Read on Twitter
The other day, after seeing this tweet about a cover of Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, I realized I had no idea about the song or about the events that inspired it, so I took to the internet to educate myself. https://twitter.com/profmusgrave/status/1354264192187043851?s=20
Let's start with the song. It might surprise you that I was not familiar with the work of Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian singer-songwriter and author of Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. He had 5 US #1 s in the 70s including the subject of this thread.
His music isn't exactly my taste but I found several of the hits enjoyable, and you have to give him credit for being BORN Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. Love those kooky Canadians.
The actual event that inspired the song held my attention for longer I have to admit. The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a laker (yes, like the basketball team!) that carried taconite, a source or iron, from Minnesota to Detroit and points east, via Lakes Superior, Huron, and Erie.
Lakers haul freight all over the Great Lakes. If they haul cargo from Great Lake ports out into the Atlantic, they are rather charmingly called "salties." Lots of salties are too big to pass the port of Montreal due to the limits of the locks on the Saint Lawrence Seaway
"What's the Saint Lawrence Seaway?" I asked myself, forgetting my main topic. It's a system of locks and canals that connects Lake Erie to Montreal Harbor bypassing rapids such as Niagra Falls. Some locks are on the Canada side of the river, and others on the US side. Neat!
If you're curious further about the Saint Lawrence Seaway, I recommend following it on Google Maps from Lake Erie to Montreal, trying to identify each lock and river crossing. That's what I did.
Anyway, the Edmund Fitzgerald was the longest laker until 1959 (currently Marc Gasol), and was nicknamed the Queen of the Lakes, which is almost as cool a name as Gordon Lightfoot. Northwestern Mutual owned the boat during its 17 years of operation.
Why a life insurance company owned a laker is probably a question for another day.
The actual wreck occurred in November 1975, when the Edmund Fitzgerald was attempting to travel through a severe storm on Lake Superior. Winds gusted up to 80 miles per hour, creating massive waves.
The exact failure mode is still disputed. Some say that there was an issue with securing the top hatches or that the hull was punctured by a mischarted shoal. Regardless, the ship sunk while seeking safe harbor in Lake Superior. None of the 29 crew survived.
Like many engineering disasters, it seems like the wreck combined several systematic failures: insufficient weather forecasting capability, undermanned coast guard response, and insufficient safety regs.
I don't know that there's much of a takeaway here besides that it's fun to learn history, and maybe I need to listen to more 70s folk-pop. Also that I probably want to go down a rabbit hole about the geology and hydrology of the Great Lakes later.
