It's hard to imagine on this lovely Autumn day that this was the day 29 years ago that the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sunk to the bottom of Lake Superior, north of Copper Harbor.
She was filled with Taconite and heading to the Detroit river. There were 29 men aboard. They were being followed (as freighters follow routes) by the Anderson who tried to help them navigate. Unfortunately , mother nature took all 29 men to their graves. The names of these men can be found at: http://www.ssefo.com/crew/index.htm
There was a time in my life that I could not listen to Gordon Lightfoot's song about the Edmund Fitzgerald. My (now) husband used to sail on Great Lake freighters. He sailed on the Oglebay-Norton, which is the flag ship of the Oglebay-Norton line. It was constructed in the same time period as the E. Fitzgerald. He has also sailed on ships that ran into the locks and had to be dry docked and fixed. The Fitzgerald had a history of running into the locks, which causes damage.
Pair that with the fact that he told me: "If I was in the engine room (he's a real Engineer...he could run train 
) there is no way I could get to deck and off if the boat started going down" I never felt real great having him out there in storms.
Luckily, my hubby took on land legs and stays on shore. But, I sympathies with all the people who lost their loves ones to that storm, and to the crew of the Anderson (we know a son of one of them men who were on board) who knew that the Fitz was having troubles, but there was nothing that they could do.
So, have a moment of silence today for those families. And, thank the men and women who still are out there working on a boat two months on and one month off bringing ore to our foundries and transporting other goods between ports. If you ever get the chance, go to the Soo locks and see those boats in person. We forget how large the Great Lakes are, until you see this small boat get closer and closer until you realize that it's a 1,000 foot freighter. Quite awe inspiring, indeed.