Beware of the “gales of November” on the Great Lakes this month, as singer Gordon Lightfoot warned, because this month has been particularly deadly for sailors on the lakes for hundreds of years.
Over the last two centuries, more than 70 ships have plunged to their demise on the Great Lakes during November. Some, like the iron ore carrier the Edmund Fitzgerald, went down and took the entire crew down with them.
The “Fitz” sank on Nov. 10, 1975, not far from Whitefish Point, during a fierce November storm on Lake Superior. The late singer Gordon Lightfoot immortalized the ship’s fatal struggle in a song that continues to get airplay every year. Michigan sits nestled among the Great Lakes — the world’s largest freshwater system and a major shipping hub, with over 160 million tons of waterborne cargo traveling through the region each year, according to the American Great Lakes Ports Association.
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