This makes me simultaneously very happy and very sad. Sad about all the loss of life, with another tally being added, but happy that not only will Gordon Lightfoot be remembered along with the men and women of the Edmund Fitzgerald. To not be forgotten is a sort of gift.
@MrMrMrprofessor - That is true, but their wives and daughters, would be the women of the Edmund Fitzgerald... they were also impacted by this terrible tragedy. Also I'm not going to leave the women out of these sentiments... because I'm not all about being moaned by Internet Karens.
By the way, Gordon Lightfoot did ask permission from all the families of the lost crewmen to release his song. They all agreed after hearing the song, undoubtedly as it honored the men and the ship.
If it were salt or brackish water it would almost certainly be considered and inland sea. Its got several times the surface area of the sea of marmara and has similar average and max depths
I think that the "Great Lakes" should be considered in-land freshwater oceans. They're so monstrously large, and have such dangerous conditions, that they can hardly be considered standard lakes.
The word he was looking for is "folk". Lightfoot didn't glamorize the Fitz. He turned the story into a folk tale song. And those are generationally powerful. His song will reflect the take for generations.
It truly is a folk song; it's such a huge part of Great Lakes culture, the same as Irish or Southern folk music. I grew up on Lake Michigan and I've been hearing it since I was young, it really encompasses the reverence for the lakes and awareness of death that everyone who lives on them knows well. I do wish there were more "Lake Shanties" out there, there are so many powerful stories from the Great Lakes that deserve to be shared and remembered. The sinking of the Rouse Simmons (the Christmas Tree ship), the Battle of Mackinac Island in 1812, the ancient native carvings and hunting trails at the bottom from before the lakes existed... Gordon's legacy here should be continued.
@@warrmalaski8570 They probably collect some bodies but many of the bodies are too high on the mountain to be worth recovering, the recovery crew would like die trying to get the bodies down
My brother is a diver who reclaims Bodies from all types of waters, dark, ocean, lake, murky... etc....and the stories he tells (respectfully) are very haunting.
I was given the opportunity to accompany a recovery diver back in the early 70's at a quarry that took a lot of teenagers lives due to large shelves that went very deep into the walls of the quarry. When he found it I took one look and knew that I would not be pursuing a career in body recovery, my hat is off to your brother and all divers who undertake this sad and necessary task.
I never knew of the Fitz until Gordon Lightfoot wrote about it. I understand he was upset at the lack of wide coverage of the event, so he did extensive research to write the song accurately. He also donated all proceeds from the song to the families of the Fitz crew. That is real respect.
Not exactly the lack of wide coverage exactly, but the fact that in the paper read the news about it relegated it to like the 9th page and had numerous misspellings which upset him.
In the early 1970s the Fitz would sale into the Detroit river through Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River. there is a State park in Algonac, MI that has both picnic area then a camping area where id you get a good spot you can see the freighters. My parents had a travel trailer and would spend from Friday night to Sunday at the park. and quite often you would be able to see the Ftix sail past.
Not only as accurately as possible, he changed some lyrics (although did leave partial truths and lies) in live shows whenever they contradicted reality. The church which he described as “musty” became “rustic,” and “At 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in; he said..." became "At 7 p.m. it grew dark, it was then he said.…”
@@coppersandsprite I didn't know that. You know...you hear the word "lake" and picture a place where you can see the other shore. I live I Texas, and there is only one natural lake in the entire state. Caddo Lake on the Texas Louisiana border. Cheers, and thanks for the reply!
@@TreeGod. I'm not sure how my comments and the replies to them are connected to your question. If you'll elaborate on your post I'll do my best to answer. Cheers.
The part about the poor woman who threw a message in a bottle into the lake was also very sad, starving and freezing to death, tell my mom and dad about me. God.
I hope the parents never was told about the letter the sorrow of that would hurt them far more then letting there imagination tell their hearts what happened.
Naval lore says it's bad luck to have a woman on board, because the male crew affectionately call their ship an "SHE" and she is the only one they care about.
Holee shit I found an article that says they found her skeleton on the island and they knew it was Alice bc she actually had a full set of natural teeth unlike the men on the ship who had lost most of their teeth from tobacco chewing icck.
To my knowledge, apparently, the great lakes are essentially a sea because of how they and their weather behave, size, etc, but they aren't classified as one because they aren't all at sea level. So 100% yes.
I know someone that was working in a retrieval team after Hurricane Katrina. He told me he has reoccurring nightmares of bodies floating around him because of that experience. He saw entire families. I can't believe that was almost 20 years ago now.
I was a lucky survivor of Katrina! I will never stay for another one coming in my direction!! It was terrifying and something I don't want to experience again.
I was about to thank my lucky stars that I grew up by Lake Michigan and not Lake Superior, but then I looked up the data and found out that Lake Michigan is, in fact, the deadliest of all the Great Lakes. So if Superior is the roided up bruiser, Michigan is the friendly looking lady with a bloody knife hidden behind her back.
Having grown up on the shores of Lake Erie I can tell you none of them are to be trifled with..they can whip up a storm in no time and actually have their own unique weather systems..anyone who doubts this look up the Daniel Morrell she went down in a storm in Erie with one survivor.
The Arthur M. Anderson is the most highly revered ship on the lakes. The only ship that turned back in the storm that sank the Fitz. Searched until daylight in that storm. To this day, when the Anderson passes thought the Sault Ste. Marie locks, the lock master and all ships in the area lower their flags in honor of the Anderson's heroic attempt to find the Fitzgerald. That's respect, in every sense of the term.
Two ships braved the storm a second time to go back out and search for the "Fitz": The Arthur M. Anderson, Capt. Bernie Cooper, and The William Clay Ford, Capt. Jim Erickson. They searched and criss-crossed the area all night, supported by Coast Guard helicopter spotlights. At around 11am the next morning, the third mate of the Anderson spotted the crumpled half of a life boat from the Fitz. They were later joined by the USS Woodrush, a Coast Guard vessel, Captained by a well-seasoned Capt. Jim Hobaugh, they continued to search for three days, in what he stated, were "some of roughest seas I've ever been in in my life, including the North Atlantic and hurricanes in the Gulf."
"Does any one know where the love of God goes When the waves turn the minutes to hours? " G.Lightfoot This line has always hit me hard. I've been in pretty rough seas. Rough enough to feel this line in my soul.
My aunt drowned in Dale Hollow Lake in Tennessee. After a week we had given up hope that we would find her. I turned to stories about Superior to make sense of why she never surfaced. 2 years later, a diver on a training dive found her. She was in a 130 ft cold pocket and was preserved enough that she was easily identified.
Damn I would hate to be that diver. One thing I always feared was a fresh corpse, it's not the same as a few bones in a shipwreck, like I'd seen in med school.
Yes, I don't think he meant "glamorize," he even said he was groping for the right word, and "immortalized" is a better choice. Of all people, I don't think he considers what happened romantic or glamorous.
Agreed. My son is 21 and the song is a favorite of his, but because he feels it immortalized the crew and how dangerous their jobs were/are. And it led him to study more about the Fitzgerald and other ships of the Great Lakes and their histories.
A friend of mine, Bear, an able body seaman out of Traverse City, MI, was scheduled to sail on the Fitz but got the flu the day before she sailed and was replaced by someone else. Bear never complains about getting the flu as it saved his life.
I had to write a paper on the geography of Indiana. Once upon a time we and the nearby states were part of a great coral reef. Thats why the limestone has all coral and shells. I guess you can view the great lakes as all that remains of it...it just kept its temperment all these years.
@@daniellegroves4830 not really. the oceans that once covered the midwestern states are 300+ million years old at the least, and most of the marine fossils found in indiana and ohio are well over 400 million years old. the lakes, on the other hand, are the scars of the last ice age- gouged out by a mile-high glacier that was at its greatest extent some 12,000 years ago- very recent, geologically speaking. despite having no continuity geologically, though these glacial lakes do carry on the spirit of that old paleozoic sea, i suppose.
granabam Ooof you’re off about 200-300 million years. Western Interior Seaway exists about 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous period. You’re hitting Carboniferous period to Devonian.
@@KhanMann66 and there were seas there back then. The WIS didn't even cover that part of the midwest, that was all land in the cretaceous. There was definitely sea in the Ohio river valley in the mid-paleozoic, and the fact that Cleveland is full of cladoselache and dunkelosteus fossils only proves my point further. i've found marine fossils (mostly horn corals and fragmented brachiopod shells) in eastern ohio myself.
My best friend spent about 12 years on the Arthur M. Anderson beginning in the late 80's. He said every time they pass over where the Fitz went down, they rang the ship's bell 29 times. RIP to all sailors lost in the Great Lakes.
@Robert Stallard The Anderson had a special connection to the Fitz. I take it you didn't know that. Are you foolish enough to suggest they should acknowledge every wreck on their voyage?
@Robert Stallard You do realize the connection between those two ships, yeah? The Anderson was right behind her when she went down and essentially sailed right over the two halves of the Fitz while the men in her engine room could very well have still been alive for a few more minutes at the bottom of the lake. Many ships, I’m told, ring their bells with respect as they sail over the wreck.
@Robert Stallard what a weird thing to criticize. It’s like saying “that’s so unfair that you visit only your grandma in the cemetery and don’t lay flowers on all other graves”. Get a grip.
Came back to rewatch and say rest in peace to Gordon Lightfoot, artist of the song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. He was born on November 17, 1938 in Orillia, Canada and passed away on May 1, 2023 in Toronto, Canada.
@@Nomadcreations The question is only: Who controls that the visitation is respectful? On a cemetary, you have staff and maybe a guard, but under water?
@@KlaxontheImpailr Ah, right. Yes, one could keep those and require everybody who wants to dive down there to register beforehand. But still, somebody would have dive down with them to check whether or not the visitors behave respectfully.
Portuguese here. Our media has, for more than 500 years, been mostly about our sorrowful relationship with the sea. Theres a line that read " oh salty sea, how much of you is made of Portuguese tears". A lot of respect to these people.
I was taught that the meaning of saudade, a word hard to translate into English, is built into the maritime history of Portugal. The longing for beloved sailors who may never return.
I am a former Great Lakes sailor... beginning my career some 4 years after the Fitz and continuing (with some interruptions) up until late 1997.Whenever we were in the vicinity of her grave there was always a somber and eerie feeling attached to it .
I live near Lake Superior and a lot of people underestimate it. Sadly at least a few people die each year (mostly tourists). One year there was a guy who got pulled out by the current and got swept to an island with an abandon light house. At the light house he found some old food and a life vest. After waiting awhile to see if a boat would happen to come by he decided to frick it and try to swim back. Astonishingly he swam miles back to shore and he was a heavy dude too!
33 or more die where I live on the Southern shore of Lake Michigan. It's warm and full of Indiana, Ohio and Illinois tourists, and they just don't get it. It is usually a tourist who dies. They go in while I won't unless I have a boogie board and life jacket. I warn them, but they look at me with deer-in-the-headlights eyes. They'll even walk on the jetties with a stroller and baby while the waves are washing over the cement. WTH! You wouldn't get me out there!
@@concettaworkman5895 Ohio lake erie resident here. I keep telling tourists not to go into erie because of the constant riptides and deadly algae. Also the intense rogue waves during storms.
I lived very near Lake Michigan in Navy Housing in North Chicago Illinois from 1977 to 1980 and storms do come up hard and fast and can last from minutes to days.
I just heard from my nephew that 29 bells are rung to honor the dead of The Edmond Fitzgerald when Gordon Lightfoot recently died, they rang the bell 30 times to pay tribute to his life and to honor his death, which gives me the chills, RIP
Dude's talking about wanting to dive the site but also respecting the graves reminds me of something an archaeologist said about its being very difficult to distinguish between archaeology and grave robbing.
There’s that, but people like to visit their family’s graves, clean the headstones and leave flowers. That would be difficult to do when those graves are underwater. I think maybe for John that would be part of the draw, too, rather than grave robbery/archeology.
The idea that a dead person has a infinite monopoly on the land they died on/were buried on is one the most ridiculous things humanity has ever fabricated. Dead people are dead. Its that simple. They don't own anything. To believe they do is purely immature and unreasonable. A truly responsible person understands the earth is for the future generations and nobody else. Graves are an archaic tradition that needs to go away.
@@URBANSPCMN I don't see that case being made anywhere that doesn't have historical significance. These people have living relatives, it's not at all absurd that their gravesite be protected this way while they remain in living memory
My dad is originally from Williamston Michigan and when I was very little he would sing me that song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. I was maybe three or four and I became absolutely obsessed with the song and with shipwrecks in general. My dad always nurtured my love of history, and now I’m a Holocaust historian!
You might enjoy a video about Princess Alice of Greece The Queens Mother In Law. Who hid a family of Jewish refugees in her home durring WWII. The video made by Reel Truth History is available on TH-cam & its full title is Princess Alice: The Queens Mother In Law. It's worth checking out.
I grew up on the north shore of Lake Erie, born in the late 70's, and my mum was naturally a *huge* Gordon Lightfoot fan. The one song that really stuck with me was "Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald", between that haunting melody and realising that it was about a *real* ship that really sank... Still living on the Lakes; now I go wreck diving at least once a summer, if I can manage it. It's an amazing way to get right up close to local history!
Leah Sauter--Gordon Lightfoot sang it, and it was quite popular at the time. It's based on true events. The Native American tribes who lives around the 5-lake area of the Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior) had legends of Lake Superior, which they called Gitchee Gumee (think "the Song of Hiawatha" by Longfellow). "By the shores of Gitchee Gumee, By the shining "Big-Sea-Water"...In the Ojibwe language, the lake is called Gitchigumi, meaning "big water".
I went to Pearl Harbor in early 2000's and when I went on the Arizona memorial, I felt like I was standing on top of a tomb and felt very solemn. I believe the 29 sunken crew of the Fitz should be as respected as those who lost their lives on December 7, 1941. Respect the lost.
I could never go to places like that or whitefish point or most memorials. I'm so sensitive to energy and spirits. I went to the somerset 911 memorial and I was bawling my eyes out. It was like I was suffocating in pain and sadness. I had to stay in the car with the AC on instead of going to the impact sight with my mother and aunt.
I'm from Denmark and out of curiosity I discovered that Lake superior is almost twice as large as my country! The lake is around 82.000 square kilometres while my country is almost 43.000 square kilometres! All in all - that is a freaky big lake!
She is. I would love for her to visit The Five Fishermen Restaurant 1740 Argyle St. in Halifax NS. I have a feeling the dead would wish to speak to her. She is a great listener as well as speaker.
@@jfilesgraphics Trust me if it was about looks I would've clicked away a long time ago. But her story telling is very captivating which is a first for me, because I dont like listening to stories. Many people just scream for attention and likes (and they use their looks to persuade you to stay on their channel). But with her, I got none of these vibes, she's just down to earth and tells the stories at the best of her abilities. Which is what I like about her. No pretentiousness even when she advertises she blends most of her ads so well with the story it barely breaks the flow of the story.
I used to be irrationally terrified of dead bodies a few years ago, so I began to research decomposition and mortuary science to educate myself on them. Through this knowledge, I’ve lost this fear and replaced it with interest! You were who I first watched and I’m so thankful for my fear (ironically) because I discovered your videos! Thanks for what you do, we love you!
It's amazing how the spectrum of emotions work inside our brain and minds. Fear is at the same spectrum but at the opposite end from fascination. I was an arachnophobic and now that I've trained my mind, I find these creatures absolutely fascinating! They're more afraid of humans than we're from them, and jumping spiders are adorable pets, I have one in an enclosure I captured the other day in my garden. Her name is Petrova and she is basically a cat in a shape of a tiny spider.
@Kit Coty she deserved her name in radiology terminations because she was fearless and made history with stuff no human being could comprehend and would never want to be around for an hour, at the time. She's fascinating as well.
That’s how I got over my fear of death and seeing a Body. Although I’ve always been fascinated with the Science behind an Autopsy and finding out how someone passed. It was never something I wanted to put out there or dare googling cause of the fear or seeing it. Now, it’s all I read about and watch on TH-cam Lol I’m thankful of finding her channel ❤️🖤
@@Puddingcup110 You want to know something particular about death that comforts me? I get to work with corpses constantly as I'm a makeup artist. But I don't have any family left, and at all events I refused myself to look at my dear lost parent laid in a coffin. But I used to work very well with bodies I didn't know personally.
I was 14 and going to high school in Ironwood, MI when the Fitz went down. I remember the storm and the mixture of collective grief and a kind of lack of surprise. That's Lake Superior. She does that. She'll "reach out and grab ya" even when you aren't in the water. I have a very vivid memory of fishing from the breakwater at Black River Harbor north of Ironwood. Within a few minutes it went from a decent day to waves over the breakwater. I'd run the rocks back to shore and looked back to see water covering where I'd been fishing. Also got scolded good by my folks for collecting my gear. As a river canoe guide years later one August we camped on the shore at the end of the Bois Brule. We weren't near the water, but the spectacular storm well out on the Lake turned south suddenly, demolished our camp, and was gone. Total time? No more than fifteen minutes from calm to calm. Sorry to go on. Clearly an evocative film. Thank you for both the detail and the sensitivity of your presentation.
It's truly amazing that such events could happen and do happen with the fickle gitche gumee. I grew up hearing stories and being read bedtime stories like 'the gulls of the edmund fitzgerald'. None of it sounded quite believable in lieu of sounding more like the boogieman. My parents were both michigan natives born and raised and that statement of "That's lake superior. She does that. She'll 'reach out and grab ya' " was like I was a kid listening to my parents all over again. After repeated visits I have come to understand it's not really the urban myth it sounds like with out seeing her. Lake Superior is beautiful to look at but damn if she doesn't have an attitude.
The waves look like those my grandparents have pictures of from Ireland, angry and dark. Like if you said or looked at them funny, they’d snap back harder.
As someone who 1) is ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED of deep water, 2) has a healthy respect for the dead/ corpses, and 3) lives exactly one (1) block away from one of the Great Lakes.... Lake Superior is my literal nightmare. Edit to say RIP to John's Uncle John. It must be absolutely awful to die like that and it must be awful to lose a loved one like that, especially when it was their last voyage. I hope Uncle John and the crew are at peace.
i live like dead center of michigan and i have a rlly bad tendency to like , normalize the lakes coz for us they're a thing michigan has , but they're not as constant , and then i see smth like this n i'm like oh yeah they are fuckin batshit huh.
It's not a big deal because people have died everywhere on this earth, people pass over gravesites every day and you don't even know it and people take pictures. And I really don't think the people that have passed away really care about the site and they died well before their bodies hit the floor of the lake. People need to lighten up.
@@Banichi04 People today overuse the word feel or my feelings who cares...people say "I feel it should be grave site", I say who cares those people are not there that died and who cares what you feel.
The phrase _"To go down with the ship"_ Means that even in the most dire of circumstances, your loyalty is unshaken. The Captain of the Fitzgerald, held his composure in the face of death, and that's absolutely remarkable. All my respect to the fallen and their families.
Also, because if you radio for an SOS, anyone who shows up, can instantly claim salvage rights. Meaning, anything of value floating in the water, or in the ship (if they reach it) is up for grabs, if the Captain of a distressed ship leaves the boat. If the Capt goes down with it, it can't be salvaged right away. "To go down with the ship" was often encouraged by the company that owned the vessel.
I live a couple hours from lake superior and the one time I swam in it I ended up get pummeled by waves not that far from shore. If I'd hit my head I easily could've drowned, wouldn't recommend going into the lake lol.
The only reason the Great Lakes are called "lakes" and not "seas", compared to the Red Sea and the Black Sea (which is an inland sea) is that they contain freshwater, not salt water.
The usage o teh English word "lake" always means fresh water. I can't help wonder if the English were aware of the Great Lakes a thousand years earlier, they may have come up with another term. For I must agree with Mango. Technically, they are "lakes" by the customary usage of the word, but by common sense, the are in fact inland seas.
My grandfather was a first mate on these freighters for three decades, retiring in 1990 as one of the most popular and well loved sailors in the entire Kinsman fleet. His ship went out in this storm and they hugged the shoreline rather than take the lanes in the middle of the lake, obviously surviving. He died in 1999 after spending the decade as a loving grandfather and philanthropist to many struggling families in the area. Gordon Lightfoot’s song played at his funeral.
I was stationed at Duluth AFB when this happened . The weather was so bad that day that the base was on minimum manning with most people told to stay home. I was watching TV with some of my fellow officers in the BOQ when an emergency broadcast interrupted the show: All crew members of the Coast Guard ship Woodrush were being called to go out on a rescue mission. Here we were, forbidden to drive less than a mile to work and there they were being sent out on stormy Lake Superior to rescue people if they could. "You have to go out. You don't have to come back," is a common Coast Guard saying. I will never forget that storm or the bravery of the Coast Guardsmen stationed at Duluth on that day.
Man, Coasties are a whole other breed of human. There is no other way to explain how they willingly run into some of the crazy shit they do on a daily basis.
I live in Detroit, and had summer jobs at the steel mill where the Edmund Fitzgerald delivered the loads of ore. I saw the ship several times, when it came into port it was An Event. There are still churches in Detroit that do memorial services on the anniversary of the day the ship was lost, although now extended to remember all those who died in shipwrecks on the Great Lakes.
Back when I lived in the area, I used to pass the Old Mariner's Church every time I crossed the border into Detroit. I even went to a few of the remembrance services there, and stood in silence while the bell tolled 29 times. That was powerful.
Yes, I remember hearing stories about the Edmund Fitzgerald and hearing the sad songs sang at bars growing up in Michigan. I never got to see it, though.
I think it's more accurate to say the Lake gives absolutely zero fucks about you and whether you live or die. Do you care about a mite living on your skin? Do you even notice when you squash it? Probably not!
You forgot that they cut out her bell and replaced it with a replica with the names of the crew. The original bell is at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. I went there when I was a kid, back during my shipwreck fascination phase
It breaks my heart that it was John's uncle and the captain's last voyage before retirement. I can't imagine being their families and how crushing that news would be. The great lakes are absolutely no joke. I was in Cleveland for my best friend's wedding and the high winds coming off lake erie blew my car all over the road on the highway. Just being around them can be super dangerous.
Even an hour away from the tip of Lake Michigan we're constantly feeling the effects. Lake effect snow, heavy ass rain, etc. I cant imagine what living near it is like.
Yeah. I remember one ice storm off Lake Ontario that knocked out half of Toronto's electricity for close to a week, over the Christmas holiday. Temperatures were around -20 C, and emergency warming shelters were set up so people wouldn't freeze to death in their own homes. I was out of town, but my BFF/roommate took in 3 of our friends who didn't have power so they would literally *not die* at their own place. Lake effect weather is nuts!
The great lakes are really inland seas, not to be messed with. I was living in Cleveland at the time the Fitz went down. Freaked me out for years after; this has renewed that feeling, even though I now live in the middle of Texas.
I just wanted to say, I've been terribly necrophobic since I was little. My fear isn't really about the corpses, but death itself, for just thinking about myself and loved ones dying is enough to trigger panic attacks. Whenever I have to attend to a funeral, I need to take walks around the cemetery with my mother to calm down and avoid an attack. I stumbled on your channel a few years ago, and while at first I was a bit iffy about this kind of content, your charisma and passion really got me hooked. Since then, watching your videos has been incredibly helpful in controlling my phobia. I'm now quite fascinated by the topics you cover regardless of the fact it's a discussion about death, and watching you talk about this with so much passion just brings a smile to my face. Now, while I still struggle with funerals, I can talk about death without spiraling into a breakdown, and handle my anxiety better in such situations. I can't thank you enough, Caitlin.
Lily, you are very strong and brave to even go to funerals. I cannot. I just cannot. I have not attended any funerals of any loved ones since the 1980s. God bless you for struggling on through. You are an inspiration.
Same here! I think it's very common. I mean, fearing the unknown, and death, is completely natural. Yes, we take it a bit further, but I think more people do than we think.
I have the same problem started having panic attacks at 7. Another one I can't handle is space put a wall up,what's behind it, so on & so on. It never stops almost makes me sick. Imthinkmthevmain factor for me is not knowing.
@@marythomson7931 That's interesting. My phobia started at 7 too, mainly due to the death of my grandma. Until then it never fully registered in my head the true meaning of someone just... disappearing from my life. So when it finally clicked, I couldn't handle it.
It's so messed up that people are upset over death, and yet literally pay for and have it in their homes. It's hypocritical. www.watchdominion.com Just look at that documentary.
I really love how Caitlyn has presented this, it was so respectful, and caring. And the beauty in sharing the names of the crew at the end, made me teary eyed.
I grew up in MN and spent time in Duluth each summer.. The Edmund Fitzgerald has always fascinated me since the wreck. I've read and watched everything I can find about it. I saw Gordon Lightfoot perform The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald for the very first time. He said he felt that he had perform it for the first time to a MN audience. By the end of the song there wasn't a dry eye in the room including Gordon Lightfoot as he responded to our response and he struggled to finish the song. Thanks for this excellent coverage .
👋i hope you're safe over there? I hope this year brings happiness prosperity love and peace 💞❤️🕊️🕊️ all over the world! Happy New year 🎆 🙏🌍 I'm originally from Canada currently living in California ☀️☀️and you where are you from if i may ask?💭
We have also a quite well-preserved corpse in a cold lake in Germany: In January 1964, a man crossed the frozen Königssee in his oval-window VW Beetle to visit someone. On his return in the night he apperently did an unvoluntary donut, lost orientation (6 V headlights) and drove straight to Falkensteinwand (Falkenstein Wall) where the lake wasn't frozen. The car sank with it's driver. 30 years later the driver was discovered during an unmanned submarine dive. He was lying beside the VW Beetle in a depth of 120 m, and both were in good condition. Both driver and his faithful vehicle are still lying in place, and his relatives decided, that this should his grave.
All Germans are welcome residents in Michigan. Most of our ancestors actually came from Germany up in the northern prefectures. You guys would love Frankenmuth
@@rafmonkey96 My Brother lives in Michigan and when I visited, he and his wife took us to Frankenmuth! The food was fantastic! The people were very friendly too! I would love to go back. Love those memories! GOD bless
The lakes are "warm" in a relative sense. Been swimming in Lake Michigan during the summer months as a kid and you just accept that it is whatever temp it is. :)
Have swam in both northern parts of Lakes Michigan and Huron, and they are quite lukewarm in August. How soon the water becomes tolerable in summer depends on how much they get iced over in winter, and since the 80s, it hasn't been very often that they get to 75% ice-cover or more.Last winter I doubt that any of the Great Lakes had more than just shore ice. Too mild of a season.
I totally agree! I love walking through old graveyards, especially the kind where the deceased was born in like 1870 or something. Every year (since Covid) my family on my mom's side (which is large) stand on Grandpa's grave and toast him with a shot of whiskey. And then we get drunk and tell stories about grandpa, and my dad who doesn't drink drives us all back to the farmhouse, lol. It's a wonderful ritual, and I'm sure Grandpa would have loved it that we were having so much fun for/with him =)
@@cassuttustshirt4949 Graveyard walking is the best. Nice and peaceful and there's never anybody in the older ones. Here in Massachusetts its not unusual to come across graves from the 1600s
@@cassuttustshirt4949 There was a graveyard near the University of Massachusetts that I would walk through to get home. Its appeal was that it was a forest setting - most of it was graves within trees. I had a class that got out at night. My friend said he was driving home and decided to look for me walking but couldn't see me on the main road. I said "Oh that's because I cut through the cemetery" My roommates were appalled that I would walk through a graveyard at night. If you think about it though, there's probably not a safer area.
@@sstills951 I've always found cemeteries to be relaxing. They're very tranquil places. My parents used to go for after dinner walks at the nearby cemetery when my sister and I were young, so that was my introduction. Didn't find out they were supposed to be scary until several years later, so they never were. I remember visiting a New England cemetery with my parents and grandparents once. We came across a huge monument to a woman buried in the 1600s. Her husband was lamenting her death at length. As we were standing around the grave, my grandma started to smile. Dad asked what could possibly be amusing about this, and she pointed out that he wasn't buried with her. We found him buried with his second wife and eight children. A good reminder that life goes on and happiness can return.
Years back in 1987 I was dating this lovely lady here in California, we had been seeing each other for about 3 1/2 months when one night that I was staying at her place she received a phone call from someone. While she was talking to this person she asked me to bring this plastic tub out of her room so she could go through papers that were in it while she talked. There were tons of photos in the plastic bin as well, and one of them was a photo of the Edmund Fitzgerald on the bottom of Lake Superior. It turned out that her older brother was one of the crew that had gone down with the ship, and the phone call was about the possibility of retreiving the bodies from the ship. All of the crew's remains were present inside the ship except for one set of remains that had wound up outside on the lake bed, (I assume that the person in question was most likely one of the bridge crew & was somehow thrown free of the ship as it struck bottom). This corpse has been mentioned elsewhere over the years so I'll make no more mention of it. She did however, show me the photos of their bodies in the condition that they were in at that point in time & it was somewhat bizarre as they looked like humanoid wax figures with clothing on. It wasn't creepy or gross in any way, they just looked odd. She knew exactly which one her brother was by the clothes he was wearing in the photos The upshot of this is that the locations of all 29 bodies in both the bow & stern sections are known & at that time it was said that the bodies had all gone through the process of Adipocerication, but if all of the families wished it they could retreive the remains, but it would be really expensive to retreive them & the families would all have to come up with something like $250,000.00. That's when they decided to leave them where they were & began the legal proceedings to prohibit any more diving expeditions to the Fitzgerald. I believe that the ruling came through for that in 1995 but I can't be sure. We only dated for about 2 more months & she moved back home to Michigan. But I truly hoped she was, and continues to be okay, because after that evening there were times that the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald was all that she could talk about.
Sounds like by you lending a sympathetic ear(judging by your comment you seem to have) she was able to process those feelings and heal. Sometimes all you need is someone to listen to you get it all out.
I go to school right off Lake Superior in Duluth MN and almost every year a body or two shows up in the icy waters. She’s beautiful but she’s to be respected for sure.
This tragedy would have been forgotten long ago had it not been for Gordon Lightfoot. I hope people know that. He is one of my heros (listening since 1969).
Except for those of us who are born and raised in Michigan. I was raised on the story. The cook was supposed to be my godfather. Later on, I worked on the freights.
You were at Lake Superior!?!? And I missed it!? 😭😭😭😭😭😭 Also: the priest the song mentions who rang the bells for the Edmund Fitzgerald That's the priest who married my parents 😁
@@3katfox I wasn't a Mariner, but having navigated the highway, he let me ring the PUT-IN-BAY bell! Thanks and very belated Congratz to your Parents :)
The Gordon Lightfoot song is a lament, not an attempt to glorify death. The music video I watch concludes with photos of every crew member. The song is so well written that it doesn't lose its emotional punch, no matter how often I hear it. Part of the tragedy that grips us is that the Fitz was so close to safety, with such an experienced and professional crew. (I believe a couple of the junior positions were held by younger men.)
.. as a musician 🎶 I did the "wreck" for many years, Its strum is brutal, and it is a good song for last call, cuz your arms are trashed and sore....as a blue water sailor the song always gets to my heart....
I agree. Gordon is immortalizing a tragedy in song, like musicians have done for ages. It feels more like a tribute to the people who died than an insult. I'm glad she pointed out that he donated a wreath for the consecration.
I am a yooper. Even though I was born years after the Fitz went down, and even as a child before I even heard the story, I still cry whenever I hear the song.
As unimaginable as it is if you've ever been out sailing on a lake when the wind comes up you get a real rush and a real respect for water. The ocean is huge but the Lakes can be just as violent.
Never been to Lake Superior but I have been to Lake Michigan and spent a lot of time at Tahoe. Sometimes the conditions on these lakes could easily fool a person into believing they are at sea if they didn’t know better.
I've never seen the Great Lakes. I've lived my life alongside the Pacific Ocean (I don't see what's so pacific about it). Watching recordings of storm conditions over the Great Lakes, It wouldn't take much to convince me they behaved just like oceans.
I remember visiting the Grand Canyon when i was a little girl and was fascinated with the fact there is an average of 15 accidental deaths a year. I think that could be a fun idea for one of your future travel videos. I really enjoy your personal footage of the places your teaching us about. I think For Lunar New Year you would do a great video on the Chinese railroad and talk about the people who died and where buried close to were they passed and kept going.
I lived and worked at the Grand Canyon for three years. You should read Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon. It’s all about deaths in and around the Canyon. Thoroughly fascinating read.
I remember visiting the grand canyon when I was 9, and I tripped over at the edge and my camera was dangling and nearly slipped over , luckily I only got a graze and a broken camera lol
Well Caitlin, in addition to your talents as a mortician, writer, public speaker, youtuber, and shampoo hair model, I think we can now add 1930s pulp fiction writer to the list. You have a real knack for purple prose!
as a wisconsinite whose grandparents are from the ashland area, it’s always fun seeing other people discover how powerful the great lakes are, especially superior! we grew up hearing stories about all the shipwrecks, as well as the respect we had to have for the lake. there’s a reason it’s called Gichigami, we have to respect it or it won’t respect us
I live on Lake Michigan. I was 22 when the Fitz went down. I’m 67 now and still tear up when thinking about it. I don’t understand the connection but it’s a very very real.
There doesn't need to be a direct connection for you to feel empathy and compassion for those lost, and those affected by the loss. It truly is very, very real. It means you're human, with feelings.
@Gillian Walton even prior to Europeans arriving the tribes felt that way. They associated the lake as a place of spirits, also legends of serpents in it helped. Lol
I grew up in Marquette, Mi, which is right on the shore of lake superior. you should check out the number of deaths at Presque Isle. The lake demands sacrifices, and people continually feel the need to challenge her. We grew up swimming in Superior, cliff diving off Black Rocks at presque isle, but people drown there almost every year.
It’s always interesting to me to hear about people growing up diving/swimming in lakes like this. Mostly because I’ve always wondered if they know they’re swimming in a graveyard!
When I saw Lake Superior for the first time, I kept asking my cousin are you sure that’s a lake? It looks like the ocean! It was incredible. The Gordon Lightfoot song did pop into our heads. 😢
Me too! Anything looming underneath the water, whether in a lake or open water just frightens me. I’m also afraid of finding statues under water. Like those in the Philippines.
I grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario Canada on Lake Superior. My Daughter at 3 years old got out early one morning and went down to the shore and slipped on a slippery rock and fell in. She woke me up crying to tell me she had just fallen in. I marched her back down to the shore and had her apologize to the lake for the disrespect and at the same time to thank the lake for sparing her life that day.
Wisconsinite here and even Lake Michigan is no joke... there were so many death my senior year of hs from people night swimming and being taken with the waves...
yeah I was born in Milwaukee (but grew up in Oklahoma and still visited grandparents and other relatives about every other year) however my mom was born and raised in Racine which is also along the lake and I also family from Chicago. I'm very familiar with this lake but I never knew it was a dangerous one until I was watching a video about the most terrifying lakes in the world. And that explains why the beach area in Racine was always blocked off and off limits for swimming. It was great climbing on the rocks along the lake though which my cousins and I used to do during the months when its supposed to be one of the most dangerous times to be near it. I had no idea.
Even in Michigan the majority of Lake Michigan drowning deaths are FIPs. I don't know if they're not taught about the dangers of the lake, or if it's just a lack of common sense?
I grew up in Milwaukee and went to Lake Superior most summers of my youth. I think the scariest thing about Lake Michigan is how grossly dirty and polluted it is. Any water is dangerous, but Lake Superior is much more wild and pristine than Lake Michigan. If you get a chance, I highly recommend visiting it. I am partial to The Porcupine Mountains and Copper Harbor in Upper Michigan also.
For those who are interested, there is a memorial to Stan Rogers at the Kelso Beach Park amphitheatre in Owen Sound, home of Summerfolk. It's a stone with his name and image that sits at the right side of the stage.
That footage of the ship underwater gives me chills. They haven’t printed enough money yet to get me to dive down there. It makes me nervous just watching the video.
I've never been to Superior, but I've been to her much smaller sister-Erie-and I was in awe of her. I would **never** underestimate her biggest sister.
I had to have a home visit for my dog last week. He was 14 years old and ...my love. Saying goodbye to him was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Your videos helped me so much though.... Thankyou
Oh bless you, I lost my darling girl suddenly and unexpectedly a few months ago, I know exactly what you're going through and the pain youre in right now, sending you a gentle virtual hug ❤ Rest in paradise precious pup ❤🌈☄
I hated to hear about your dog may God bless you and your family. I'm going through the same thing my dog Bigfoot has cancer and it's inoperable and I'm keeping him comfortable now I hate to give him up.
One of my college classmates (he was a "nontraditional" i.e. older student) actually had applied for a post on the Edmund Fitzgerald right before the final voyage; he was given a job offer but got an offer welding somewhere else which he took - he said he had balanced out the better pay on the Fitz vs dealing with living on a boat and being away from home (Duluth) for months at a time. He actually met many of the men who went down that evening, shortly before that final trip. His reaction if Gordon Lightfoot's song came on was something interesting to see if you knew his story.
Yeah, I relate with your classmate. I was a kid in the 70s. My mother and I saw the story break on the evening news. She had to explain that kids just like no longer had a dad. To this very day there are certain songs that remind me of people no longer here. You can see the sadness in my eyes. As a born and bred working man and a second generation driver, there are guys I grew up around that died too young. Like the ore boats of Lake Superior, trucking is inherently dangerous
@@andrewfox1755 I'm a bit younger than you, so for me we had the song playing randomly while I was growing up, and in music class in elementary school a teacher played it and filled us in on the history. I was down in the Twin Cities at the time but that was still close enough for it to be a thing to us; this legend of the lake. Meeting people in later years who were involved was very interesting; including the stories I eventually heard from my grandpa who scheduled the freight trains for the Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range RR - planning movements of empty and full cars all around their network, from mines to taconite plants to the docks. He knew the Fitz well, and had been at the docks while she was loaded on many occasions. My grandpa had a safe career with the DM&IR RR, although we have a few pics of his father, my great-grandpa who lost a hand to a coupler accident; he had a hook.
I grew up in Marquette on the shore of Superior and year in and year out some poor college kids from out of town get into trouble on the break walls to the harbor. Just before I moved away a couple was washed off in a storm and drowned. They found one of them wedged in the rocks under the wall, and they never found the other. The current where they went in goes straight out and it’s really fast and strong. My uncle was also a captain of a ship like the Fitzgerald, my family would get really anxious come fall time, my grandma would sit by the docks for the whole day when he was due in. The storms are no joke.
I wish I could find the photos I took of the Rine Ice wall from just south of the Coastie Station. It looked like a Black and White photo except for the bright red Coast Guard building in the middle surrounded by 30' a high wall of Rine Ice and what looked like broken up icebergs.
For those not familiar with Marquette, the break wall is a serious of large stones big enough to stick out of the water. The current generated by the waves going by the rocks can sink even the best Olympic simmer. Because of this, there are huge warning signs at the Marquette beach due to the break wall. "!!!DANGER!!!" "UNGUARDED BEACH AREA" "Unknown hazards may exist including : - High Waves - Strong Current - Deep Water - Dangerously Cold Water - Submerged Objects" "Be aware of your abilities and the conditions before you enter the water" "When in doubt, DON'T GO OUT!" This warning is not meant as a challenge. Test the lake and you WILL lose. On the other hand, respect the lake, and learn the locations of the right coves and on a sunny summer day you can find some comfortable 65F-70F water to swim in. The bonus of being on a lake and not the ocean or the gulf means you don't have to worry about sharks, killer whales, sting rays, jelly fish or sea weed. There won't be any off shore oil rigs to spoil the view, either.
The absolute gut punch of nostalgia I got when The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald kicked in cannot be understated. What a fantastic and fitting song, RIP Gordon.
I'm creeped out too by seeing things looming underwater when I'm paddling... Even something so simple as a boulder or a fallen tree can feel almost intrusive when I pass over them. Seeing a wreck would surely terrify me.
Holy shit i’m not the only one? I get so scared whenever i’m paddling or swimming over something submerged deep in the water-i’m afraid to stand on rocks poking up from the deep, too. It just gives me the creeps, it feels like it’s just going to give out and pull me down or something..
My great-grandparents lived on Lake Superior and used to listen in on the ships through their radio. They heard the Edmund Fitzgerald go down on that stormy night (presumably via the chatter of the aftermath, since the ship herself never sent a distress call). Because of that, Gordon Lightfoot’s song has always held a special magic for my mom and I. Thank you for exploring this topic with such gravitas.
Agree - as someone that grew up oceanside, I didn't take lakes "seriously". Until I flew over Lake Michigan and realized how incredibly huge these lakes really are.
Damn got teary-eyed actually seeing the members of the crew. They weren't just a crew. They were people with families and hopes and dreams and all that. Idk maybe I'm just a crybaby lol
I think the captain knew...he knew they where fucked. And decided to just....accepted the fate of the lake....he accepted as a captain that...He would go down with the ship
Thank you for such a fascinating tale!! I grew up on the coast as well, and the title of “lake” in this regard seems like a misnomer to me, too!! Some of the footage you showed of the insane waves hitting the shore are nothing short of terrifying!! You’re a fantastic storyteller, you kept my attention the entire time, and I was so disappointed that the video was in actuality already over! Thank you again!
See the spot wear the waves break over those high ,black cliffs? Well, those cliffs are 80' high. That was filmed in November of 2021, I belive, along the shore of Northern Minnesota.
"As supper time came the old cook came on deck sayin', 'Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya.'/ At 7pm a main hatchway caved in, he said, 'Fellas it's been good to know ya.'" That line honestly gives me chills.
Prog MetalDeity... 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
Prog MetalDeity, I'm really close friends with his ("The Old Cook") daughter Pam for over the last 22 years. I've had the honor of being asked by her to ring for her dad at the Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish point, MI in 2010, 11, 13, 14, 15 & 2016.
Lightfoot changed the lyric after the dive that showed the sinking was more likely from a wave driving the bow to the bottom, causing the ship to break in two. The song was released soon after the wreck, and at the time there was a lot of speculation that water got into a hatch that wasn't tightened and sealed to safety standards. That would make it human error, which insurance companies and ship owners like to blame everything on. It was a smear on the deckhands' reputation for a long time. But with the new evidence 20+ years later, Lightfoot made the change in the lyric for public performances. Unfortunately, the one you shared is the one that will go down in history, because he hasn't recorded an updated version.
I got to visit Lake Superior four times, and each time. I never wanted to leave... It was just so... ethereal. I felt the same way, when I got to stand in the Pacific...
I know of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald from Gordan Lightfoot's song. I was always sad and haunted by the story it told. As far as the ship being declared a gravesite and to be protected and preserved, I totally agree. While I find seeing the ship and the artifacts there immensely fascinating, I feel that the men that died there should be left to rest undisturbed and in peace. The ship and the crew should be left alone, protected from those who would plunder the site. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald should be revered and protected as any other grave.
I know someone that dove on an uncharted wreck. He opened a cabin and a body was floating in the room. Had to tell the Coast Guard about it. Marked as a grave site.
As a former boat engineer in maine. I understand the sentiment. That being said.... I dont think what has been done is practical or reasonable. The fact of the matter is it's not an actual graveyard. I was taught while working on the ocean. The whole of the waters of the world is a graveyard of many and we should always be mindful and respectful of that.
My father was a merchant marine captain and retired in 1985. I recall the day the Fitz went down. While I was still pretty young, that was the first time I knew my dads job could be dangerous. My respect and sympathy to the family members of lost men . It was a different era and those men, I’m sure worked so very hard and were eager to see their families . Tough men that took the kids out to pool halls, they just were not used to kids and a Captain was always right , even when he wasn’t . My dad would not talk about the Fitz. It was painful for so many. Let the lost souls remain where they are, it’s a sacred place.
My step-grandfather was a merchant marine and was lost during a bad storm on the Indian Ocean. Since then I have had a phobia of the ocean. After seeing videos of the Great Lakes, they're now on my list of places I'm not likely to visit.
The Laws are not quite as stated in this video. So before you get going do a bit of research. The simplest and most accessible is a Wikipedia search (I used Edmund Fitzgerald as keywords in Google and had instant results). Two separate sets of legislation cover the issue of "grave site / grave yard". Both are Ontario legislation. The first has to do with disturbance (or survey) of an Archaeological Site. The other to do with disturbance (or profit) from a grave site (Don't. Next of kin have all rights). There is a 500 metre zone around all shipwrecks (in Ontario waters) that requires a license to enter, but there is nothing else. Sites of major significance are marked by buoys, this helps in administration of the regulation. Alarm buoys apparently don't exist (I can only imagine the headache that would cause the coastguard). Admiralty Laws cover ownership, loss and claims, and rights of affected parties. The Nation of Registry has jurisdictional rights in such regards. Those laws differ from the laws governing the sites.
@@pxzallen the wikipedia is not a verified source of information. No one fact checks that, but for some reason people are fact checking personal human expression sights. This is a sad fact. The censorship is to the point that people are using the wiki as facts to beat other people down. A somewhat non factorial website to beat down other people's free expression. Its truly sad.
My understanding is the "no diving on the wreck" order also prevented the NTSB from completing their investigation into what sank the /Fitzgerald,/ which I find utterly abhorrent. Yes, I can understand declaring it off limits to recreational divers. But, I am an aviator. When a plane crashes, we try like hell to FIND it, figure out what the HELL went wrong so that we can prevent similar crashes in the future. It is a duty we owe.
Is not only YOU and people in your type of profession. Me too! Jornalist, nvestigations, people who know we need answers. I agree NONE of this places should be off limits. Maybe some laws should say if things can be taken out but to forbit an investigation, eeven discover bodies and conjecturate bringing them to rest in land - were all of them were expecting to return. It's the only circunstances I know that people fight to keep their dead ones were they are. Every other accident or as a result of murder, it doesn't matter if 80 years went by: family still hope to recover remains. So they can burried them. This ones are LUCKY enought to get that wish granted and don't wish to. Also a dead body in water must be a terrible site to see. But if it is frozen probably keeps their physicality intact.
@@tapeworm2291 If you go and investigate a bit about death and graveyards you would come to the conclusion it is not so. This "respect" as diferent shapes trought out the centuries. We (humans) went inside the pyramids and open up their mummies. We have REAL CHILDREN MUMMIES in exibition on museums. Why is that their bodies it's OK and someone's from today are not? Just because no one is alive to remember them by? Even the dead human body sometimes needs to be explored. If that wasn't the case we would not have what we have today. And this channel on youtube would NOT exist. Corpses are not someting we should fear seeing. One SHOULD see so to learn. It's the result of some accident - depending of what motivates you, but I think I am not desrespecting anyone when I go and see up close some graveyard of someone I don't know. Look at someone's picture, look at a preserved head on a jar in some medicine hospital museum or even look at bones in some bone chappel.
@@saschamayer4050 And it may be a needed procedure. One never knows! If there is suspicion of murder - for example. Your body exumation can sort it out for good. And from that you can catch a serial killer. Wouldn't that be GREAT? A great deed to do after death comes to get ya.
Hey there! Niece of Tom Farnquist here. Thanks for making this really cool and interesting video. I know I'm about four years late to comment, but I have some things to say. Though I am not related to any of the crew members who went down with the Fitz, the story is a big deal to my family, since a lot of us were from the UP of Michigan and Lower Ontario Canada. When I visited the shipwreck museum at Whitefish point, it was really special. My mom and her mom remember the storm that took the Fitz very vividly. We must continue to honor and respectfully tell the stories of those who went down in Lake Superior.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 88 | คู่เอก "ป้อมเพชร vs อัสลามจอน"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1ZqTVVbMgbo/mqdefault.jpg)
Gordon died recently and the church that rung the bells for the crew rang 30 times, 29 for the crew and one for gordon.
Thanks, I hadn't heard that.
This makes me simultaneously very happy and very sad. Sad about all the loss of life, with another tally being added, but happy that not only will Gordon Lightfoot be remembered along with the men and women of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
To not be forgotten is a sort of gift.
I knew this but reading it again made me tear up a bit. So respectful.
@@goawayleavemealone2880I believe there were only men on board the Edmund Fitzgerald.
@MrMrMrprofessor - That is true, but their wives and daughters, would be the women of the Edmund Fitzgerald... they were also impacted by this terrible tragedy.
Also I'm not going to leave the women out of these sentiments... because I'm not all about being moaned by Internet Karens.
By the way, Gordon Lightfoot did ask permission from all the families of the lost crewmen to release his song. They all agreed after hearing the song, undoubtedly as it honored the men and the ship.
RIP Gordon Lightfoot 😢
I love Gordon Lightfoot his music is beautiful 🥹💓
I’m glad he asked for permission, that was very respectful of him.
All of the profit made from that song went to the families that lost loved ones .
Great song.
Lake Superior is literally just an ocean that's playing dress up as a lake
If it were salt or brackish water it would almost certainly be considered and inland sea. Its got several times the surface area of the sea of marmara and has similar average and max depths
I think that the "Great Lakes" should be considered in-land freshwater oceans. They're so monstrously large, and have such dangerous conditions, that they can hardly be considered standard lakes.
@@catmix Dude, an "inland freshwater" body is a LAKE.
And an ocean, by definition, is NOT inland.
So it would be a freshwater SEA---i.e. a LAKE.
@@screaminggecko7660 Yeah that's a little difficult when it's 1000 feet above sea-level.
They pretty much look like oceans. Ive been swimming lake MI before. The water was cold as hell and it was in June.
The word he was looking for is "folk". Lightfoot didn't glamorize the Fitz. He turned the story into a folk tale song. And those are generationally powerful. His song will reflect the take for generations.
A true bard
I think the word he was looking for was "notarize", not famous or infamous, though infamous kinda fits too.
"memorialise"?
It truly is a folk song; it's such a huge part of Great Lakes culture, the same as Irish or Southern folk music. I grew up on Lake Michigan and I've been hearing it since I was young, it really encompasses the reverence for the lakes and awareness of death that everyone who lives on them knows well. I do wish there were more "Lake Shanties" out there, there are so many powerful stories from the Great Lakes that deserve to be shared and remembered. The sinking of the Rouse Simmons (the Christmas Tree ship), the Battle of Mackinac Island in 1812, the ancient native carvings and hunting trails at the bottom from before the lakes existed... Gordon's legacy here should be continued.
Two places that dont give up the dead: Mt. Everest and Lake Superior
They scower Everest every 10 years for bodies. For by law no one is allowed to be berried on Everest.
The dead... and the garbage.
@@warrmalaski8570 No they don't. There are over 200 bodies still on Everest, and there's a good chance they will probably stay there.
@@warrmalaski8570 They probably collect some bodies but many of the bodies are too high on the mountain to be worth recovering, the recovery crew would like die trying to get the bodies down
The Sahara laughing in the distance
My brother is a diver who reclaims
Bodies from all types of waters, dark, ocean, lake, murky... etc....and the stories he tells (respectfully) are very haunting.
bro imagine doing that I'd be shitting myself
I was given the opportunity to accompany a recovery diver back in the early 70's at a quarry that took a lot of teenagers lives due to large shelves that went very deep into the walls of the quarry. When he found it I took one look and knew that I would not be pursuing a career in body recovery, my hat is off to your brother and all divers who undertake this sad and necessary task.
Garrett!!!!!!! Happy to see you on this side of youtube 😂
It's so tragic but interesting
Ooh I know who you are. Lol. Never knew your brother has such an awesome job
They gotta stop building “the largest ship.” It doesn’t end well.
USS Gerald R. Ford is doing just fine 🇺🇲
all ships can be the largest ship if the prior largest ship sinks.
Maybe they should try and build the smallest ship 🧐
"the largest spaceship ever" it ain't gonna end well
XxSavoyRigbyxX 🚢 I’m on board 😂 ...
sorry I had to
I never knew of the Fitz until Gordon Lightfoot wrote about it. I understand he was upset at the lack of wide coverage of the event, so he did extensive research to write the song accurately. He also donated all proceeds from the song to the families of the Fitz crew. That is real respect.
Not exactly the lack of wide coverage exactly, but the fact that in the paper read the news about it relegated it to like the 9th page and had numerous misspellings which upset him.
In the early 1970s the Fitz would sale into the Detroit river through Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River. there is a State park in Algonac, MI that has both picnic area then a camping area where id you get a good spot you can see the freighters. My parents had a travel trailer and would spend from Friday night to Sunday at the park. and quite often you would be able to see the Ftix sail past.
Not only as accurately as possible, he changed some lyrics (although did leave partial truths and lies) in live shows whenever they contradicted reality. The church which he described as “musty” became “rustic,” and “At 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in; he said..." became "At 7 p.m. it grew dark, it was then he said.…”
9:11 nonnn man 11:21 11:22 🎉
I recognize the song but never knew it was about this event or that it was even based on a real event.
Calling them "lakes" is a lot like calling an alligator a lizard. They are more like inland, freshwater seas. This is a fantastic video, I enjoyed it.
They are clasified as lakes due to being above sea level mostly. Maybe we need a new classification.
@@coppersandsprite I didn't know that. You know...you hear the word "lake" and picture a place where you can see the other shore. I live I Texas, and there is only one natural lake in the entire state. Caddo Lake on the Texas Louisiana border. Cheers, and thanks for the reply!
@@kentcarter835 , you're welcome
Kent Carter how do you feel about the 2nd amendment?
@@TreeGod. I'm not sure how my comments and the replies to them are connected to your question. If you'll elaborate on your post I'll do my best to answer. Cheers.
The part about the poor woman who threw a message in a bottle into the lake was also very sad, starving and freezing to death, tell my mom and dad about me. God.
I hope the parents never was told about the letter the sorrow of that would hurt them far more then letting there imagination tell their hearts what happened.
Naval lore says it's bad luck to have a woman on board, because the male crew affectionately call their ship an "SHE" and she is the only one they care about.
Holee shit I found an article that says they found her skeleton on the island and they knew it was Alice bc she actually had a full set of natural teeth unlike the men on the ship who had lost most of their teeth from tobacco chewing icck.
@@steveguzman6141 Wow, that's some interesting trivia!
What woman?
That’s a damn ocean in disguise..those waves are crazy
To my knowledge, apparently, the great lakes are essentially a sea because of how they and their weather behave, size, etc, but they aren't classified as one because they aren't all at sea level. So 100% yes.
@@floram9481 No, it's because they're made of FRESH WATER.
Especially when the November witch hits. I live on Lake Ontario
I live in Minnesota. Can confirm - Lake Superior is pretty much an inland Sea.
Even during the Summers, the water is fucking COLD.
Lake Superior is like a fresh water ocean.
I know someone that was working in a retrieval team after Hurricane Katrina.
He told me he has reoccurring nightmares of bodies floating around him because of that experience. He saw entire families. I can't believe that was almost 20 years ago now.
I was a lucky survivor of Katrina! I will never stay for another one coming in my direction!! It was terrifying and something I don't want to experience again.
Other lakes: chill, soft, nice places for a family picnic
Lake Superior: *COME AT ME, BRO, I'M FCKN JACKED*
Roid raging Lake Superior. 💪🏻
Lol accurate
I was about to thank my lucky stars that I grew up by Lake Michigan and not Lake Superior, but then I looked up the data and found out that Lake Michigan is, in fact, the deadliest of all the Great Lakes. So if Superior is the roided up bruiser, Michigan is the friendly looking lady with a bloody knife hidden behind her back.
Me : give me your dead 😡
Lake Superior : Nah 😂
Having grown up on the shores of Lake Erie I can tell you none of them are to be trifled with..they can whip up a storm in no time and actually have their own unique weather systems..anyone who doubts this look up the Daniel Morrell she went down in a storm in Erie with one survivor.
The Arthur M. Anderson is the most highly revered ship on the lakes. The only ship that turned back in the storm that sank the Fitz. Searched until daylight in that storm. To this day, when the Anderson passes thought the Sault Ste. Marie locks, the lock master and all ships in the area lower their flags in honor of the Anderson's heroic attempt to find the Fitzgerald.
That's respect, in every sense of the term.
Profound, very profound.
Two ships braved the storm a second time to go back out and search for the "Fitz": The Arthur M. Anderson, Capt. Bernie Cooper, and The William Clay Ford, Capt. Jim Erickson. They searched and criss-crossed the area all night, supported by Coast Guard helicopter spotlights. At around 11am the next morning, the third mate of the Anderson spotted the crumpled half of a life boat from the Fitz. They were later joined by the USS Woodrush, a Coast Guard vessel, Captained by a well-seasoned Capt. Jim Hobaugh, they continued to search for three days, in what he stated, were "some of roughest seas I've ever been in in my life, including the North Atlantic and hurricanes in the Gulf."
Thank you for sharing the story of the honors shown the Anderson to this day. Very moving...
The Arthur M Anderson and William Clay Ford were sister ships. Both apart of the 8 AAA class lake freighters.
The Arthur M Anderson is one of my favorite ships. She looks nice, and has a storied, heroic career.
"The lake was... having a moment."
Yeah it does that sometimes
It's Superior. It's never *not* having a moment. Even when it's calm, it's just luring you in.
So lake superior cant have her period in peace? Okay
Lake Superior is both beautiful and terrifying at the same time. I love kayaking and fishing on superior.
@@centaurithething1649 yeah, NORMALIZE LAKE PERIODS
@@swirrllfolfsky9803 Lake Michigan can and does have tantrums as well. Awesome to watch from a distance and NOT from one of the many piers.
"Does any one know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours? " G.Lightfoot
This line has always hit me hard. I've been in pretty rough seas. Rough enough to feel this line in my soul.
Yeah that line is haunting.
My aunt drowned in Dale Hollow Lake in Tennessee. After a week we had given up hope that we would find her. I turned to stories about Superior to make sense of why she never surfaced. 2 years later, a diver on a training dive found her. She was in a 130 ft cold pocket and was preserved enough that she was easily identified.
Im so sorry :(
@@samuel-zb4qn It's alright. That was definitely a phone call I was never expecting but it gave my family much needed closure.
@@brooklynyancey2536 Glad you got what you needed to move on. It's always tough to lose someone, but it has to help to know what happened.
Damn I would hate to be that diver. One thing I always feared was a fresh corpse, it's not the same as a few bones in a shipwreck, like I'd seen in med school.
I go there every summer. I didnt realize it could be a sad memories for others. Sorry for your loss
The Gordon Lightfoot song didn't "glamorize" it (in my opinion) It made it a folk legend, and in turn immortalized the crew.
Yes, I don't think he meant "glamorize," he even said he was groping for the right word, and "immortalized" is a better choice. Of all people, I don't think he considers what happened romantic or glamorous.
His song is a funeral hymn for the crew in my opinion. He tells their story and conveys the loss of the crew.
Well said.
Agreed
Agreed. My son is 21 and the song is a favorite of his, but because he feels it immortalized the crew and how dangerous their jobs were/are. And it led him to study more about the Fitzgerald and other ships of the Great Lakes and their histories.
I asked my mom if she recognized Caitlin and she said "ah the madam of the morgue" and honestly that sounds so badass
Caitlin is both brilliant and beautiful! Something to be aspired to, ladies!
Now I am just angry I didn't think of that first
Love!
And I think she looks great without makeup. Loveing the natural look.👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
@@sheilagravely5621 she looks sooooo much better without the 50’s pinup ‘look’.
Rest in peace, Gordon Lightfoot! Your legend will live on in Minnesota!
Yeah Gordo is a legend, just like the Edmund Fitz
Thumbs up if Gordon Lightfoot's recent death brought you here.
His legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
A friend of mine, Bear, an able body seaman out of Traverse City, MI, was scheduled to sail on the Fitz but got the flu the day before she sailed and was replaced by someone else. Bear never complains about getting the flu as it saved his life.
Do tell more
That is amazing 😳
TreverSlyFox No proof
@LUKE COOPER True,i do use reddit.
TreverSlyFox Thats deep...
When I was in Oceanography my professor informed us that even though they were “lakes” the Great Lakes were collectively studied as an inland sea
I had to write a paper on the geography of Indiana. Once upon a time we and the nearby states were part of a great coral reef. Thats why the limestone has all coral and shells. I guess you can view the great lakes as all that remains of it...it just kept its temperment all these years.
@@daniellegroves4830 not really. the oceans that once covered the midwestern states are 300+ million years old at the least, and most of the marine fossils found in indiana and ohio are well over 400 million years old. the lakes, on the other hand, are the scars of the last ice age- gouged out by a mile-high glacier that was at its greatest extent some 12,000 years ago- very recent, geologically speaking. despite having no continuity geologically, though these glacial lakes do carry on the spirit of that old paleozoic sea, i suppose.
@@paleozoey I stand corrected, thanks I should have known that.
granabam Ooof you’re off about 200-300 million years. Western Interior Seaway exists about 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous period. You’re hitting Carboniferous period to Devonian.
@@KhanMann66 and there were seas there back then. The WIS didn't even cover that part of the midwest, that was all land in the cretaceous. There was definitely sea in the Ohio river valley in the mid-paleozoic, and the fact that Cleveland is full of cladoselache and dunkelosteus fossils only proves my point further. i've found marine fossils (mostly horn corals and fragmented brachiopod shells) in eastern ohio myself.
My best friend spent about 12 years on the Arthur M. Anderson beginning in the late 80's. He said every time they pass over where the Fitz went down, they rang the ship's bell 29 times.
RIP to all sailors lost in the Great Lakes.
@Robert Stallard The Anderson had a special connection to the Fitz. I take it you didn't know that.
Are you foolish enough to suggest they should acknowledge every wreck on their voyage?
@Robert Stallard I think they said about 6000 for all the Great Lakes 550 for superior alone.
“Superior they say never gives up her dead, when the gales of November come early..”
@Robert Stallard You do realize the connection between those two ships, yeah? The Anderson was right behind her when she went down and essentially sailed right over the two halves of the Fitz while the men in her engine room could very well have still been alive for a few more minutes at the bottom of the lake. Many ships, I’m told, ring their bells with respect as they sail over the wreck.
@Robert Stallard what a weird thing to criticize. It’s like saying “that’s so unfair that you visit only your grandma in the cemetery and don’t lay flowers on all other graves”. Get a grip.
Came back to rewatch and say rest in peace to Gordon Lightfoot, artist of the song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. He was born on November 17, 1938 in Orillia, Canada and passed away on May 1, 2023 in Toronto, Canada.
R.I.P, Gordon. Thanks for the music.
And let’s not forget about the heroes of the Titanic
That day, the bell of the Mariner's Church of Detroit rang 30 times, 29 for the crew, once for Gordon Lightfoot
Honestly, if I died on that ship, I don’t think I’d mind having a guest over occasionally.
Yes Respectfull "Visitation" To The Boat is same as a Cemetary To pay respects
Eric Southard: you don't know the fame of the song, there would be people ALL over it.
@@Nomadcreations The question is only: Who controls that the visitation is respectful?
On a cemetary, you have staff and maybe a guard, but under water?
@@johannageisel5390 didn’t she say in the video that there were sensors near the wreck that alerted the coast guard of illegal divers?
@@KlaxontheImpailr Ah, right.
Yes, one could keep those and require everybody who wants to dive down there to register beforehand.
But still, somebody would have dive down with them to check whether or not the visitors behave respectfully.
Portuguese here. Our media has, for more than 500 years, been mostly about our sorrowful relationship with the sea. Theres a line that read " oh salty sea, how much of you is made of Portuguese tears". A lot of respect to these people.
I was taught that the meaning of saudade, a word hard to translate into English, is built into the maritime history of Portugal. The longing for beloved sailors who may never return.
@@hopsiepikeI’ve only heard of that word because of a song from Resident Evil 2.
I am a former Great Lakes sailor... beginning my career some 4 years after the Fitz and continuing (with some interruptions) up until late 1997.Whenever we were in the vicinity of her grave there was always a somber and eerie feeling attached to it .
The uu
I live near Lake Superior and a lot of people underestimate it. Sadly at least a few people die each year (mostly tourists). One year there was a guy who got pulled out by the current and got swept to an island with an abandon light house. At the light house he found some old food and a life vest. After waiting awhile to see if a boat would happen to come by he decided to frick it and try to swim back. Astonishingly he swam miles back to shore and he was a heavy dude too!
33 or more die where I live on the Southern shore of Lake Michigan. It's warm and full of Indiana, Ohio and Illinois tourists, and they just don't get it. It is usually a tourist who dies. They go in while I won't unless I have a boogie board and life jacket. I warn them, but they look at me with deer-in-the-headlights eyes. They'll even walk on the jetties with a stroller and baby while the waves are washing over the cement. WTH! You wouldn't get me out there!
@@concettaworkman5895 Ohio lake erie resident here. I keep telling tourists not to go into erie because of the constant riptides and deadly algae. Also the intense rogue waves during storms.
Especially with how quickly a storm can sneak up on you in erie.
I lived very near Lake Michigan in Navy Housing in North Chicago Illinois from 1977 to 1980 and storms do come up hard and fast and can last from minutes to days.
Beautiful tribute and very informative, thank you!
I just heard from my nephew that 29 bells are rung to honor the dead of The Edmond Fitzgerald when Gordon Lightfoot recently died, they rang the bell 30 times to pay tribute to his life and to honor his death, which gives me the chills, RIP
Edmund*
I got the chills too and got misty-eyed.
The bell in the mariners cathedral in Detroit yes
That is beyond kind by that church. Thank you.
Dude's talking about wanting to dive the site but also respecting the graves reminds me of something an archaeologist said about its being very difficult to distinguish between archaeology and grave robbing.
There’s that, but people like to visit their family’s graves, clean the headstones and leave flowers. That would be difficult to do when those graves are underwater. I think maybe for John that would be part of the draw, too, rather than grave robbery/archeology.
Yes, exactly…thank u Xaviotes Harris 👍🏼
The idea that a dead person has a infinite monopoly on the land they died on/were buried on is one the most ridiculous things humanity has ever fabricated. Dead people are dead. Its that simple. They don't own anything. To believe they do is purely immature and unreasonable. A truly responsible person understands the earth is for the future generations and nobody else. Graves are an archaic tradition that needs to go away.
@@URBANSPCMN plus there's the worms...ick!
@@URBANSPCMN I don't see that case being made anywhere that doesn't have historical significance. These people have living relatives, it's not at all absurd that their gravesite be protected this way while they remain in living memory
My dad is originally from Williamston Michigan and when I was very little he would sing me that song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. I was maybe three or four and I became absolutely obsessed with the song and with shipwrecks in general. My dad always nurtured my love of history, and now I’m a Holocaust historian!
You might enjoy a video about Princess Alice of Greece The Queens Mother In Law. Who hid a family of Jewish refugees in her home durring WWII. The video made by Reel Truth History is available on TH-cam & its full title is Princess Alice: The Queens Mother In Law. It's worth checking out.
Amethyst that sounds interesting! I’ve heard of her, I believe she is honored at Yad Vashem
I grew up on the north shore of Lake Erie, born in the late 70's, and my mum was naturally a *huge* Gordon Lightfoot fan. The one song that really stuck with me was "Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald", between that haunting melody and realising that it was about a *real* ship that really sank... Still living on the Lakes; now I go wreck diving at least once a summer, if I can manage it. It's an amazing way to get right up close to local history!
My mom plays that song from time to time.
Leah Sauter--Gordon Lightfoot sang it, and it was quite popular at the time. It's based on true events. The Native American tribes who lives around the 5-lake area of the Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior) had legends of Lake Superior, which they called Gitchee Gumee (think "the Song of Hiawatha" by Longfellow). "By the shores of Gitchee Gumee, By the shining "Big-Sea-Water"...In the Ojibwe language, the lake is called Gitchigumi, meaning "big water".
Does anyone else get the impression that she would be awesome to have around at a party? The conversations would be just legendary.
Mortician soirees.
oh hell yah
James Walker bold of you to assume you’d be invited
@James Walker you must be fun at parties.
@@abortedphoenix that would imply that someone would want to invite him
I went to Pearl Harbor in early 2000's and when I went on the Arizona memorial, I felt like I was standing on top of a tomb and felt very solemn. I believe the 29 sunken crew of the Fitz should be as respected as those who lost their lives on December 7, 1941. Respect the lost.
I could never go to places like that or whitefish point or most memorials. I'm so sensitive to energy and spirits. I went to the somerset 911 memorial and I was bawling my eyes out. It was like I was suffocating in pain and sadness. I had to stay in the car with the AC on instead of going to the impact sight with my mother and aunt.
"The people who live there call her the biggest and baddest of the lakes."
Superior, if you will...
She must be good at being a tour guide too then.
and thats why its called the Superior ...
I love how the “j” in your pfp looks like ن
@@maloo538 Thanks for noticing! It's actually supposed to be an Arabic N. www.i-am-n.com/
I live here! It’s an amazing place to live!
I'm from Denmark and out of curiosity I discovered that Lake superior is almost twice as large as my country! The lake is around 82.000 square kilometres while my country is almost 43.000 square kilometres!
All in all - that is a freaky big lake!
It also has an average depth of 489 feet (149 meters).... average
A lake could swallow up our country? By the gods, we really are a tiny speck on the map
13,000 there was a sixth lake called Lake Aggasiz. It was bigger than ALL the other great lakes combined!
There was a sixth lake thirteen thousand years ago, Lake Aggasiz that was bigger than all of the other great lakes *combined*.
As someone who has grown up in Michigan, the power of the Great Lakes is astounding
She is such a great story teller. I learn something with every video and in such an entertaining way.
Is it just me, or does she make you think of Abby Sciuto (from NCIS)?
She is. I would love for her to visit The Five Fishermen Restaurant 1740 Argyle St. in Halifax NS. I have a feeling the dead would wish to speak to her. She is a great listener as well as speaker.
@@mike03a3 it's the bangs. I like em
Gotta admit, she's rather cute for a person in her profession.
@@jfilesgraphics Trust me if it was about looks I would've clicked away a long time ago. But her story telling is very captivating which is a first for me, because I dont like listening to stories. Many people just scream for attention and likes (and they use their looks to persuade you to stay on their channel). But with her, I got none of these vibes, she's just down to earth and tells the stories at the best of her abilities. Which is what I like about her. No pretentiousness even when she advertises she blends most of her ads so well with the story it barely breaks the flow of the story.
Can we all give a R.I.P. to Lightfoot. What a great song that gave us all wonder of the lakes! Rest in peace
I love how interactive and educational Caitlin’s videos are. It’s like Reading Rainbow but for death.
Clare Flattery honestly her having a show on pbs would be awesome
Like butterflies in the sky!
Like corpses in the ocean ..🎼🎹
Omgggg yesss!!! So good!!
The best metaphor ever. That should be the tagline of the show
I used to be irrationally terrified of dead bodies a few years ago, so I began to research decomposition and mortuary science to educate myself on them. Through this knowledge, I’ve lost this fear and replaced it with interest! You were who I first watched and I’m so thankful for my fear (ironically) because I discovered your videos! Thanks for what you do, we love you!
It's amazing how the spectrum of emotions work inside our brain and minds. Fear is at the same spectrum but at the opposite end from fascination. I was an arachnophobic and now that I've trained my mind, I find these creatures absolutely fascinating! They're more afraid of humans than we're from them, and jumping spiders are adorable pets, I have one in an enclosure I captured the other day in my garden. Her name is Petrova and she is basically a cat in a shape of a tiny spider.
@Kit Coty she deserved her name in radiology terminations because she was fearless and made history with stuff no human being could comprehend and would never want to be around for an hour, at the time. She's fascinating as well.
Me too!! Well said!!
That’s how I got over my fear of death and seeing a Body. Although I’ve always been fascinated with the Science behind an Autopsy and finding out how someone passed. It was never something I wanted to put out there or dare googling cause of the fear or seeing it. Now, it’s all I read about and watch on TH-cam Lol
I’m thankful of finding her channel ❤️🖤
@@Puddingcup110 You want to know something particular about death that comforts me? I get to work with corpses constantly as I'm a makeup artist. But I don't have any family left, and at all events I refused myself to look at my dear lost parent laid in a coffin. But I used to work very well with bodies I didn't know personally.
I was 14 and going to high school in Ironwood, MI when the Fitz went down. I remember the storm and the mixture of collective grief and a kind of lack of surprise. That's Lake Superior. She does that. She'll "reach out and grab ya" even when you aren't in the water. I have a very vivid memory of fishing from the breakwater at Black River Harbor north of Ironwood. Within a few minutes it went from a decent day to waves over the breakwater. I'd run the rocks back to shore and looked back to see water covering where I'd been fishing. Also got scolded good by my folks for collecting my gear. As a river canoe guide years later one August we camped on the shore at the end of the Bois Brule. We weren't near the water, but the spectacular storm well out on the Lake turned south suddenly, demolished our camp, and was gone. Total time? No more than fifteen minutes from calm to calm.
Sorry to go on. Clearly an evocative film. Thank you for both the detail and the sensitivity of your presentation.
It's truly amazing that such events could happen and do happen with the fickle gitche gumee. I grew up hearing stories and being read bedtime stories like 'the gulls of the edmund fitzgerald'. None of it sounded quite believable in lieu of sounding more like the boogieman. My parents were both michigan natives born and raised and that statement of "That's lake superior. She does that. She'll 'reach out and grab ya' " was like I was a kid listening to my parents all over again. After repeated visits I have come to understand it's not really the urban myth it sounds like with out seeing her. Lake Superior is beautiful to look at but damn if she doesn't have an attitude.
The waves look like those my grandparents have pictures of from Ireland, angry and dark. Like if you said or looked at them funny, they’d snap back harder.
As someone who 1) is ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED of deep water, 2) has a healthy respect for the dead/ corpses, and 3) lives exactly one (1) block away from one of the Great Lakes.... Lake Superior is my literal nightmare. Edit to say RIP to John's Uncle John. It must be absolutely awful to die like that and it must be awful to lose a loved one like that, especially when it was their last voyage. I hope Uncle John and the crew are at peace.
i live like dead center of michigan and i have a rlly bad tendency to like , normalize the lakes coz for us they're a thing michigan has , but they're not as constant , and then i see smth like this n i'm like oh yeah they are fuckin batshit huh.
It's not a big deal because people have died everywhere on this earth, people pass over gravesites every day and you don't even know it and people take pictures. And I really don't think the people that have passed away really care about the site and they died well before their bodies hit the floor of the lake. People need to lighten up.
@@JohnnyBGood11 How about you do you and let other people feel what they feel? 🤷🏻♀️
@@Banichi04 People today overuse the word feel or my feelings who cares...people say "I feel it should be grave site", I say who cares those people are not there that died and who cares what you feel.
I think it was their “last voyage” because it sank, not because it was the last time it was to go out.
The phrase _"To go down with the ship"_ Means that even in the most dire of circumstances, your loyalty is unshaken.
The Captain of the Fitzgerald, held his composure in the face of death, and that's absolutely remarkable.
All my respect to the fallen and their families.
Absolutely. I couldn't imagine facing your death like that. It's incomprehensible.
Also, because if you radio for an SOS, anyone who shows up, can instantly claim salvage rights. Meaning, anything of value floating in the water, or in the ship (if they reach it) is up for grabs, if the Captain of a distressed ship leaves the boat. If the Capt goes down with it, it can't be salvaged right away. "To go down with the ship" was often encouraged by the company that owned the vessel.
@Harry Lime You should look into maritime salvage law from back in the day,.
@@mikeborsum2953
Why don't you cite a little of it here, do it doesn't look like you're talking out your ass.
Some savage comments here!
I live right on Lake Superior in Minnesota. I just don't mess with it. We've got more than 10000 other lakes, no reason to play a dangerous game
Yup, when I went by to visit. I looked out over the water and had the feeling the lake was bad luck.
She’s a mighty beast she is
I go for swims in some dangerous waters because when I visit in the summer I swim no matter what big waves or calm
I live a couple hours from lake superior and the one time I swam in it I ended up get pummeled by waves not that far from shore. If I'd hit my head I easily could've drowned, wouldn't recommend going into the lake lol.
@@redforman9217 cool guy alert 📢
I think the biggest misnomer is “Lake” for all the Great Lakes. They’re REALLY inland seas.
The only reason the Great Lakes are called "lakes" and not "seas", compared to the Red Sea and the Black Sea (which is an inland sea) is that they contain freshwater, not salt water.
CrunchyFrog That does makes sense. But, They’re just so big! Like a sea.
Lake Baikal in Russia, too.
The usage o teh English word "lake" always means fresh water. I can't help wonder if the English were aware of the Great Lakes a thousand years earlier, they may have come up with another term. For I must agree with Mango. Technically, they are "lakes" by the customary usage of the word, but by common sense, the are in fact inland seas.
@Anne Frank ah, so the Pacific is a sea now and the Caspian Sea isn't?
My grandfather was a first mate on these freighters for three decades, retiring in 1990 as one of the most popular and well loved sailors in the entire Kinsman fleet. His ship went out in this storm and they hugged the shoreline rather than take the lanes in the middle of the lake, obviously surviving. He died in 1999 after spending the decade as a loving grandfather and philanthropist to many struggling families in the area. Gordon Lightfoot’s song played at his funeral.
I was stationed at Duluth AFB when this happened . The weather was so bad that day that the base was on minimum manning with most people told to stay home. I was watching TV with some of my fellow officers in the BOQ when an emergency broadcast interrupted the show: All crew members of the Coast Guard ship Woodrush were being called to go out on a rescue mission. Here we were, forbidden to drive less than a mile to work and there they were being sent out on stormy Lake Superior to rescue people if they could. "You have to go out. You don't have to come back," is a common Coast Guard saying. I will never forget that storm or the bravery of the Coast Guardsmen stationed at Duluth on that day.
Man, Coasties are a whole other breed of human. There is no other way to explain how they willingly run into some of the crazy shit they do on a daily basis.
I live in Detroit, and had summer jobs at the steel mill where the Edmund Fitzgerald delivered the loads of ore. I saw the ship several times, when it came into port it was An Event. There are still churches in Detroit that do memorial services on the anniversary of the day the ship was lost, although now extended to remember all those who died in shipwrecks on the Great Lakes.
The Anderson is still in service, I've seen her several times.
Back when I lived in the area, I used to pass the Old Mariner's Church every time I crossed the border into Detroit. I even went to a few of the remembrance services there, and stood in silence while the bell tolled 29 times. That was powerful.
Yes, I remember hearing stories about the Edmund Fitzgerald and hearing the sad songs sang at bars growing up in Michigan. I never got to see it, though.
I used to live in Port Huron and loved seeing the various shipwreck sites in Lake Huron along the “thumb” of Michigan.
"The lake hates you and wants you to die." The best advice I ever got about Lake Superior.
$hit you could have said that about the Stable Flies of the upper peninsula of Michigan & Ontario. But the flies only want your blood, all of it...
No, the lake loves you, and keeps what she loves. By any means necessary.
It is pure human conceit and arrogance to think that the lake even acknowledges your insignificant presence in the universe.
I think it's more accurate to say the Lake gives absolutely zero fucks about you and whether you live or die. Do you care about a mite living on your skin? Do you even notice when you squash it? Probably not!
@@sigvar6795 Not so much conceit and arrogance as desperation and fear imo, but you know, Jung works too lol.
DENIAL, is the word I`m looking for ;)
You forgot that they cut out her bell and replaced it with a replica with the names of the crew. The original bell is at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. I went there when I was a kid, back during my shipwreck fascination phase
She mentions this at approximately the 28:30 mark, and the bell was shown earlier in the video at the museum.
I visited that museum as a kid too! Very cool place
It breaks my heart that it was John's uncle and the captain's last voyage before retirement. I can't imagine being their families and how crushing that news would be.
The great lakes are absolutely no joke. I was in Cleveland for my best friend's wedding and the high winds coming off lake erie blew my car all over the road on the highway. Just being around them can be super dangerous.
Even an hour away from the tip of Lake Michigan we're constantly feeling the effects. Lake effect snow, heavy ass rain, etc. I cant imagine what living near it is like.
Yeah Lake Erie is no joke.
Yeah. I remember one ice storm off Lake Ontario that knocked out half of Toronto's electricity for close to a week, over the Christmas holiday. Temperatures were around -20 C, and emergency warming shelters were set up so people wouldn't freeze to death in their own homes. I was out of town, but my BFF/roommate took in 3 of our friends who didn't have power so they would literally *not die* at their own place. Lake effect weather is nuts!
I live on Lake Erie and it’s amazing and scary at the same time when a storm comes through. The waves are no joke!
The great lakes are really inland seas, not to be messed with. I was living in Cleveland at the time the Fitz went down. Freaked me out for years after; this has renewed that feeling, even though I now live in the middle of Texas.
I just wanted to say, I've been terribly necrophobic since I was little. My fear isn't really about the corpses, but death itself, for just thinking about myself and loved ones dying is enough to trigger panic attacks. Whenever I have to attend to a funeral, I need to take walks around the cemetery with my mother to calm down and avoid an attack.
I stumbled on your channel a few years ago, and while at first I was a bit iffy about this kind of content, your charisma and passion really got me hooked. Since then, watching your videos has been incredibly helpful in controlling my phobia. I'm now quite fascinated by the topics you cover regardless of the fact it's a discussion about death, and watching you talk about this with so much passion just brings a smile to my face. Now, while I still struggle with funerals, I can talk about death without spiraling into a breakdown, and handle my anxiety better in such situations. I can't thank you enough, Caitlin.
Lily, you are very strong and brave to even go to funerals. I cannot. I just cannot. I have not attended any funerals of any loved ones since the 1980s. God bless you for struggling on through. You are an inspiration.
Same here! I think it's very common. I mean, fearing the unknown, and death, is completely natural. Yes, we take it a bit further, but I think more people do than we think.
I have the same problem started having panic attacks at 7. Another one I can't handle is space put a wall up,what's behind it, so on & so on. It never stops almost makes me sick. Imthinkmthevmain factor for me is not knowing.
@@marythomson7931 That's interesting. My phobia started at 7 too, mainly due to the death of my grandma. Until then it never fully registered in my head the true meaning of someone just... disappearing from my life. So when it finally clicked, I couldn't handle it.
It's so messed up that people are upset over death, and yet literally pay for and have it in their homes. It's hypocritical. www.watchdominion.com
Just look at that documentary.
I really love how Caitlyn has presented this, it was so respectful, and caring.
And the beauty in sharing the names of the crew at the end, made me teary eyed.
I grew up in MN and spent time in Duluth each summer..
The Edmund Fitzgerald has always fascinated me since the wreck. I've read and watched everything I can find about it.
I saw Gordon Lightfoot perform The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald for the very first time. He said he felt that he had perform it for the first time to a MN audience. By the end of the song there wasn't a dry eye in the room including Gordon Lightfoot as he responded to our response and he struggled to finish the song.
Thanks for this excellent coverage .
👋i hope you're safe over there? I hope this year brings happiness prosperity love and peace 💞❤️🕊️🕊️ all over the world! Happy New year 🎆 🙏🌍
I'm originally from Canada currently living in California ☀️☀️and you where are you from if i may ask?💭
I used to see the Fitz when she docked at Jones Island, Milwaukee.
We have also a quite well-preserved corpse in a cold lake in Germany: In January 1964, a man crossed the frozen Königssee in his oval-window VW Beetle to visit someone. On his return in the night he apperently did an unvoluntary donut, lost orientation (6 V headlights) and drove straight to Falkensteinwand (Falkenstein Wall) where the lake wasn't frozen. The car sank with it's driver. 30 years later the driver was discovered during an unmanned submarine dive. He was lying beside the VW Beetle in a depth of 120 m, and both were in good condition. Both driver and his faithful vehicle are still lying in place, and his relatives decided, that this should his grave.
All Germans are welcome residents in Michigan. Most of our ancestors actually came from Germany up in the northern prefectures. You guys would love Frankenmuth
@@rafmonkey96 Happy German American Day!
Thanks for sharing this story. 👍
@@rafmonkey96 My Brother lives in Michigan and when I visited, he and his wife took us to Frankenmuth! The food was fantastic! The people were very friendly too! I would love to go back. Love those memories! GOD bless
if I drown please someone get my body. yikes.
From Michigan, all three lakes are not to be “played” with. They rarely get warm. Superior is always cold.
The lakes are "warm" in a relative sense. Been swimming in Lake Michigan during the summer months as a kid and you just accept that it is whatever temp it is. :)
Have swam in both northern parts of Lakes Michigan and Huron, and they are quite lukewarm in August. How soon the water becomes tolerable in summer depends on how much they get iced over in winter, and since the 80s, it hasn't been very often that they get to 75% ice-cover or more.Last winter I doubt that any of the Great Lakes had more than just shore ice. Too mild of a season.
Went swimming in Lake Superior, can confirm that it’s fucking freezing balls.
From Wisconsin; don’t we have 5 lakes?
@@adrienkopish3220 yeah, but only 3 really touch Michigan. Theres a tiny scrap of lake Erie, but...
In My Humble Opinion
Theres nothing wrong in visiting a grave. As long as thats all you do.
I totally agree! I love walking through old graveyards, especially the kind where the deceased was born in like 1870 or something. Every year (since Covid) my family on my mom's side (which is large) stand on Grandpa's grave and toast him with a shot of whiskey. And then we get drunk and tell stories about grandpa, and my dad who doesn't drink drives us all back to the farmhouse, lol. It's a wonderful ritual, and I'm sure Grandpa would have loved it that we were having so much fun for/with him =)
@@cassuttustshirt4949 Graveyard walking is the best. Nice and peaceful and there's never anybody in the older ones. Here in Massachusetts its not unusual to come across graves from the 1600s
@@sstills951 Holy shit! That's awesome!
@@cassuttustshirt4949 There was a graveyard near the University of Massachusetts that I would walk through to get home. Its appeal was that it was a forest setting - most of it was graves within trees. I had a class that got out at night. My friend said he was driving home and decided to look for me walking but couldn't see me on the main road. I said "Oh that's because I cut through the cemetery" My roommates were appalled that I would walk through a graveyard at night. If you think about it though, there's probably not a safer area.
@@sstills951 I've always found cemeteries to be relaxing. They're very tranquil places. My parents used to go for after dinner walks at the nearby cemetery when my sister and I were young, so that was my introduction. Didn't find out they were supposed to be scary until several years later, so they never were.
I remember visiting a New England cemetery with my parents and grandparents once. We came across a huge monument to a woman buried in the 1600s. Her husband was lamenting her death at length. As we were standing around the grave, my grandma started to smile. Dad asked what could possibly be amusing about this, and she pointed out that he wasn't buried with her. We found him buried with his second wife and eight children. A good reminder that life goes on and happiness can return.
Lake MIchigan is also a beast. In one week in October, 1929, she took 55 lives from two ships that sank in gales within a few miles of Milwaukee.
"Almost 50 years later..."
Damn 💔, I keep thinking about the 70s as 30 years ago.
RIP to those who lost their lives in the lake.
Same
Amen...
Also same. For some reason my brain just auto associates 20** as 2000
The 1970's were a long time ago. :(
Dang, me too . . .
It’s almost time, to be done.
Years back in 1987 I was dating this lovely lady here in California, we had been seeing each other for about 3 1/2 months when one night that I was staying at her place she received a phone call from someone. While she was talking to this person she asked me to bring this plastic tub out of her room so she could go through papers that were in it while she talked. There were tons of photos in the plastic bin as well, and one of them was a photo of the Edmund Fitzgerald on the bottom of Lake Superior.
It turned out that her older brother was one of the crew that had gone down with the ship, and the phone call was about the possibility of retreiving the bodies from the ship. All of the crew's remains were present inside the ship except for one set of remains that had wound up outside on the lake bed, (I assume that the person in question was most likely one of the bridge crew & was somehow thrown free of the ship as it struck bottom). This corpse has been mentioned elsewhere over the years so I'll make no more mention of it. She did however, show me the photos of their bodies in the condition that they were in at that point in time & it was somewhat bizarre as they looked like humanoid wax figures with clothing on. It wasn't creepy or gross in any way, they just looked odd. She knew exactly which one her brother was by the clothes he was wearing in the photos
The upshot of this is that the locations of all 29 bodies in both the bow & stern sections are known & at that time it was said that the bodies had all gone through the process of Adipocerication, but if all of the families wished it they could retreive the remains, but it would be really expensive to retreive them & the families would all have to come up with something like $250,000.00. That's when they decided to leave them where they were & began the legal proceedings to prohibit any more diving expeditions to the Fitzgerald. I believe that the ruling came through for that in 1995 but I can't be sure. We only dated for about 2 more months & she moved back home to Michigan. But I truly hoped she was, and continues to be okay, because after that evening there were times that the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald was all that she could talk about.
Wow, I hope she is ok, too!
Cool story
Wow such a dope story. I got chills reading it. I want to see the pictures so bad! I was hoping the video would reveal A snap.
Fascinating story, thank you for sharing this.
Sounds like by you lending a sympathetic ear(judging by your comment you seem to have) she was able to process those feelings and heal. Sometimes all you need is someone to listen to you get it all out.
I go to school right off Lake Superior in Duluth MN and almost every year a body or two shows up in the icy waters. She’s beautiful but she’s to be respected for sure.
Must be terrifying to see.
I agree, Caitlyn sure is. 👀
Oh, that's just Minnesota. The Mississippi kills a bunch of people too. It's to be expected in a place where hanging out on ice is a normal activity.
When I was a kid, I was so ugly, I'd ask my dad to go outside and play on the ice. He said, "Wait till it gets warmer".. Rodney Dangerfield
Part of living in Minnesota is having bodies wash up on the lakeshores 👀
This tragedy would have been forgotten long ago had it not been for Gordon Lightfoot. I hope people know that. He is one of my heros (listening since 1969).
He got great songs that’s for sure..
Except for those of us who are born and raised in Michigan. I was raised on the story. The cook was supposed to be my godfather. Later on, I worked on the freights.
Not by some of us.
@Kristen Irwin & @indiejen56
Sorry, I meant for the rest of the world, not those directly involved.
I can say that most people that live in Michigan are very aware of it. Not everyone learns about it from the song.
"The Lake? She was... Having a moment." Yeah, that sounds about right, pretty much on brand for Lake Superior.
Your Wayward Destiny that part had me in stitches 😂😂😂😂 such a great way to put it
Lake Superior is ALWAYS having a moment. She doesn't ever NOT have moments.
@@ThePhantomSafetyPin She lives in the moment.
You were at Lake Superior!?!? And I missed it!? 😭😭😭😭😭😭
Also: the priest the song mentions who rang the bells for the Edmund Fitzgerald
That's the priest who married my parents 😁
Was he Father Ingalls? I met him when I visited Old Mariners' around 1997 and want to get my memories straight!
@@waynejones205 yep, that's him, my parents got married at Mariners in Detroit
@@3katfox I wasn't a Mariner, but having navigated the highway, he let me ring the PUT-IN-BAY bell! Thanks and very belated Congratz to your Parents :)
Kat Fox, I know his son Richard Jr.
The Gordon Lightfoot song is a lament, not an attempt to glorify death. The music video I watch concludes with photos of every crew member. The song is so well written that it doesn't lose its emotional punch, no matter how often I hear it.
Part of the tragedy that grips us is that the Fitz was so close to safety, with such an experienced and professional crew. (I believe a couple of the junior positions were held by younger men.)
.. as a musician 🎶 I did the "wreck" for many years, Its strum is brutal, and it is a good song for last call, cuz your arms are trashed and sore....as a blue water sailor the song always gets to my heart....
.. as a musician 🎶 I did the "wreck"
I agree. Gordon is immortalizing a tragedy in song, like musicians have done for ages. It feels more like a tribute to the people who died than an insult.
I'm glad she pointed out that he donated a wreath for the consecration.
@@timothybelgard-wiley4823 q
I am a yooper. Even though I was born years after the Fitz went down, and even as a child before I even heard the story, I still cry whenever I hear the song.
As unimaginable as it is if you've ever been out sailing on a lake when the wind comes up you get a real rush and a real respect for water. The ocean is huge but the Lakes can be just as violent.
Never been to Lake Superior but I have been to Lake Michigan and spent a lot of time at Tahoe. Sometimes the conditions on these lakes could easily fool a person into believing they are at sea if they didn’t know better.
I've never seen the Great Lakes. I've lived my life alongside the Pacific Ocean (I don't see what's so pacific about it). Watching recordings of storm conditions over the Great Lakes, It wouldn't take much to convince me they behaved just like oceans.
Grew up in Michigan. The Great Lakes are basically freshwater oceans. Not to be trifled with.
@@silva7493 the ocean waves roll. The waves on the Great Lakes come at tou from multiple directions. Salties get seasick on the lakes.
@@nancyjanzen5676I get seasick on both 😂
I remember visiting the Grand Canyon when i was a little girl and was fascinated with the fact there is an average of 15 accidental deaths a year. I think that could be a fun idea for one of your future travel videos. I really enjoy your personal footage of the places your teaching us about. I think For Lunar New Year you would do a great video on the Chinese railroad and talk about the people who died and where buried close to were they passed and kept going.
THIS
I lived and worked at the Grand Canyon for three years. You should read Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon. It’s all about deaths in and around the Canyon. Thoroughly fascinating read.
When my husband was driving us thru the Grand Canyon he started screaming and pumping the brakes. The jerk.
Nancy Fahey 😂 That would be terrifying
I remember visiting the grand canyon when I was 9, and I tripped over at the edge and my camera was dangling and nearly slipped over , luckily I only got a graze and a broken camera lol
Well Caitlin, in addition to your talents as a mortician, writer, public speaker, youtuber, and shampoo hair model, I think we can now add 1930s pulp fiction writer to the list. You have a real knack for purple prose!
Makeup guru aswell. Her corpse wax vid and poisonous everyday pre 20th centry makeup tutorial are a fav.
when he talked about his aunt who was probably so excited for her husband to finally retire so she could be with him more :(((
That would be his aunt excited about her father coming home as it was his great uncle who was on board. Even more sad.
as a wisconsinite whose grandparents are from the ashland area, it’s always fun seeing other people discover how powerful the great lakes are, especially superior! we grew up hearing stories about all the shipwrecks, as well as the respect we had to have for the lake. there’s a reason it’s called Gichigami, we have to respect it or it won’t respect us
I live on Lake Michigan. I was 22 when the Fitz went down. I’m 67 now and still tear up when thinking about it. I don’t understand the connection but it’s a very very real.
There doesn't need to be a direct connection for you to feel empathy and compassion for those lost, and those affected by the loss. It truly is very, very real. It means you're human, with feelings.
She's very sacred to us Anishinaabe, the Natives whose ancestral land sits around her.
Traditionally wouldnt even go into it to swim out of respect and reverence.
@Gillian Walton even prior to Europeans arriving the tribes felt that way. They associated the lake as a place of spirits, also legends of serpents in it helped. Lol
Mishipeshu is not to be trifled with.
@@bobbarron6969 Agreed! Don't fuck with Shipshi! (Potawatomi name for Mishipeshu)
I grew up in Marquette, Mi, which is right on the shore of lake superior. you should check out the number of deaths at Presque Isle. The lake demands sacrifices, and people continually feel the need to challenge her. We grew up swimming in Superior, cliff diving off Black Rocks at presque isle, but people drown there almost every year.
Me too!!
I was thinking the same. From Michigan also.
I miss it so much!
It’s always interesting to me to hear about people growing up diving/swimming in lakes like this. Mostly because I’ve always wondered if they know they’re swimming in a graveyard!
I miss Marquette.
When I saw Lake Superior for the first time, I kept asking my cousin are you sure that’s a lake? It looks like the ocean! It was incredible. The Gordon Lightfoot song did pop into our heads. 😢
My father-in-law was a crewman on the Fitz in the 60s, he remembers John and describes him as "a truly nice man"
Woah, Nice in law, best in law XD
Really cool
And you end it with an actual in memoriam of the gentlemen you've discussed. Classy. Very classy.
She's very familiar with death
I too am terrified of things “looming” beneath the water. Dead or alive.
Edit - bless knowing all my fellow folk horrified by the ocean
Me too!
Afraid of structures underwater. So...shipwrecks, WW2 planes, ancient cities...creeps me out.
Me too! Anything looming underneath the water, whether in a lake or open water just frightens me. I’m also afraid of finding statues under water. Like those in the Philippines.
Thalassophobia is a good phobia. It’s real, shit will kill you.
I used to go on rowboats and crew boats on Lake Washington back in college, and seeing the seaweed under the water always scared the crap out of me
I grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario Canada on Lake Superior. My Daughter at 3 years old got out early one morning and went down to the shore and slipped on a slippery rock and fell in. She woke me up crying to tell me she had just fallen in. I marched her back down to the shore and had her apologize to the lake for the disrespect and at the same time to thank the lake for sparing her life that day.
I bet that showed that showed her 3 yr old self. Wtf
@@Krysanya Back at you WTF. It's about showing respect to something far greater that yourself.
Wisconsinite here and even Lake Michigan is no joke... there were so many death my senior year of hs from people night swimming and being taken with the waves...
cupcake shortcake I can’t swim in Lake Michigan, I just constantly keep thinking about sunken ships and dead bodies when I do
yeah I was born in Milwaukee (but grew up in Oklahoma and still visited grandparents and other relatives about every other year) however my mom was born and raised in Racine which is also along the lake and I also family from Chicago. I'm very familiar with this lake but I never knew it was a dangerous one until I was watching a video about the most terrifying lakes in the world. And that explains why the beach area in Racine was always blocked off and off limits for swimming. It was great climbing on the rocks along the lake though which my cousins and I used to do during the months when its supposed to be one of the most dangerous times to be near it. I had no idea.
From Chicago and always swam in lake Michigan. I didn't know it had any reputation of being dangerous lol
Even in Michigan the majority of Lake Michigan drowning deaths are FIPs. I don't know if they're not taught about the dangers of the lake, or if it's just a lack of common sense?
I grew up in Milwaukee and went to Lake Superior most summers of my youth. I think the scariest thing about Lake Michigan is how grossly dirty and polluted it is. Any water is dangerous, but Lake Superior is much more wild and pristine than Lake Michigan. If you get a chance, I highly recommend visiting it. I am partial to The Porcupine Mountains and Copper Harbor in Upper Michigan also.
As the late great Stan Rogers used to sing:
"Don't take the Lakes for granted.
They go from calm to a hundred knots so fast they seem enchanted."
Hard Yacka Nipper Now you’ve got that song in my head.
Stan Rogers is criminally underrated. His voice and writing are spectacular.
For those who are interested, there is a memorial to Stan Rogers at the Kelso Beach Park amphitheatre in Owen Sound, home of Summerfolk. It's a stone with his name and image that sits at the right side of the stage.
Hard Yacka Nipper 0-100 real fast lol
Facts. I’ve gone swimming in Lake Ontario, which is probably the calmest, and sometimes it can get scary very suddenly. And that’s near the shore
That footage of the ship underwater gives me chills. They haven’t printed enough money yet to get me to dive down there. It makes me nervous just watching the video.
I can't even look at the screen ! Gahhhhhh!
They're printing lots more right now. Maybe it'll be enough to convince you.
Fun fact: there's a word for that kind of fear! It's "submechanophobia"
You may have subarachnophobia (idk how its spelled)
I've never been to Superior, but I've been to her much smaller sister-Erie-and I was in awe of her. I would **never** underestimate her biggest sister.
I've been to Superior, Michigan (multiple times), and Erie. Underestimating any of those lakes is a death scentence.
I had to have a home visit for my dog last week. He was 14 years old and ...my love. Saying goodbye to him was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Your videos helped me so much though.... Thankyou
My condolences on the loss of your beloved.
Oh bless you, I lost my darling girl suddenly and unexpectedly a few months ago, I know exactly what you're going through and the pain youre in right now, sending you a gentle virtual hug ❤
Rest in paradise precious pup ❤🌈☄
I hated to hear about your dog may God bless you and your family. I'm going through the same thing my dog Bigfoot has cancer and it's inoperable and I'm keeping him comfortable now I hate to give him up.
So very sorry.
So sorry. May his memory be a blessing.
One of my college classmates (he was a "nontraditional" i.e. older student) actually had applied for a post on the Edmund Fitzgerald right before the final voyage; he was given a job offer but got an offer welding somewhere else which he took - he said he had balanced out the better pay on the Fitz vs dealing with living on a boat and being away from home (Duluth) for months at a time.
He actually met many of the men who went down that evening, shortly before that final trip. His reaction if Gordon Lightfoot's song came on was something interesting to see if you knew his story.
Yeah, I relate with your classmate. I was a kid in the 70s. My mother and I saw the story break on the evening news. She had to explain that kids just like no longer had a dad. To this very day there are certain songs that remind me of people no longer here. You can see the sadness in my eyes. As a born and bred working man and a second generation driver, there are guys I grew up around that died too young. Like the ore boats of Lake Superior, trucking is inherently dangerous
@@andrewfox1755 I'm a bit younger than you, so for me we had the song playing randomly while I was growing up, and in music class in elementary school a teacher played it and filled us in on the history. I was down in the Twin Cities at the time but that was still close enough for it to be a thing to us; this legend of the lake. Meeting people in later years who were involved was very interesting; including the stories I eventually heard from my grandpa who scheduled the freight trains for the Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range RR - planning movements of empty and full cars all around their network, from mines to taconite plants to the docks. He knew the Fitz well, and had been at the docks while she was loaded on many occasions. My grandpa had a safe career with the DM&IR RR, although we have a few pics of his father, my great-grandpa who lost a hand to a coupler accident; he had a hook.
I grew up in Marquette on the shore of Superior and year in and year out some poor college kids from out of town get into trouble on the break walls to the harbor. Just before I moved away a couple was washed off in a storm and drowned. They found one of them wedged in the rocks under the wall, and they never found the other. The current where they went in goes straight out and it’s really fast and strong.
My uncle was also a captain of a ship like the Fitzgerald, my family would get really anxious come fall time, my grandma would sit by the docks for the whole day when he was due in. The storms are no joke.
I wish I could find the photos I took of the Rine Ice wall from just south of the Coastie Station. It looked like a Black and White photo except for the bright red Coast Guard building in the middle surrounded by 30' a high wall of Rine Ice and what looked like broken up icebergs.
For those not familiar with Marquette, the break wall is a serious of large stones big enough to stick out of the water. The current generated by the waves going by the rocks can sink even the best Olympic simmer.
Because of this, there are huge warning signs at the Marquette beach due to the break wall.
"!!!DANGER!!!"
"UNGUARDED BEACH AREA"
"Unknown hazards may exist including :
- High Waves
- Strong Current
- Deep Water
- Dangerously Cold Water
- Submerged Objects"
"Be aware of your abilities and the conditions before you enter the water"
"When in doubt, DON'T GO OUT!"
This warning is not meant as a challenge. Test the lake and you WILL lose. On the other hand, respect the lake, and learn the locations of the right coves and on a sunny summer day you can find some comfortable 65F-70F water to swim in. The bonus of being on a lake and not the ocean or the gulf means you don't have to worry about sharks, killer whales, sting rays, jelly fish or sea weed. There won't be any off shore oil rigs to spoil the view, either.
I was living up there when that couple got washed out
Well we don't see those boats going down very often...that's why the Edmund Fitz was so famous, because it DOESN'T happen that much.
@@SovereignStatesman Newer ships have more backup systems and frankly weather radar is more accurate which allows ships to dodge bad conditions.
The absolute gut punch of nostalgia I got when The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald kicked in cannot be understated. What a fantastic and fitting song, RIP Gordon.
I'm creeped out too by seeing things looming underwater when I'm paddling... Even something so simple as a boulder or a fallen tree can feel almost intrusive when I pass over them. Seeing a wreck would surely terrify me.
It's gotten so bad for me that even wrapped boats in a marina are creepy. And I was born on april 14th so I have a constant reminder of shipwrecks.
Jsuis14 you’re not the only one scared of things underwater
Even the black lines painted on the bottom of the pool at the YMCA freak me out 😂
Submechanaphobia. There's a subreddit for pictures.
Holy shit i’m not the only one? I get so scared whenever i’m paddling or swimming over something submerged deep in the water-i’m afraid to stand on rocks poking up from the deep, too. It just gives me the creeps, it feels like it’s just going to give out and pull me down or something..
'The Lake, she was...having a moment' is such a great descriptor for the Great Lakes, especially Superior and now im losing it
Hahaha agreed! I live within sight of the shores of lake Michigan and it's fascinating to watch, especially in winter.
She is a moody girl. I've been out there when it's rough and it is not easy
"The sea was ANGRY that day my friends!! - George Costanza
I live on Lake Superior in Wisconsin. She's a majestic beast for sure! 🌊
My great-grandparents lived on Lake Superior and used to listen in on the ships through their radio. They heard the Edmund Fitzgerald go down on that stormy night (presumably via the chatter of the aftermath, since the ship herself never sent a distress call). Because of that, Gordon Lightfoot’s song has always held a special magic for my mom and I. Thank you for exploring this topic with such gravitas.
The Great Lakes are almost misnamed: they are better described as freshwater *oceans*. You have to see it for yourself.
I've swam in every one of them. Great respect for HOMES: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior...
They are, I've been to lake Superior and lake Michigan, they are like oceans
I've seen (and touched) every one of the Great Lakes except Superior,,, they're absolutely massive. It's overwhelming, it makes you feel so small
Inland seas is the term I got from my college professor.
Agree - as someone that grew up oceanside, I didn't take lakes "seriously". Until I flew over Lake Michigan and realized how incredibly huge these lakes really are.
Damn got teary-eyed actually seeing the members of the crew. They weren't just a crew. They were people with families and hopes and dreams and all that. Idk maybe I'm just a crybaby lol
I think the captain knew...he knew they where fucked. And decided to just....accepted the fate of the lake....he accepted as a captain that...He would go down with the ship
@@Silver_wind_1987_ accepted*
@@Pointlesschan oh thanks I'll fix that now!
@@Silver_wind_1987_ you forgot another accepted 😂
@@lilifel thanks I fixed it
My Great Uncle Nolan Church was a crew member and lost his life on the Edmund Fitzgerald. Thank you for your video, your insight and your respect.
Thank you for such a fascinating tale!! I grew up on the coast as well, and the title of “lake” in this regard seems like a misnomer to me, too!! Some of the footage you showed of the insane waves hitting the shore are nothing short of terrifying!! You’re a fantastic storyteller, you kept my attention the entire time, and I was so disappointed that the video was in actuality already over! Thank you again!
See the spot wear the waves break over those high ,black cliffs? Well, those cliffs are 80' high. That was filmed in November of 2021, I belive, along the shore of Northern Minnesota.
I swear if it was a little bit salty, people would be all too happy to call it a sea
A couple years ago my cousin sent pictures of Superior throwing waves onto US 2.
"Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours". That line gives me goosebumps every time I hear that song.
Every time I hear that line I get choked up. I hope those poor men aboard the Fitz were able to find peace in the afterlife.
That line gets me as well.
"As supper time came the old cook came on deck sayin', 'Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya.'/
At 7pm a main hatchway caved in, he said, 'Fellas it's been good to know ya.'"
That line honestly gives me chills.
@Prog MetalDeity - I just got chills reading your post.
That's horrible
Prog MetalDeity...
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
Prog MetalDeity, I'm really close friends with his ("The Old Cook") daughter Pam for over the last 22 years. I've had the honor of being asked by her to ring for her dad at the Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish point, MI in 2010, 11, 13, 14, 15 & 2016.
Lightfoot changed the lyric after the dive that showed the sinking was more likely from a wave driving the bow to the bottom, causing the ship to break in two. The song was released soon after the wreck, and at the time there was a lot of speculation that water got into a hatch that wasn't tightened and sealed to safety standards. That would make it human error, which insurance companies and ship owners like to blame everything on. It was a smear on the deckhands' reputation for a long time. But with the new evidence 20+ years later, Lightfoot made the change in the lyric for public performances. Unfortunately, the one you shared is the one that will go down in history, because he hasn't recorded an updated version.
Me: *clicking on the video because I love her.*
Her: LAKE SUPERIOR.
Me: *looks out window* I live literally five minutes away.
I like your profile picture and username lol. I love finding ARMY who have odd interests like myself. I love her videos so much!
Same here. The lake is boss!
Gus W because they commented that they live near this location, it means they’re making an entire video about themselves? 😂?
I got to visit Lake Superior four times, and each time. I never wanted to leave...
It was just so... ethereal.
I felt the same way, when I got to stand in the Pacific...
I know of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald from Gordan Lightfoot's song. I was always sad and haunted by the story it told. As far as the ship being declared a gravesite and to be protected and preserved, I totally agree. While I find seeing the ship and the artifacts there immensely fascinating, I feel that the men that died there should be left to rest undisturbed and in peace. The ship and the crew should be left alone, protected from those who would plunder the site. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald should be revered and protected as any other grave.
I know someone that dove on an uncharted wreck. He opened a cabin and a body was floating in the room. Had to tell the Coast Guard about it. Marked as a grave site.
Wow, that's crazy! Did he think it had been there a long time? How old did he say the body looked?
I can imagine him screaming bubbles and losing air as the body floated at him when the door opened...makes me shudder.
As a former boat engineer in maine. I understand the sentiment. That being said.... I dont think what has been done is practical or reasonable. The fact of the matter is it's not an actual graveyard. I was taught while working on the ocean. The whole of the waters of the world is a graveyard of many and we should always be mindful and respectful of that.
Makes total sense. People should be respectful of the people whose lives were lost, and their relatives, but laws might be going a bit too far.
My father was a merchant marine captain and retired in 1985. I recall the day the Fitz went down. While I was still pretty young, that was the first time I knew my dads job could be dangerous. My respect and sympathy to the family members of lost men . It was a different era and those men, I’m sure worked so very hard and were eager to see their families . Tough men that took the kids out to pool halls, they just were not used to kids and a Captain was always right , even when he wasn’t . My dad would not talk about the Fitz. It was painful for so many. Let the lost souls remain where they are, it’s a sacred place.
My step-grandfather was a merchant marine and was lost during a bad storm on the Indian Ocean. Since then I have had a phobia of the ocean. After seeing videos of the Great Lakes, they're now on my list of places I'm not likely to visit.
The Laws are not quite as stated in this video. So before you get going do a bit of research. The simplest and most accessible is a Wikipedia search (I used Edmund Fitzgerald as keywords in Google and had instant results).
Two separate sets of legislation cover the issue of "grave site / grave yard". Both are Ontario legislation. The first has to do with disturbance (or survey) of an Archaeological Site. The other to do with disturbance (or profit) from a grave site (Don't. Next of kin have all rights).
There is a 500 metre zone around all shipwrecks (in Ontario waters) that requires a license to enter, but there is nothing else. Sites of major significance are marked by buoys, this helps in administration of the regulation. Alarm buoys apparently don't exist (I can only imagine the headache that would cause the coastguard).
Admiralty Laws cover ownership, loss and claims, and rights of affected parties. The Nation of Registry has jurisdictional rights in such regards. Those laws differ from the laws governing the sites.
@@pxzallen the wikipedia is not a verified source of information. No one fact checks that, but for some reason people are fact checking personal human expression sights. This is a sad fact. The censorship is to the point that people are using the wiki as facts to beat other people down. A somewhat non factorial website to beat down other people's free expression. Its truly sad.
My understanding is the "no diving on the wreck" order also prevented the NTSB from completing their investigation into what sank the /Fitzgerald,/ which I find utterly abhorrent. Yes, I can understand declaring it off limits to recreational divers. But, I am an aviator. When a plane crashes, we try like hell to FIND it, figure out what the HELL went wrong so that we can prevent similar crashes in the future. It is a duty we owe.
I second that opinion. Finding out the truth is really important.
@@tapeworm2291
I wouldn't care if someone dig up my grave, because I'd be dead then (I hope).
Is not only YOU and people in your type of profession. Me too! Jornalist, nvestigations, people who know we need answers. I agree NONE of this places should be off limits. Maybe some laws should say if things can be taken out but to forbit an investigation, eeven discover bodies and conjecturate bringing them to rest in land - were all of them were expecting to return. It's the only circunstances I know that people fight to keep their dead ones were they are. Every other accident or as a result of murder, it doesn't matter if 80 years went by: family still hope to recover remains. So they can burried them. This ones are LUCKY enought to get that wish granted and don't wish to. Also a dead body in water must be a terrible site to see. But if it is frozen probably keeps their physicality intact.
@@tapeworm2291 If you go and investigate a bit about death and graveyards you would come to the conclusion it is not so. This "respect" as diferent shapes trought out the centuries. We (humans) went inside the pyramids and open up their mummies. We have REAL CHILDREN MUMMIES in exibition on museums. Why is that their bodies it's OK and someone's from today are not? Just because no one is alive to remember them by?
Even the dead human body sometimes needs to be explored. If that wasn't the case we would not have what we have today. And this channel on youtube would NOT exist.
Corpses are not someting we should fear seeing. One SHOULD see so to learn.
It's the result of some accident - depending of what motivates you, but I think I am not desrespecting anyone when I go and see up close some graveyard of someone I don't know. Look at someone's picture, look at a preserved head on a jar in some medicine hospital museum or even look at bones in some bone chappel.
@@saschamayer4050 And it may be a needed procedure. One never knows!
If there is suspicion of murder - for example. Your body exumation can sort it out for good. And from that you can catch a serial killer. Wouldn't that be GREAT? A great deed to do after death comes to get ya.
Hey there! Niece of Tom Farnquist here. Thanks for making this really cool and interesting video. I know I'm about four years late to comment, but I have some things to say. Though I am not related to any of the crew members who went down with the Fitz, the story is a big deal to my family, since a lot of us were from the UP of Michigan and Lower Ontario Canada. When I visited the shipwreck museum at Whitefish point, it was really special. My mom and her mom remember the storm that took the Fitz very vividly. We must continue to honor and respectfully tell the stories of those who went down in Lake Superior.