The SS Edmund Fitzgerald

November 10th marked the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior. I was reminded of this when my social media was flooded by people who did remember and were quoting Gordon Lightfoot's The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The following has been adapted from Wikipedia to provide background.

SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter that sank in Lake Superior during a storm on November 10, 1975, with the loss of the entire crew of 29 men. 

When launched on June 7, 1958, she was the largest ship on North America's Great Lakes. The Edmund Fitzgerald was the first laker built to the maximum St. Lawrence Seaway size, which was 730 feet (222.5 m) long, 75 feet (22.9 m) wide, and with a 25-foot (7.6 m) draft. The vertical height of the hull) was 39 ft (12 m). The hold depth (the inside height of the cargo hold) was 33 ft 4 in (10.16 m).

Edmund Fitzgerald's three central cargo holds were loaded through 21 watertight cargo hatches, each 11 by 48 feet (3.4 by 14.6 m) of ⁵⁄₁₆-inch-thick (7.9 mm) steel. Loading Edmund Fitzgerald with 26,535 t of taconite pellets (a variety of iron ore) took about four and a half hours, while unloading took around 14 hours.

For 17 years, Edmund Fitzgerald carried taconite from mines along the Minnesota Iron Range near Duluth, Minnesota, to iron works in Detroit, Michigan; Toledo, Ohio; and other Great Lakes ports, passing through the Soo Locks (between Lakes Superior and Huron) and St. Clair and Detroit rivers (between Lake Huron and Lake Erie),

A round trip between Superior, Wisconsin, and Detroit, Michigan, usually took her five days and she averaged 47 similar trips per season. The vessel's usual route was between Superior, Wisconsin, and Toledo, Ohio. By November 1975, Edmund Fitzgerald had logged an estimated 748 round trips on the Great Lakes and covered more than a million miles, "a distance roughly equivalent to 44 trips around the world."

Edmund Fitzgerald left Superior, Wisconsin, at 2:15 p.m. on the afternoon of November 9, 1975, under the command of Master Captain McSorley. She was en route to the steel mill near Detroit, Michigan, with a full cargo of taconite ore pellets and soon reached her full speed of 16.3 miles per hour (26.2 km/h). Around 5 p.m., Edmund Fitzgerald joined a second freighter under the command of Captain Jesse B. "Bernie" Cooper, Arthur M. Anderson, destined for Gary, Indiana.

The weather forecast was not unusual for November, and the National Weather Service (NWS) predicted that a storm would pass just south of Lake Superior by 7 a.m. on November 10. At 2:00 a.m. on November 10, the NWS upgraded its warnings from gale to storm, forecasting winds of 65–93 km/h. The NWS later altered its forecast, issuing gale warnings for the whole of Lake Superior. Arthur M. Anderson and Edmund Fitzgerald altered course northward, seeking shelter along the Ontario shore, but sailed directly into the storm at when the wind shifted. Edmund Fitzgerald reported winds of 52 knots (96 km/h; 60 mph) and waves 10 feet (3.0 m) high.

Routes usually taken vs actual trackline

After 1:50 p.m., Arthur M. Anderson logged winds of 93 km/h, wind speeds again picked up rapidly, and it began to snow at 2:45 p.m., reducing visibility; Arthur M. Anderson lost sight of Edmund Fitzgerald, which was about 16 miles (26 km) ahead at the time.

Shortly after 3:30 p.m., Edmund Fitzgerald began taking on water and had lost two vent covers, both radars, and developed a list. Shortly after 4:10 p.m., Captain McSorley said that he would slow his ship down so that Arthur M. Anderson could close the gap between them to within a 10-mile (16 km) range so she could receive radar guidance from the other ship.

For a time, Arthur M. Anderson directed Edmund Fitzgerald toward the relative safety of Whitefish Bay; then, at 4:39 p.m., McSorley contacted the USCG station in Grand Marais, Michigan, to inquire whether the Whitefish Point light and navigation beacon were operational and was informed later that the light was active, but the navigation beacon was not.

By late in the afternoon of November 10, sustained winds of over 93 km/h were recorded by ships and observation points across eastern Lake Superior. Arthur M. Anderson logged sustained winds as high as 107 km/h while waves increased to as high as 25 feet (7.6 m) by 6:00 p.m. Arthur M. Anderson was also struck by 130 to 139 km/h gusts and rogue waves as high as 35 feet (11 m).

 In a broadcast shortly afterward, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) warned all shipping that the Soo Locks had been closed, and they should seek safe anchorage.

Sometime after 5:30 p.m., Edmund Fitzgerald reported being in difficulty; at 7:10 p.m., Captain McSorley sent his last message, "We are holding our own". Shortly after 7:10 p.m., Edmund Fitzgerald suddenly sank in Canadian (Ontario) waters 530 feet (88 fathoms; 160 m) deep, about 17 miles (27.36 km) from Whitefish Bay near the twin cities of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario—a distance Edmund Fitzgerald could have covered in just over an hour at top speed. Her crew of 29 perished, and no bodies were recovered.

She was located in deep water on November 14, 1975, by a U.S. Navy aircraft detecting magnetic anomalies, and found soon afterwards to be in two large pieces.

Position of the wreck in a relatively small area

In 1976, the U.S. Navy dived on the wreck and found Edmund Fitzgerald lying in two large pieces in 530 feet (160 m) of water. Navy estimates put the length of the bow section at 276 feet (84 m) and that of the stern section at 253 feet (77 m). The bow section stood upright in the mud, some 170 feet (52 m) from the stern section that lay capsized at a 50-degree angle from the bow. In between the two broken sections lay a large mass of taconite pellets and scattered wreckage lying about, including hatch covers and hull plating.

The exact cause of the sinking remains unknown. Several hypotheses have been put forward (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald from where this post was extracted and adapted. None explain satisfactorily how the Edmund Fitzgerald  split almost exactly in two and came to rest with half upside down and half right side up, with iron ore pellets scattered over only 2 acres.

Edmund Fitzgerald is among the largest and best-known vessels lost on the Great Lakes, but she is not alone on the Lake Superior seabed in that area. In the years between 1816, when Invincible was lost, and 1975, when Edmund Fitzgerald sank, the Whitefish Point area had claimed at least 240 ships.

Theirs was not to reason why

The guns fell silent on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Turn up the sound

On November 11th, Remembrance Day, we remember the Canadian military killed and injured. We need to remember those animals who also fought and died. 

Horses have been used in battle for millenia. Wikipedia has an excellent article on the use of horses in war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_warfare

We allow the soldiers who fought a certain agency, though most would have felt the had no choice. But the horse who fought and died, along side their riders certainly had no agency. And they deserve not to be forgotten.

Theirs not to make reply,

   Theirs not to reason why,

   Theirs but to do and die.

Medieval Cavalry facing the pikes of the opposing army

In Brave Heart, the Scottish army used long pointed stakes to stop the English cavalry charge and  destroy them in hand to hand combat. At Agincourt the English forced the French to attack across muddy ground. Their longbowmen aimed at the lead horses, creating chaos, and resulted in the destruction of the "Flower of French Knightood". The horses took the punishment. They had no choice.

British Heavy Cavalry Charge at Balaclava

Charge of the Scots Greys at Waterloo

Though we think of the Second World War as highly mechanized, horses played a large role expecially in the Eastern Front. The German Army, strapped for motorised transport because its factories were needed to produce tanks and aircraft, used around 2.75 million horses – more than it had used in World War I. The Soviets used 3.5 million horses.

Germans having supply problems on the Russian Steppe

“I’m only a cavalry charger,

And I’m dying as fast as I can,

(For my body is riddled with bullets –

They’ve potted both me and my man)."

- Excerpt from “The Cavalry Charger’s Appeal” by Scots Grey, A Book of Poems for The Blue Cross Fund

The Traitor's Daughter

When our family lived in Kindersey in the late 70's, early 80's there was a restaurant a couple blocks from us, owned and operated by a woman from Netherhill, a hamlet a few kilometers east of town. She had a reputation as a good cook but put up with no insults to her food. She threw some Americans out for asking for ketchup for their steak.

Her name was Agnes Spicer. She had run a restaurant in Netherhill for several years prior. She was extremely closed mouthed about her background. When she died, her daughter, Roxana, set out to learn of her mother's history. My youngest cousin went to high school with her in Kindersley. 

I recommend this book to any one interested in Soviet and Nazi history and a detective story that keeps the reader spellbound from beginning to end .

 https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/the-traitor-s-daughter-7

The following is taken directly from the description of the book on Kobo. 

The masterful narration of a daughter's decades-long quest to understand her extraordinary mother, who was born in Lenin's Soviet Union, served as a combat soldier in the Red Army, and endured three years of Nazi captivity—but never revealed her darkest secrets.**

As a child, Roxana Spicer would sometimes wake to the sound of the Red Army choir. She would tip-toe downstairs to find her mother, cigarette in one hand and Black Russian in the other, singing along. Roxana would keep her company, and wonder....

Everyone in their village knew Agnes Spicer was Russian, that she had been a captive of the Nazis. And that was all they knew, because Agnes kept her secrets close: how she managed to escape Germany, what the tattoo on her arm meant, even her real name.

Discovering the truth about her beloved, charismatic, volatile mother became Roxana's obsession. Throughout her career as a journalist and documentarian, between investigations across Canada and around the world, she always went home to ask her mother more questions, often while filming.

Roxana also took every chance to visit the few places that she did know played a role in her mother's story: Bad Salzuflen, Germany, home to POW slave labourers during the war; notorious concentration camps; and Russia. Under Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and the early years of Putin, she was able to find people, places, and documents that are now—perhaps forever—lost again.

The Traitor's Daughter is intimate and exhaustively researched, vividly conversational, and shot through with Agnes Spicer's irrepressible, fiery personality. It is a true labour of love as well as a triumph of blending personal biography with sweeping history.

 

The way to a man’s heart

Grandmotherly advice to young women is “Kissin’ don’t last. Cookin’ do”, or “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach”. In the PI business, the way to a man’s heart is sometimes between the 4^th and 5^th rib.

Bill, the beat cop, came into my office the other day. “We might have a live one for you. A call came into the precinct office yesterday. Woman’s voice, not crazy or hysterical, but cold and flat, almost mechanical. ‘You’ll find the body alright. You won’t stop finding it. There will be pieces all over the city and for the first two months, he’ll still be alive’.

“Someone turned in an ear that they found in their doorway. DNA didn’t turn up an owner and there was no extra DNA from the perp.”

I didn’t see any money in it for me, but it did interest me. My macabre sense of humour, I guess. I asked for the details. “None. No divorce proceedings gone bad, no bitterly contested wills, no overdue loan shark accounts, no missing persons reported. All dead ends, so to speak. But someone made a bitter enemy”.

All my cases either began or ended with a woman. Or both. Remind me not to make enemies of psychopathic females. Or friends, for that matter.

“OK, what can I do to help?”

“Go fishing in the dark places only people like you or her know. Tell lies, say anything as an excuse to ask questions. Anybody sell a sharp knife lately; butcher suppliers get an unusual request, fishing stores sell a filleting knife, sharpening service get a new customer? If the cops go snooping around, people clam up. And watch your back. I don’t want to find pieces of Rick O’Shea turning up.”

No moon, heavy overcast, dark as a prosecutor’s heart and colder than a penguin’s hooha. In the wee hours of the morning, a voice called out from a dark alley, “From your questions, it appears you are looking for me? Who did you think you could fool?”

I reached under my left shoulder and pulled out a mickey of Scotch, then reached behind me and grabbed my snub-nosed .38. I had a feeling any shooting would be close range. I flung the bottle in the direction of the voice and heard it shatter on the pavement.

The shadow jumped towards me with a knife flashing. I fired twice with no effect. “Fool, you can’t kill me. I am already dead”. That left a puddle on the pavement, trust me. But I could run and I did, with the apparition close behind.

My Cub Scout Manual never prepared me for this. Vampire: garlic, cross, and stake. Werewolf: silver bullets. Guess I should have watched Ghost Busters. Then it hit me. Witches: water. Worked for Dorothy. Rain had left water in the streets, so I headed into a deep puddle.

That stopped her. Safe for the moment, I shouted, “If you are already dead, who are you chopping up?” “The man who killed me. Slowly and as a warning to other domestic abusers”.

“You won’t get any argument from me, but you better make your warnings more specific as you are just scaring hell out of people. (The ones who die go straight to heaven, but I digress). Put up a sign, buy a radio ad or a billboard.”

“Sounds like a plan. I will do that. Now go home and quit bothering me”. You have no idea how happy I was to obey.

Next day a huge billboard appeared in the middle of the city. Wording was much the same as the phone call that started all this. ‘Domestic abusers, take warning. You’ll find the body of my murderer alright. You won’t stop finding it. There will be pieces all over the city and for the first two months, he’ll still be alive’ and your turn will be next.”

 

Top Ten Country Duets My Picks

 I will put them in the order they showed up but may not necessarily agree.

I likely missed some so please add your favourites

DEI – Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

 DEI can be broken down into three pillars. 

Diversity: the presence and participation of individuals with varying backgrounds and perspectives, including those who have been traditionally underrepresented. 

Equity: equal access to opportunities and fair, just, and impartial treatment. 

Inclusion: a sense of belonging in an environment where all feel welcomed, accepted, and respected.

DEI is a lofty, worthy goal: the idea that everyone, no matter their identities and backgrounds, should have a seat at the table, be treated well, and feel like they belong and are worthy of respect and acceptance.

DEI can mean a great many things.  DEI gave women the right to vote (inclusion). DEI also means that the person most qualified is hired, instead of a mediocre white man with connections. It might be a Person of Colour, a woman, a member of the LGBTQ+ community or a combination of all three. It might even be a white man.

The Right have tried to turn the meaning on its head as Orwell illustrated in 1984 - "War is Peace". They claim a DEI Hire is a person who was not qualified but hired because they were Black.  Republicans called Kamala Harris a DEI Hire as a derogatory slur. Actually, it was true because she was the most qualified for all the positions she held (and IMHO for president as well).  Trump’s cabinet is what happens when the most qualified are fired and replaced with mediocre white men.  

After taking office, Trump issued at least 90 Executive Orders shutting down DEI programs, calling them wasteful and radical. His criteria for hiring were NOT ability to do the job but absolute loyalty to himself. Pete Kegseth fired every Black person in the military and replaced them with far less qualified white men. The top militsary brass are not well qualified and place USA in some danger. 

The modern anti-DEI backlash is really about resegregation and white supremacy.

The Battle of Borodino

 They say people who learn from history have to watch while people who do not learn from history repeat it, making the same and sometimes new errors. 

Charles XII of Sweden was the Swedish king who invaded Russia in a campaign from 1707–1709 during the Great Northern War. The invasion ultimately ended in a disastrous defeat for the Swedish army at the Battle of Poltava, and it led to the collapse of the Swedish empire and loss of its great power status. 

Hitler made the same mistake with Barbarossa. The Germans realized they could not maintain the logisitcs needed for a prolonged invasion so they simply decided they could capture Moscow by the end of September. Move the goalposts instead of dealing with the facts. 

Napoleon repeated Charkes XII mistake when he invaded Russia in 1812. He was used to rapidly marching his Grande Armee, living off the land. That worked in Europe but spelled disaster in Russia. Berlin and Prague are 500 km from Paris. Moscow is another 2000 km further. 

Russian General Kutuzov saw no need to fight as he knew Napoleon was beaten as soon as he crossed the Nieman river. Distance, disease and weather would beat him. However after the French destroyed the city of Smolensk, Kutuzov knew he had to fight as the Tsar, the Russian troops and Russia could not accept further retreat. So he picked a suitable spot just west of Moscow at Borodino and waited for the French to attack. 

Pictures from the Borodino Panarama Museum

By this time the ratio of French to Russian forces had shrunk from 3:1 to 5:4. The main part of Napoleon's army had entered Russia with 286,000 men, but by the time of the battle was reduced mostly through starvation, thirst and disease. 

The French army, led by Napoleon, won a tactical victory at the Battle of Borodino, but it was a costly and indecisive Pyrrhic victory. About 70,000 soldiers died in the battle. While the French gained control of the battlefield and forced the Russian army to retreat, Mikhail Kutuzov's forces remained intact. Russian losses could be replaced, French losses could not. The Russian Army retreated to east of Moscow and ordered the population of Moscow to evacuate eastward also. 

Napoleon entered a mostly deserted Moscow and camped. According to custom, the Tsar should now send an emmisary to sue for peace, pay a ransom and everyone go home. It didn't happen. Napoleon was left cooling his heels. There are any number of theories about how the fire started that destroyed most of Moscow but with thousands of soldiers cooking over open fires, it was inevitable. 

Winter was coming and eventually Napoleon decided to leave the city and head west. Kutuzov swung his army south, so Napoleon had to return the way he came. It was not only the winter that destroyed Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. There was no food and no forage for the horses. Men and horses died by the thousands. Of the 100 thousand that left Moscow, only about 49,000 soldiers and another 40,000 stragglers made it to the Berizina River. They were met there by the Rusian army led by Field Marshal Wittgenstein and Admiral Chichagov. 

Berezina Crossing

The battle didn't accomplish anything and the Russians let Napoleon escape with about 10,000 soldiers, thinking it didn't matter. A terrible error. It took another three years, losses of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and the Russian army in Paris before Napoleon was finally stopped and exiled to Elba. 

Diagramatic of Napoleon's Invasion of Russia in 1812

I have read several books on Napoleon's march on Moscow and to be honest, Tolstoy's War and Peace is as good an account as any. In 2006 on my way to meet Tanya in Krasnoyarsk, I was fortunate enough to visit the Borodino panarama from which these pictures come. I also spent an afternoon in the Tretyakov Art Gallery and saw less than 10%. One needs long three days and a guide who knows the paintings.