United States Merchant Marine Academy - Midships Yearbook (Kings Point, NY)

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 Ships are to little purpose without skilled Seamen. Richard Hakluyt 7

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And then there were the storms . . The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitchee-Gumee The lake it is said never gives up her dead when the skies of November turn gloomy With a load of iron ore 26,000 tons more than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed when the gales of November came early. The ship was the pride of the American side cornin’ back from some mill in Wisconsin As the big freighters go it was bigger than most with the crew and the captain well seasoned Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms when they left fully loaded for Cleveland And later that night when the ship’s bell rang could it be the North wind they been feeling? The wind and the wires made a tattle-tale sound and the wave broke over the railin’ And every man knew as the captain did too twas the witch of November come stealing The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait when the gales of November came slashing When the afternoon came it was freezing rain in the face of a hurricane westwind When suppertime came the old cook came on deck sayin’, “Fella’s it’s too rough to feed ya” At seven p.m. a main hatchway caved in he said, “Fella’s it’s been good to know ya” The captain wired in he had water cornin’ in and the good ship and crew was in peril And later that night when his lights went out of sight came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay if they’d put fifteen more miles behind her They might have split up or they might have capsized they might have broke deep and took water And all that remains is the faces and the names of the wives and the sons and the daughters Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings in the rooms of her ice-water mansions 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 In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed in the maritime sailors cathedral And the church bell chimed till it rang 29 times for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitchee-Gumee Superior they said never gives up her dead when the gales of November come early Gordon Lightfoot “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” 8