Gitche Gumee (11/10/2021)

On November 10, 1975, the Titanic of the Great Lakes was claimed by the "Witch of November" in the big lake they call Gitche Gumee. I first heard of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in the lyrics of a song written by Gordon Lightfoot in 1976 when I was a teenager listening to the radio. I did not realize that it was a real ship and that Lightfoot's ballad was a true story. The song reached #2 on the Billboard charts and #1 in Canada that following year.

Lightfoot was born November 17, 1938 in Orillia Ontario. His career spanned over 6 decades producing more than 200 recordings. In November of 1975 the 37-year-old Lightfoot read a Newsweek article about a tragic ship sinking (The Cruelest Month, Newsweek, November 24, 1975). Inspired by the article, he composed what he considers to be his finest song; a poetic tribute to one of the most well-known Great Lakes shipwrecks in recent memory. Most of the song's lyrics were taken from the Newsweek article. The title of this 1976 hit was The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Every November radio stations in the Great Lakes region play the song in memorial to the ship and its crew.

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.
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty;
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early

John Henkle McCarthy was the ship's first mate. He was born in Pittsburgh on July 14, 1913. Jack had a good sense of humor that would serve him well working in close quarters on long shipping runs. He possessed a strong passion for reading and considered becoming a writer. He met the ship's captain, Ernest McSorely, when he was the first mate of the Armco. The two were only a few years apart and quickly became close friends. McCarthy was the obvious choice for first mate when McSorely was given command of the Fitzgerald.

The Chippewa is a region of Southern Canada north of the midwestern portion of the United States and the Great Lakes. The Chippewa tribe is a group of Native Americans and First Nations people located in the United States and Canada in North America. It represents the third largest collection of bands in America next to the Cherokee and Navajo (Chavis, Jason C., Wisegeek, https://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-chippewa-tribe.htm#).

Gitche Gumee, in the Ojibwe language, means "Big Sea" or "Huge Water". It refers to the largest of the Great Lakes in North America - Lake Superior. Superior is the northern most of the Great Lakes. Because of the lake's extremely cold water (36 degrees Fahrenheit) it "never gives up her dead". According to Wikipedia, bacteria decaying a sunken body will bloat it with gas, causing it to float to the surface after a few days. But Lake Superior's water is cold enough year-round to inhibit bacterial growth, and bodies tend to sink and never resurface. The bodies of the 29-man crew have never been found.

The ship was transporting an ore known as taconite which has an iron content of up to 35%. The ore pellets are used in the production of steel which is used in the construction of bridges, cars, planes and more.

A severe weather system sored through the Midwest damaging buildings and uprooting trees. Gale winds were clocked at 80 mile per hour with gust reaching 96 miles per hour. Visibility was non-existent as a heavy snow fall hit the lake. The ship also encountered 30 feet high waves.

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin.
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and good captain well-seasoned
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ship's bell rang
Could it be the north wind they'd been feeling?

The ship's chief engineer was a short stocky man from Western Pennsylvania named George Holl. He served on the Fitzgerald since 1971. He was enormously competent fellow who had an exceptional relationship with Captain McSorely. One of his closest friends was the ship's porter Freddy Beetcher. Both of these close chums had experienced heartbreak in their lives. Holl's daughter was shot to death in 1974 by her husband who subsequently turned the gun on himself. Beetcher's wife died while his son was still a baby leading to alcoholism.

Honorably categorized as "The Pride of the American Flag," The ship was named after the president and CEO of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company with a price tag of $8.4 million. Edmund Fitzgerald came from a family of Great Lakes seamen. His grandfather and five of his brothers were captains. The Wisconsin Marine Historical Society was established by Edmund Fitzgerald.

The Fitzgerald was the flagship of the Oglebay-Norton fleet and the longest in the fleet spanning 729 feet. Oglebay-Norton operated the ship for Mutual Life who had the ship built as an investment. If need be, the "Big Fitz" could carry a load of 27,402 tons. The ship's three cargo holds could contain enough raw iron to manufacture 7,500 automobiles(MacGinnis, Joseph, page 36). Full loaded her fuel tank carried over 50,000 gallons of fuel oil.

She was christened on June 8, 1958 by Edmund's wife Elizabeth. As ten thousand people looked on, they witnessed three tries before the bottle broke against the stem of the ship's bow. This could be perceived as a sign of bad luck. When the ship was launched it sent a wave into the opposite pier and slammed into it. A middle-aged man from Toledo became a victim of a fatal heart attack. At the time she was christened, the Fitzgerald was the most expensive freighter ever built costing over eight million dollars.

Shipping began on the Great Lakes in March and continued into early December.

The ship was not headed for Cleveland but for Zug Island near Detroit. Cleveland was the ship's home port. The purpose of the voyage was to discharge its cargo of taconite iron ore pellets. It would then proceed to Cleveland to wait out the winter.

The 29 man crew of the Fitzgerald consisted of many interesting personalities. Each with his own unique story.

Bill Spengler was a veteran of World War II and a survivor of the attack on Pearl Harbor serving on the battleship Maryland. He was injured during the attack and spent a year hospitalized in a wheelchair. After being honorable discharged he began a new career working on lake boats. In 1975 he was hired as a wheelsman on the SS Fitzgerald.

On board as the ship's wheelsman was the "Great Lakes Gambler" Eugene O'Brien. Known as "Red" by his shipmates, O'Brien loved to play cards and had an easygoing temperament. After being rejected by his father at birth, Red was an orphan being passed from different orphanages for his entire childhood. Education ended for Red after 5th grade. One summer while working on a farm he lost two fingers due to a power saw accident. It was not until Red was thirty-seven years old that he would meet his birth mother. He got his first job on the lakes at age sixteen. He would eventually marry and have a son named John who he was fully dedicated.

One of the more interesting characters aboard the Might Fitz was "Big Mike" Armagost of Iron River Wisconsin. One night after having a little too much brew "Big Mike" got on his sister's horse and rode up the steps of the bar then proceeded to ride off the through the back door. Mike stood over six feet tall and weighed in at 230 pounds. His main hobbies were deer hunting, fishing and riding snow mobiles. Mike was the Fitzgerald's third mate and was responsible for safety, fire-equipment and emergency drills.

The third engineer of the Fitzgerald was the muscular Buck Champeau. He was 41-years old and displayed a thick black mustache. Buck's father died when he was thirteen years-old leaving him in charge of his four siblings. His mother cleaned houses to support her three sons and two daughters. Buck served in the Marines during the Korean War where many of his friends were killed. After the war Buck helped people who were down on their luck. He brought food to derelicts sometimes even bringing them home.

Buck had an uncomfortable feeling after submitting to a palm reading one night. Something dreadful was predicted. It was so frightful that Buck would not reveal it to family and friends. He subsequently rewrote his will.

The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
When the wave broke over the railing,
And every man knew, as the captain did too
'Twas the witch of November come stealin'
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashing.
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind.

"Handsome Ransom" as he was known, was the ship's watchman Ray Ransom Cundy. He was perhaps the most popular of the 29-man Fitzgerald crew where he was affectionately known as "skinhead" due to his completely bald head. He fought in the battle of Iwo Jima for the U.S. Marines during World War II. Ray had planned to retire after the shipping season.

The wind sounded like "dozens of air raid sirens, all going at once." The drubbing waves against the ship sounded as though "a hundred wrecking balls" were hitting the ship. At the storm's peak waves were crashing over the Fitzgerald's stern continuing along the deck and smashing the structure along the bow.

This "typical November storm" had become a monster, moving unerringly toward Lake Superior, ready to unleash its fury. Deep inside the towering storm clouds the air churned, mixing snow and rain in a potent brew of mischief, complete with brilliant shards of lightning (Hemming, Robert J., 1981, page 70).

A heavy rain dropped visibility on the lake to between two and four miles. Waves were then ten feet high, and the winds were north-northeast at sixty miles per hour (Hemming, Robert J., 1981, page 82). The ship was in the wrath of a heavy nor'easter.

At 4:45 P.M. The winds reached 85 miles per hour. Water splashed against the windows impairing visibility and the waves reached 30 feet.

The "Witch of November," is a popular name for the frequent and brutal system of windy storms that come screaming across the Great Lakes from Canada every autumn. Though termed "lakes," North America's Great Lakes are each large enough to create their own weather systems, making them, more accurately, inland seas. In fact, collectively, the Great Lakes chain makes up the Earth's largest system of freshwater seas. Each year, right around mid-November, violent gales occur when the low pressure from the frigid arctic air north of the lakes come into contact with warmer fronts pulled up from the Gulf of Mexico (Farmers Almanac, Beware of the November Witch! McLeod Jamie, https://www.farmersalmanac.com/beware-of-the-november-witch-11581, 11/8/2010).

Born of Irish decent in 1913 in a small village in New York, Ernest Michael McSorley took command of the Fitzgerald in 1972. When he was 18, McSorley took a job as a deckhand. He joined Columbia in1938 as a wheelsman and remained there for his entire career. His passion for the ship was so strong he often passed on vacations as well as working through illnesses such as pneumonia. McSorley was found to be a skillful seaman although his crewmen found him to be aloof but they trusted and respected him. He did not smoke or drink and basically kept to himself. Very few new that his longtime wife, Nellie, was in a nursing home after suffering a stroke. The captain was considering retiring so he could spend more time with his ailing wife.

McSorley knew that a storm was coming before the ship left its harbor. However, storms in November were common and that captain had no reason to believe that the storm would be one of the worst ever.

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck Saying
"Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya."
At seven PM a main hatchway caved in he said
"Fellas, it's been good to know ya."
The captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril;
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Hailing from St. Joseph, Michigan was the ship's oiler Thomas Bentsen. For Tom, being assigned to Big Fitz was a bit of a fluke. After leaving the boats early in 1975 to attend his father's wedding, he was unable to retain his prior position. In May of 1975 he was hired as the oiler for the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Rolling rods were installed on the galley stoves to prevent the cookware from sliding during rough weather. Water was sprayed on the tablecloths to prevent dished from sliding. During violent conditions meal arrangements would be deferred.

The old cook should not have been aboard the Fitzgerald on that fateful day. The ship's first cook, Richard Bishop, was supposed to report for work as the first cook of the Fitz on Sunday, November 9th. That Sunday morning Bishop awoke with severe pain leading him to notify the Columbia Transportation Division of Oglebay-Norton Company that he would not be reporting to work. Bishop's bleeding ulcers would save his life.

The ship's second cook was a 62-year-old father of two grown children. One his stepson and the other his natural daughter. He was a burly man who was looking forward to retirement. Robert Charles Rafferty was not a typical cook. In his younger days he won a partial scholarship in chemistry at Oberlin College in Ohio. Due to the severity of the Great Depression, Rafferty was unable to pursue his education opting instead for a life at sea.

After serving 30 years as a ship's cook it was time to utilize his culinary talents for those, he was closest to - his own family. For his final year he decided to slow down a bit. Instead of committing to a single ship he opted to sign on as a "temporary," filling in for cooks and stewards as needed. The extra time away from work would prepare him well for his new life as a retiree. He could spend all of his time doing what he likes best - being a grandfather.

Bob was notified by the ship's First Mate John McCarthy that Bishop's ulcer problem would prevent him from working. Rafferty's services would be required to close out the shipping season.

The lyrics At seven PM a main hatchway caved in he said "Fellas, it's been good to know ya," suggests that the the rear hatch was not secured by the ship's crew. Lighfoot later learned through the 2009 film documentary called "Dive Detectives" that the wreck was not likely caused by human error. Lightfoot then did what few artist ever would. He re-wrote the lyrics. From that point on when Lightfoot sang the song he used the new lyrics, "at 7 P.M. it grew dark, fellas it's been good to know ya."

As the ship headed for Whitefish Point in hope of a safe harbor, Captain McSorley sent out a message that was received by Captain Cedric Woodard of the Avafors. Woodward informed him that the lighthouse was not functioning. McSorley answered that the ship was taking on water over their decks and that they had a bad list (a ships leaning or tipping to one side) and no radar (Mighty Fitz, Schumacher, Michael; 2005, pages 68 - 70). With no radar and the beacon at Whitefish bay offline McSorley was navigating in the blind.

The 729 foot Fitzgerald was battered so hard that the ship literally split in two. It was the largest ship to sink in Lake Superior. The tragedy occurred 17 miles off Whitefish Point, Michigan in an area known as "The Graveyard of the Great Lakes". This part of the lake has claimed more shipwrecks than any other. The water temperature in the area at the time was forty-nine degrees and the air temperature forty-one degrees. A healthy person would go into shock within thirty minutes in the water (Ratigan, William, page 325).

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized,
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Twenty-one-year-old David Weis worked on the ship's deck. He was a maritime cadet at the Great Lakes Maritime Academy. Perhaps Dave was meant for tragedy; he was born in the month of November on Friday the 13th. Dave was not a good student and was fortunate to be passed on to high school where he often found trouble and experimented with drugs. After high school he moved around quite bit until a friend in Colorado suggested that he go to Michigan with him. It was there that Dave enrolled in the Great Lakes Maritime Academy where he would earn an assignment on the prestigious Fitzgerald. On the great ore ship Dave would become close friends with two of his shipmates. Their names were Bruce Hudson and Karl Peckol.

Bruce Lee Hudson was s deckhand on the Edmund Fitzgerald. He was 22 and a former Eagle Scout. Hudson was musically inclined and played trombone for his high school's band. He was also proficient in playing the clarinet. In 1975 he accepted a position on the Mighty Fitz. Peckol was the youngest of the three at age 20. He was also proficient in music and played the clarinet. His long-term goals did not include working on the boats. This was just a job for him to earn money for college. He hoped to attend Ohio State. Hudson had been captivated by ore boats at an early age. He had watched these boats from his hometown in North Olmsted, Ohio. Hudson had a daughter named Heather who he would never meet. She was born seven months after the shipwreck.

At 7:10 P.M. Captain McSorley received a call from the Anderson. His last radio transmission he stated that "we are holding our own".

If they could have lasted another 90 minutes they would have made it to Whitefish bay and have been saved. The nearest Coast guard rescue ship was 15 miles from the last position of the Fitzgerald. There were no Coast Guard vessels near the scene that might have been useful in saving lives on November 10,1975 (Hemming, Robert J., page 196).

Captain Bernie Cooper of the Arthur M. Anderson was trailing 10 miles behind the Fitzgerald when he lost him on radar. In the safety of Whitefish bay with the Coast Guard unable to send out rescue crews. The USCG Sault Ste. Marie asked Capt. Cooper if he could send the Anderson back out for a search. The crew of the Anderson knew that if it was them, they would want someone out searching. Cooper agreed to take his ship out to the seas that may have taken the Fitzgerald. At this point he would be searching for life boats and survivors (The Edmund Fitzgerald: A 40 Year Legend, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5i_XMqdULM&feature=emb_rel_end., Nov 10,2016).

It was not until the next day that the Anderson found debris and wrecked steel life boats. The ship had disappeared 530 feet below with the bow and stern lying in seperate sections. The search was suspended on November 13th. Not a single body was ever recovered.

Considerable testimony was received from both licensed and unlicensed Great Lakes Merchant Mariners concerning use of primary lifesaving equipment. Without exception, the witnesses expressed considerable doubt that lifeboats could have been successfully launched by the crew of the vessel under the weather conditions which existed at the time the Fitzgerald was lost. . . Drills, in good weather, at the dock, show that a conventional lifeboat could not be launched in less than ten minutes and testimony indicated that as much as thirty minutes might be required to launch a lifeboat in a seaway (Dept of Transportation, Coast Guard Marie Casualty Report page 66).

Shortly after 10:30 P.M. a news bulletin reported that a missing ore freighter that was reported sunk on Lake Superior.

On November 10, 1975 the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior. None of the 29 crew members survived.

Buck Champeau's high school age daughter Debbie was summoned to the principal's office where she was told to call home. She was unaware of what happened the night before as she rode the long bus ride home. When she entered through the front door and saw the sad faces of her mother and grandmother all she could think of was who died? Florence Bentsen did not know of the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald until she was informed her boss two days later. Sadly, the last time she saw her 23-year old son Tom was on September 22. Tom had received permission for his mother to meet him and have dinner on the ship before it departed the next day. Car trouble and bad weather prevented Mrs. Bentsen from dining with her son and boarding the ship.

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion.
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams;
The islands and bays are for sportsmen;
And farther below, Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her,
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered.

Bill Spengler was a veteran of World War II and a survivor of the attack on Pearl Harbor serving on the battleship Maryland. He was injured during the attack and spent a year hospitalized in a wheelchair. After being honorable discharged he began a new career working on lake boats. In 1975 he was hired as a wheelsman on the SS Fitzgerald.

The Great Lakes were formed over a million years ago. They contain the largest surface of fresh water on our planet. There are 8,117 miles of shore line shared about half and half between Canada and the United States (Ratigan, William, page 292). They consist of 95 square miles of water, which stores heat all summer. When the cold air blows over them the air absorbs the heat from the water's surface creating the November winds.

Although Lake Ontario is the smallest of the Great Lakes it still ranks fourteenth among the world's largest lakes. Superior is the oldest of the lakes forming over a billion years ago. It is also the deepest and has the greatest surface area of any body of fresh water in the world. Only two lakes hold more water. The water from all four lakes could fit inside of Superior. Its shoreline spans the distance between Detroit and Miami. At its deepest point, the lake the Empire State Building (Schumacher, Michael., 2005, page 33).

The Lake of Huron was so called by the People of Canada, because the savage Hurons, who inhabited the adjacent country, used to have their hair so burnt that their heads resembled the heads of wild boars. The savages themselves called it Lake Karegnondy (Ratigan, William, page 292).

Superior is the stormiest in the late fall, but it's the safest for the iron boats. There's more deep-water maneuvering room. The lower lakes are more treacherous because they are shallower. Michigan and Huron are really bad in northerly winds because the winds sweep down the whole length of them and let the waves build high (Hemming, Robert J., pp 76-77). Most of the Great Lake shipwrecks occur on Michigan and Superior.

Lake Erie or Erie-Tejocharontiong, as the Iroquese call it, is the shallowest of the Great Lakes. Though considerably smaller than either, is a vast sea, and often more stormy, and even dangerous, than the ocean itself (Ratigan, William, page 167, 169).

The lakes are home to over six thousand shipwrecks and the grave for nearly thirty thousand seamen.

In a rustic old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral;
The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee.
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.

On board as the ship's wheelsman was the "Great Lakes Gambler" Eugene O'Brien. Known as "Red" by his shipmates, O'Brien loved to play cards and had an easygoing temperament. After being rejected by his father at birth, Red was an orphan being passed from different orphanages for his entire childhood. Education ended for Red after 5th grade. One summer while working on a farm he lost two fingers due to a power saw accident. It was not until Red was thirty-seven years old that he would meet his birth mother. He got his first job on the lakes at age sixteen. He would eventually marry and have a son named John who he was fully dedicated.

The Mariner's Sailor's Cathedral is actually the Mariners' Church of Detroit.

Each year on the tenth of November memorial services are held and radio stations in the great Lakes region play Canada's greatest songwriter's finest song - The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The first service was conducted by Reverend Richard Ingalls at the Detroit's Mariner Church. This occurred the day after the wreck and has continued every year since on the first Sunday closest to November 10th.

On July 4, 1995 the 220 pound bronze bell of the Mighty Fitz was cut by diver Bruce Fuoco and hoisted from the sunken ship. Three days later the bell was rung twenty-nine times in front of family members. The bell was installed in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society Museum of Whitefish Point, Michigan. In its place a replica bell was installed in the sunken ship with the names of the twenty-nine crewman engraved.

More than 6,000 ships were lost on the Great Lakes between the years of 1878 and 1997 alone. Over the last 300 years, an estimated 25,000 mariners have lost their lives on the Great Lakes, with the vast majority of those casualties occurring within the icy grip of the November Witch (McLeod Jamie, 11/8/2010).

There are many theories on what may have caused the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Two of the more prominent theories are water coming in through the hatch or the ship striking a shoal. The Coast Guard's investigation concluded that water entering through the hatch caused enormous flooding of the cargo hold. This could occur due to unsuccessful hatch closures. Securing each hatch properly was a monotonous procedure. Considering the earlier weather report there was little reason to believe that the Fitz would not make it to the end of the lake without fastening all of the clamps.

The Lake Carriers' Association rejects flooded hatches instead supporting the theory that the ship scraped the bottom near the Six Fathom Shoal without realizing it. This would cause a hull fracture leading to the flooding of the ships ballast tanks.

There were other possibilities. The loss of the ship's fence rail could only have been caused by a large object (highly unlikely) or the hogging of the ship. Hogging is the bending down of the front and back of the ship, with no support from the middle. In his testimony before the Marine Board, Captain Bernie Cooper stated, "I have never known a ship to lose a fence in a seaway, the only solution I can have to a fence rail breaking is you can't break one by sagging a ship, but you would have to bend the ship, hog it up the middle, to put such tension on the fence rail that you would break it".

The hogging theory was supported by the ships former steward, George (Red) Burgner. Burgner claimed damage occurring to the ship's keel made it loose. The keel is the main center-line structural member of the vessel and is sometimes called, "the backbone" of the ship. Burger said, a shipyard worker," …showed me…shoved a crowbar right under it and what he pushed out of there was welding rods and everything else when the ship was built." The bar went under" …the keel itself, cause it was loose from the hull plate (Stonehouse, Frederick, page 222)." The keel runs the entire length of the ship. The framework of the ship is built upon the keel. Damage to the ship's keel could have led to its sinking. Records confirm that the Coast Guard did discover breaks in old welds on the keel and that all that was needed was rewelding for necessary repair (Stonehouse, Frederick, page 223).".

On November 10, 1975 the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior. None of the 29 crew members survived. The ship was less than 20 years old when it sank.

As of 2005 the Ontario Heritage Act put an end to dives on the Edmund Fitzgerald, declaring the site a burial ground.

Epilogue

Six months after completing my research on the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald I was captivated by the Great Lakes and intrigued by the Shipwreck Museum at White Fish Bay. I wanted to pay a visit to the museum to pay respects to the crew of the Might Fitz as well as the many other ship wrecks that have been claimed by the lakes.

The problem was one of logistics. The museum is at the top of Michigan's upper peninsula over 900 miles and fourteen hours from where we live. It seemed difficult to justify a trip this long for a museum visit that might last two hours. However, after my wife discovered a village in Northern Michigan lower peninsula known as Mackinaw City, we had justification to embark on our journey.

We spent three nights in Mackinaw City allowing me to swim in Lake Huron. Standing underneath the Mackinac Bridge I was able to stand in Lake Michigan while my wife stood a few feet away in Lake Huron. One day we spent visiting the picturesque Mackinac Island where cars are not permitted. There are only three ways to travel on the island: by bike, horse carriage, or by foot. We choose the latter.

The highlight of the trip was the one and half hour drive from Mackinaw City to the Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Bay. Shortly after crossing the straits of Mackinac via the Mackinac Bridge the scenery quickly changed to a two-lane divided highway lined on each side by white pines. Traffic was no issue as there were very little cars on the road. The only obstacle in our path was the mysterious layer of fog that greeted us we approached Chippewa County.

Surprisingly the museum's parking lot was nearing capacity considering the very little traffic we encountered during our ride. The relics inside the museum were surreal providing the history of the many great lakes ship wrecks including displays from other ships that I have researched such as the Carl Bradley and Daniel Morrell. The last exhibit is that of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. As we viewed the exhibit the surround sound played Lightfoot's ballad. In the center of the museum in a glass case was the bell from the "Mighty Fitz"

There was just one more thing to see after we completed the museum tour - the lighthouse at Whitefish Bay. The best way to view the light house is from the area known as the Graveyard of the Great Lakes, while standing in the big lake they call Gitche Gumee.

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References