed [and fished] through all of the Great Lakes from the early 1920s until he died in the mid 1970s. I crewed on his and other boats off and on for years growing up. He could point out where boats and ships sank in various storms.
My first father-in-law was a chief engineer on freighters on the Great Lakes for many years. Prior to that he sailed the world with the British Merchant Marine. He always said the storms could be more treacherous at times on the lakes since they seemed to come up out of nowhere with little or no warning. I had the privilege of travelling with him few times through the locks on the Welland Canal which was an amazing experience.