35 years ago today: the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

the great lakes never cease to amaze me, especially during a storm. i've seen monster waves crashing against the breakwater from way over on the chicago skyway sending water several stories high. angry waves on the great lakes give me the willies.

there is a reason why they are also known as "the inland seas". the word "lake" only enters the equation because of their freshwater, but it can be misleading because, from a hydrological perspective, these large bodies of water behave far more similarly to seas than they do to 99.9% of the lakes on our planet.



one of my favorite great lakes moments:

my british friend's parents were visiting chicago (and the US midwest) for the first time. i took the family up to milwaukee for a little day-trip. upon arriving at the milwaukee art museum, my friend's dad looked out across the vast blue expanse of lake michigan and remarked:


friend's dad: "my god, another unfathomably large lake just like the one down in chicago. these great lakes truly are remarkable, we've nothing like them back in blighty."

me: "oh no, this is still the same lake as the one down in chicago, it's all lake michigan."

friend's dad: "you mean we've just been traveling for a couple of hours on the motorway and we're still along the shore of the same lake?! unbelievable. exactly how large is this lake?"

me: "about 300 miles long in the north-south direction."

friend's dad: "bloody hell! 300 miles long! that's almost the length of england itself! and you yanks call this vast sea a mere lake?"

me: "well, it's all freshwater....... and there are 4 more of them to boot."

friend's dad: "unbelievable." <shaking his head in disbelief>


he had some prior awareness that the great lakes were big, but when we traveled from chicago up to milwaukee, he assumed that we had traveled from a city on one great lake to another city on a different great lake, his mind had come nowhere close to wrapping itself around the true size and scale of the great lakes, because back home in britain, what he knew as "lakes" were simply small puddles in comparison to a body of water like lake michigan.

[Centropolis]

i was swimming off of rock island, wi and was sort of hopping giant underwater glacial boulders and slipped off one and dropped into a crevice of sorts and felt myself being pulled out into the lake. i'll never forget that...never had anything like that happen in the ocean.

[maru2501]

death's door (county)

[madtowncleaner]

The father of a childhood friend went down on the Fitzgerald, he was not even 2 when his dad was lost. Really sad but we didn't talk about it much. I still see him from time to time. Also, it has been 40 years now, not that it matters at this point.

[TallBob]

That song by Gordon Lightfoot still gets to me!!