Gerard, as a Michigander who knows families still working the waters of The Great Lakes on freighters and tugs, families who still talk of the Edmund Fitzgerald, I have to agree that this video is a wonderful tribute.

I grew up in Superior. My friends and I used to collect the taconite pellets that fell off of the rail cars and use them as slingshot ammo. In the summertime, we would ride our bicycles across "the big street" and hang out at the Whaleback way before Barker's Island was developed--no hotel, no Perkins, no visitor's center. I usually turn this song off when I hear it because, like the Duluth lynchings, it's a horror that obscures everything I loved about my town.

This time was different and I watched and listened. I did not realize that there had been an expedition to investigate the wreck. I looked it up on Wiki and learned that the ship's bell had been recovered and that a replacement engraved with the sailors' names was put in its place.

It's hard to put a label on what I'm feeling now but I think that it's relief that "something was done."

Thanks for posting this.

You are welcome, Jason. I'm glad this was a solace to you.

You are welcome, Jason. I'm glad this was a solace to you.

Having frozen my toes in Superior on both the U.S. and Canadian sides - in July, this song always chills me to the bone. Imagining the mindset of the men on that ship is something I don't want to do.

But I will say that Gordon Lightfoot's tribute is beautiful and perhaps without equal.