Road Songs: Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Winding up Lake Superior's north shore from Sault Ste. Marie to Wawa, Highway 17 offers a coastline panorama so breathtaking that it puts British Columbia's fog-laden shore to shame. Beyond Batchawana, out past the mouth of Whitefish Bay, is where the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in a wicked storm in November 1975. It's a good time to throw Gordon Lightfoot's Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald into the CD player.

Listen here or read some of the lyrics:

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called '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.

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin'.
Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya.
At Seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in, he said
Fellas, it's been good t'know ya
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
And the good ship and crew was in peril.
And later that night when his lights went outta sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Photo credit: whitebirch