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Lyrics from the “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot
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Carol writes: Three years ago we traveled extensively along both coasts of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Sadly, our travel schedule at the time did not allow the days we needed to check out the Upper Peninsula; however, it was always in the back of our minds that we might get a chance to come back…
On leaving Minnesota, our route took us quickly across the very tip of Wisconsin, where we had only a brief stop on Wisconsin soil to gas up the motorhome. In no time at all, we crossed into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
The state of Michigan touches 4 of the 5 Great Lakes. The Upper Peninsula and the Lower Peninsula are linked together by the stately Mackinac Bridge, one of the longest suspension bridges in the world.
The residents of the Upper Peninsula have a reputation for being extremely nice and welcoming, and we found that to be true. The joke is that the residents of the UP are a special people that love the UP’s “9 months of winter and 3 months of poor sledding.”
The Upper Peninsula is commonly abbreviated as U.P. thus giving rise to the shortened form of “Yooper” (UPer) when referring to its residents. If you listen closely, you can hear a subtle Yooper dialect that tends to add the syllable “eh” to the end of sentences. In the town of Munising, we even saw a restaurant called “Eh Burger!”
Our first of two stops in the UP was in Ishpeming, an Objibwe word with the general meaning of “above,” reflecting the fact that Ishpeming is 800 feet higher than nearby Lake Superior.
The largest city in the UP is Marquette, which is known as the Queen City. Marquette was delightfully pleasing to the eyes. Near the top of its hilly streets was an impressive cathedral dating back to the 1880s.
Along the water, Marquette condos and townhomes had lots of character.
Marquette’s large-domed neo-classical style county courthouse was featured in the 1959 courtroom drama movie Anatomy of a Murder, based on a novel of the same name written by a Michigan author.
Lunch in Marquette introduced us to the exquisite pleasure of dining on Lake Superior whitefish.
Our second stop in the UP was in Newberry, an excellent central point from which to explore some of the UP’s most popular sites, such as:
PICTURED ROCKS NATIONAL LAKESHORE
The only way to see the “pictured rocks” formations of brilliantly colored cliffs, sea caves and pristine beaches along Lake Superior was by means of a boat cruise out of Munising, Michigan.
Even before we reached the pictured rocks area, the raw beauty of the shoreline scenery along Lake Superior was clearly evident.
Kayakers were out in force.
TAHQUAMENON FALLS STATE PARK
For multiple reasons, one of the most iconic locations in the UP is the tip of land called Whitefish Point at the extreme northeastern tip of the Upper Peninsula. The state park of Tahquamenon Falls is located just below Whitefish Point. The centerpiece of the park was its waterfalls.
The most spectacular waterfall was the Upper Falls, with a span of 200 feet and a drop of nearly 50 feet.
Four miles downstream, the Lower Falls consisted of a series of waterfalls cascading around an island in the Tahquamenon River, which empties into Whitefish Bay.
At Whitefish Bay, we visited the purely picturesque Coast Guard lifeboat station complex.
The waters off Whitefish Point will forever live on in sad tales of maritime history. A fully loaded ore freighter named the Edmund Fitzgerald vanished and sunk seventeen miles off Whitefish Point in a monstrous storm on November 10, 1975, killing the entire ship’s crew of 29. It is a poignant point of fact that this trip was to be the ship captain’s final voyage before retirement. The most famous shipwreck in Great Lakes history now lies broken in two at a depth of 535 feet in the frigid waters of Lake Superior.
The memorial to the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald at Whitefish Point was lovely, simple and serene…
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is Canadian singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot’s most celebrated song. The haunting poetry of the words captures perfectly the last hours of the doomed ship and its crew. Strangely, more than four decades after the most famous shipwreck in Great Lakes history, the cause of the wreck is still somewhat of a mystery, although terrible weather undoubtedly played a part.
SOO LOCKS
On the day that she was lost, the Edmund Fitzgerald had been headed to the locks at Sault Ste. Marie (pronounced soo-saint-marie) enroute to the lower Great Lakes for its home port of Cleveland, where the plan was to wait out the winter.
then halted patiently for the water to lower 21 feet to bring it down to the level of Lake Huron.
It was eerie to watch this massive ship and its superstructure lower in the water right before our very eyes. After a single blast of the ship’s horn, the Tadoussac continued on its way in the lower waters of Lake Huron…
We had a fascinating conversation during lunch one day with a 90-year-old woman who was eating alone at the table next to us. She told us a story about the day she went camping with her family at the Sault Ste. Marie locks at the outbreak of WW II. She said her family witnessed the passage of the last ship before the locks were closed to all private vessels for the duration of the war. This firsthand account really hit home to us just how strategic the locks were for shipping the raw materials needed in a wartime economy. Our interesting lunch companion also mentioned that several thousand troops were stationed in Sault Ste. Marie for defense purposes during WW II.
We stuck around the lock area after lunch when we learned that two 1000-ft freighters (the largest on the Great Lakes) would be transiting through Poe Lock. These steel giants of the Great Lakes play an essential role in keeping the raw materials of our economy moving. Iron ore, followed by coal, is the most valuable cargo carried through the locks.
A few hours ago, the 730-ft Tadoussac seemed pretty big to us; however, the 1000-ft Edwin H. Gott was colossal! I found it impossible to capture the entire ship in one camera shot without distorting the foreground in my camera’s panoramic function. What a captivating excursion we had at Soo Locks!
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| The Edwin H. Gott in Poe Lock |
After an interesting six days in the UP, we were happy that we had made the effort to come back to Michigan for the Upper Peninsula experience. The unusual careers, leisure activities, and lifestyles of its inhabitants were fascinating, making it one of the more unique places we have visited in the United States thus far.
Carol Galus
Photo-Blogger
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Sault Ste. Marie Locks between Lake Huron and Lake Superior
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