Herman Melville agrees with you, based on these words in a well known seafaring novel he wrote:
“those grand fresh-water seas of ours,—Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and Superior, and Michigan,—possess an ocean-like expansiveness”
and,
“the full-rigged merchant ship, the armed cruiser of the State, the steamer, and the beech canoe; they are swept by Borean and dismasting blasts as direful as any that lash the salted wave; they know what shipwrecks are, for out of sight of land, however inland, they have drowned full many a midnight ship with all its shrieking crew.”
As I said, I’ve sailed several of the Great Lakes, and let me tell you that as a novice sailor when I bought my first boat and was sailing it home for the first time, when we decided to make some extra distance and sail past sunset, when night fell and even in fairly calm waters and in sight of the distant lights of the shore, it was a feeling of utter isolation – like being on another planet – and a tinge of fear: which of those lights was the safe harbour we were looking for? The Great Lakes differ from the oceans only in that they are fresh water, but their power is formidable, their nights as dark as the darkest oceans.
We have a water-filled hole in our country bigger than your whole country.
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On a related note …
After Hurricane Katrina many UK folks here on the Dope were pretty upset at FEMA’s slow and inadequate initial response. I recall pointing out that the devastated area in the southern US was about the size of the UK entire. That put some perspective on the problem.
Yes, FEMA did not ultimately cover itself with glory. But the first 24-48 hours response was darn good considering the raw scale of the problem to be addressed.
FWIW here is a fun YouTube video from Oceanliner Designs on the Edmund Fitzgerald (a wonderfully nerdy channel that explores all things ships). This was just posted a few hours ago (as of this post)
I should say that video just above does a very good job of covering the various theories of this sinking. If you are interested in this topic it is well worth a watch. Skip to around 19:10 in the video if you just want the analysis and not the background of the ship.
November is a rough month on the Great Lakes. This November I rang my shoreside bell 29 times for the Fitz, followed it up 8 days later with 33 tollings for the 1958 loss of the Carl D. Bradley, and 2 days later did 21 double rings for the over 210 folks who died in the Phoenix fire/sinking back in 1847. That last sinking included kin of my great great grandparents.
Happily the neighbors don’t complain, and some join in the ceremony.
