November's heritage: memories and memorials

It was fifty years ago tomorrow that the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior. Gordon Lightfoot memorialized the tragedy with his song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Please pause for a moment of silence after following the link and listening to him perform. Then check some interesting background to the song.

Minnesota's Split Rock Lighthouse on Lake Superior

Photo by J. Harrington

Locally, on November 10 the Split Rock Lighthouse and the Minnesota Historical Society will host a memorial to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Fitzgerald's sinking, as has been done for the past four decades or so.

Our area's firearm’s deer season opened yesterday with colder temperatures than we’ve seen so far this season. Warmer days are forecast for later in the week. One of the reasons I was more of a grouse and waterfowl hunter than a whitetail seeker is that I can't manage to sit still enough to blend into the landscape when experiencing the frequently cold temperatures we get during deer season in the North Country. Plus, when I tried deer hunting back in New England, before moving to Minnesota, I did it with a mixed group of bow hunters and bird hunters. It rarely failed that the bird hunters spooked deer and the bow hunters watched grouse strutting around their stands.

UPDATE: Local ponds are forming ice cover. First snow of the season is falling as graupel and forming snow snakes along the roads.

Since November is Native American Heritage month, as well as the season for early gales on Superior, and since Lightfoot referred to Superior by her Ojibwe/Anishinaabe name, Gitche Gumee, it seems fitting to close today with a Kimberly Blaeser poem. Water, in Great Lakes and elsewhere, has long been a source of both life and death.

Wellspring: Words from Water

A White Earth childhood water rich and money poor.
Vaporous being transformed in cycles—
the alluvial stories pulled from Minnesota lakes
harvested like white fish, like manoomin,
like old prophecies of seed growing on water.
Legends of Anishinaabeg spirit beings:
cloud bearer Thunderbird who brings us rain,
winter windigo like Ice Woman, or Mishibizhii
who roars with spit and hiss of rapids—
great underwater panther, you copper us
to these tributaries of balance. Rills. A cosmology
of nibi.  We believe our bodies thirst. Our earth.
One element. Aniibiishaaboo. Tea brown
wealth. Like maple sap. Amber. The liquid eye of moon.
Now she turns tide, and each wedded being gyrates
to the sound, its river body curving.
We, women of ageless waters, endure;
like each flower drinks from night,
holds dew. Our bodies a libretto,
saturated, an aquifer—we speak words
from ancient water.

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November: storms of the season

In commemoration of the 47th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Minnesota’s Split Rock Light House will be holding a Memorial Beacon Lighting and related activities. For those unable to attend the event, a portion of the beacon lighting will be streamed live on YouTube. I would be remiss if I failed to include a link to Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting song about the wreck, so here it is.

• Previous postings on My Minnesota about the Edmund Fitzgerald

Split Rock Light House

Photo by J. Harrington

This week’s weather makes me glad I haven’t spent all year looking forward to the firearms deer hunting season that started last Saturday. It’s been a week of howling winds, rain, thunderstorms, I think they got some snow up north. Deer don’t like strong winds. Speaking only for myself, I never enjoyed sitting on a tree stand in the rain, but then I never had a tree stand with a roof like some of the ones I’ve seen at the edges fo several of the farm fields around here. A little bit of snow, known as “tracking snow,” is usually seen as helpful, but there’s none of that to speak of around here.

The sleeping giant (thunder bay, lake superior)

Emily Pauline Johnson 1861 – 1913

When did you sink to your dreamless sleep

Out there in your thunder bed?

Where the tempests sweep,

And the waters leap,

And the storms rage overhead.

Were you lying there on your couch alone

Ere Egypt and Rome were born?

Ere the Age of Stone,

Or the world had known

The Man with the Crown of Thorn.

The winds screech down from the open west,

And the thunders beat and break

On the amethyst

Of your rugged breast,--

But you never arise or wake.

You have locked your past, and you keep the key

In your heart 'neath the westing sun,

Where the mighty sea

And its shores will be

Storm-swept till the world is done. 

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Beware November’s gales and other storms

On this, the 46th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, we offer for your consideration

• The National Weather Service’ story of the aftermath of the tragedy


• Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting rendition of his song about the sinking


• Previous postings on My Minnesota about the Edmund Fitzgerald


• A reminder that the Split Rock light will be lit this evening in memoriam

Split Rock light house

Photo by J. Harrington

Although not a November gale, today’s weather forecast brings a threat of the season’s first local snowfall sometime during the next several days with significant snowfall forecast for northern Minnesota and Canada. We’re hoping that whatever we get will melt shortly after it falls. We’d be happy if we got lasting snow on Christmas Eve that melted about New Year’s, but our drainfield tells us it needs the insulation of snow cover.

Storm Fear

Robert Frost - 1874-1963

When the wind works against us in the dark,
And pelts the snow
The lower chamber window on the east,
And whispers with a sort of stifled bark,
The beast,
‘Come out! Come out!’—
It costs no inward struggle not to go,
Ah, no!
I count our strength,
Two and a child,
Those of us not asleep subdued to mark
How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length,—
How drifts are piled,
Dooryard and road ungraded,
Till even the comforting barn grows far away
And my heart owns a doubt
Whether 'tis in us to arise with day 
And save ourselves unaided.

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In Memoriam, Edmund Fitzgerald

Forty-three years ago, the Edmund Fitzgerald, with all twenty-nine crew, was lost in Lake Superior. Today the Split Rock Light House will hold a memorial service to commemorate those lost in Great Lakes shipwrecks.

Split Rock Light House overlooking Lake Superior

Photo by J. Harrington

The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald has been memorialized in song by Gordon Lightfoot; in video on the History Channel; and in numerous books. Last year we did a more extensive posting about the storm and the wreck and the song and the history.

In reviewing our November postings on this blog, we've been disconcerted by the number of pictures and mentions of snow and cold. We persist in our belief that, even in the North Country, that kind of weather is supposed to hold off until after Thanksgiving, despite this morning's temperatures in the mid-teens. Could it be that our beliefs may have developed some errors over the years? Might our memories be of how we wish things were rather than how the actual occurrence?

An additional memorial occurs this weekend, tomorrow in fact, it is the centennial of the WWI Armistice (an event that even precedes our time). That's when we had the "war to end all wars." Didn't we?

Today we're grateful we never had to fight in trench warfare nor sail into a November gale on Lake Superior.

Diving into the Wreck

Adrienne Rich, 1929- 2012

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

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A dreary day, trip to Duluth

We took a trip to Duluth this am. We're happy to report that, despite being battered by some very, very early November gales this October, much of the city is as we remember it, although with some added road construction backups. We're also quite happy to report that the burgers at Fitger's Brew House are as tasty as remembered. Duluth is one of our favorite Minnesota cities but, unless we're careful, we let too much time pass between trips there.

Lake Superior under clouds

Photo by J. Harrington

The further North one heads on I-35, the more barren of leaves branches become. Our North Country is well past peak color and into the late Autumn drearies. Tamaracks are the exception. Most of them remain covered in golden needles. The Big Lake was gray, to match the sky and the falling mist. If there was a horizon, we couldn't see it. Noteworthy wildlife viewed on the trip:

• one pair of bald eagles perched roadside
• four separate road-killed whitetail deer
• one road-killed wolf, reported by the Better Half, our view was obscured by road spray

Taylors Falls Lighting Festival, pre-parade

Photo by J. Harrington

As we headed South, through rain most of the way, the proportion of oaks increased in woodlots and that enhanced the numbers of leaves still visible on the trees. The Better Half made a bet with us about this year's first 1" snowfall, one that doesn't promptly melt away. She claims it will occur by November 17 wile we're holding out for December 2. (According to NOAA records, the median date of the first 1-inch snowfall is November 16 in the Twin Cities, but the first plowable snow often doesn't arrive until late November or even December.) We agreed that November 24, probably at noon is the dividing line. Snow before that, she wins. After that, we do. (We're hoping for the El Nino influence.) That's also the weekend of the Taylors Falls Lighting Festival, attendance at which has become a family tradition.

Snow-flakes

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Out of the bosom of the Air, 

      Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, 

Over the woodlands brown and bare, 

      Over the harvest-fields forsaken, 

            Silent, and soft, and slow 

            Descends the snow. 

Even as our cloudy fancies take 

      Suddenly shape in some divine expression, 

Even as the troubled heart doth make 

      In the white countenance confession, 

            The troubled sky reveals 

            The grief it feels. 

This is the poem of the air, 

      Slowly in silent syllables recorded; 

This is the secret of despair, 

      Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded, 

            Now whispered and revealed 

            To wood and field. 

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#WorldOceansDay in the North Country

If you're from the MidWest or the North Country, you may well ask "what's World Oceans Day got to do with us?" The answer is at least three fold:

1. This year the focus is on preventing plastic pollution. Do you use plastic? Probably so.


2. There's a 97% or so consensus among scientists that humans are responsible for global warming that's negatively affecting the oceans and our weather/water cycle. What's your carbon footprint?


3. What do you know about the hydrologic cycle? The rain and snow that falls on us largely originates with evaporation from the oceans. Streamflow down the Mississippi River transports sediment and farm fertilizers to the Gulf of Mexico, helping to create a dead zone off shore from New Orleans.

Are you getting a clearer picture of what John Muir meant when he wrote "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." (- My First Summer in the Sierra , 1911, page 110.) or was that already obvious to you?

Minnesota's Inland Ocean

Photo by J. Harrington

We grew up next to the Atlantic Ocean. We swam in it, boated on it, fished in it and watched the tides rise and fall. In fact, one of the most significant (to us) observations about Lake Superior is that it doesn't smell right. For those of us who've spent much of our lives near an ocean, that much water is supposed to have a "salt smell" that's missing from Superior and the other Great Lakes, although, as "inland oceans" they have lots of appeal. For confirmation, take a look at Lorine Niedecker's Lake Superior after you've read:

"Out of the rolling ocean the crowd"

By Walt Whitman

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me, 

Whispering, I love you, before long I die,

I have travell’d a long way merely to look on you to touch you,

For I could not die till I once look’d on you,

For I fear’d I might afterward lose you. 

Now we have met, we have look’d, we are safe, 

Return in peace to the ocean my love, 

I too am part of that ocean, my love, we are not so much separated, 

Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect! 

But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us, 

As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever; 

Be not impatient – a little space – know you I salute the air, the ocean and the land, 

Every day at sundown for your dear sake, my love. 

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North to South

I've visited Minnesota's North Shore a number of times since moving here from Massachusetts. Lake Superior is as close to an ocean as I get these days. The more I've spent time revisiting Highway 61 (couldn't resist), the more questions I've come away with; questions about what am I seeing and how did it get this way and has it always been like this? This Winter I should be able to answer some of those questions thanks to a new book by Chel Anderson and Adelheid Fischer, North Shore:  A Natural History of Minnesota's Superior Coast. I plan to save (and savor) reading the book for when it's too cold and/or snowy to enjoy being outside but, knowing me, I'll probably cheat and start some evening soon. With more than 600 pages to read, I'll be at it for awhile, although many of those pages are full of beautiful pictures of the area.
.

click photo to learn more

The thought of changing seasons reminds me that I haven't seen any hummingbirds for several days now. Their migration peak looks to have shifted south, toward the Twin Cities, according to the folks who track those things. As of yesterday, however, trumpeter swans were still relaxing on local waters. I don't know if these are among the ones who Winter along the St. Croix or not. So many things I (we?) don't know about our neighbors and what's going on in our own back yards.

trumpeter swans on Carlos Avery WMA pool

Photo by J. Harrington

trumpeter swans on Carlos Avery WMA pool

Photo by J. Harrington

The late year

By Marge Piercy 

I like Rosh Hashonah late,

when the leaves are half burnt

umber and scarlet, when sunset

marks the horizon with slow fire

and the black silhouettes

of migrating birds perch

on the wires davening.

I like Rosh Hashonah late

when all living are counting

their days toward death

or sleep or the putting by

of what will sustain them—

when the cold whose tendrils

translucent as a jellyfish

and with a hidden sting

just brush our faces

at twilight. The threat

of frost, a premonition

a warning, a whisper

whose words we cannot

yet decipher but will.

I repent better in the waning

season when the blood

runs swiftly and all creatures

look keenly about them

for quickening danger.

Then I study the rockface

of my life, its granite pitted

and pocked and pickaxed

eroded, discolored by sun

and wind and rain—

my rock emerging

from the veil of greenery

to be mapped, to be

examined, to be judged.

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Treats, tricks and treasures

It's becoming clear to me that Halloween this year is likely to be a low-key affair, unless we get another Halloween blizzard. Our two lead pumpkin carvers got married early this month in the "back yard" and, although we're all pretending that we've recovered, I'm taking those claims with a grain or two of salt. Notwithstanding complaints about how much work carving is, and how icky (no "e," I looked it up) cleaning the "pumpkin guts" can be, I'm also sensing a need for more decompression time for the newly weds and the bride's parents.

the "back yard altar" for the wedding

Photo by J. Harrington

Here's what our table looked like a couple of years ago. I kind of miss having something like it and may have to bestir myself to see about a Thanksgiving cornucopia or something that will look good on the table for most of November.

Nice pumpkin carving and table decorations

Photo by J. Harrington

In the more than twenty years we've lived here, I don't think we've had one Trick-or-Treater come to the door. When our Tricksters were younger, we used to take them somewhere more populous where they could go door-to-door with their friends. Since I no longer have someone else's treats to raid, I'm debating whether to indulge myself by buying some of my favorite candy treats "just in case some kids show up," or to give my waistline and blood sugar a break and forego a Halloween stock-up this year.

a small cove on Minnesota's Lake Superior shore

Photo by J. Harrington

Last year at this time the Better Half and I were way up north, enjoying some time alone by ourselves and taking one of our all too infrequent looks at Minnesota's "North Shore." This year we never did make it on the brook trout fishing trip I had envisioned as an excuse to go back (late, wet Spring etc.). That gives us something we can look forward to next year and enjoy planning for this Winter. Of course, with our weather these days there's always a chance we'll be tricked out of our anticipated treat, even though it will be the wrong season for that.

Trick or Treat

By Nancy Price 

The ghost is a torn sheet,

the skeleton’s suit came from a rack in a store

the witch is flameproof, but who knows

what dark streets they have taken here?

Brother Death, here is a candy bar.

For the lady wearing the hat from Salem: gum.

And a penny for each eye, Lost Soul.

They fade away with their heavy sacks.

Thanks! I yell just in time.

                                             Thanks for another year!

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November notables

Yesterday was the 38th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. If we had timed our recent North Shore adventure a little differently, we could have seen the interior of the Split Rock Light House when the beacon is lit in memoriam.

Split Rock Lighthouse      © harrington

Gordon Lightfoot, still performing at 74, which makes him an inspiration to many of us, wrote and performs an absolutely haunting song about The Wreck.

Later this month we on the american side celebrate Thanksgiving. Our neighbors north of the border celebrated theirs in mid-October. After our Thanksgiving, we have to decide where we fall on the consumerism scale. Friday, November 29 is both Black Friday and "Buy Nothing Day." Minnesota companies like Best Buy and Target seem to be leading a movement away from Buy Nothing day by starting Black Friday activities on Thanksgiving eve. Halloween candy sales were still happening as Christmas decorations were being put on display at one local big box. I'm reminded of Ross Perot's quote about "that sucking sound you hear," only now the jobs and profits are not even remaining on the North American continent. Vermont is showing leadership with their New Economy activities. Our Minnesota might want to take a look, although, according to Lee Egerstrom at Minnesota 2020, we've got some things right with our protection of the "family farm." This year, when we slow down, at least for a few hours to give thanks, maybe we should also take some time to think about what, in 2014, we want to be able to give thanks for that we don't have this year. An effective climate change adaptation strategy, a new local economy strategy, a Vikings Superbowl win (no way)? The other two might be attainable if we decide they're important to us. Which values are priorities for Minnesotans in the 21st century? Does shopping on Thanksgiving represent the best and highest use of family time so a few of us can save a few bucks? Is that what we want our children to be grateful for or are we substituting HDTV for quality times? How about we pass on shopping and try a walk after dinner on Thanksgiving, sharing the beauty of our Minnesota with our families and friends?

Minnesota's Autumn beauty    © harrington

See if Robert Frost's poem gift to us captures something to which you think we should pay more attention.

The Gift Outright

By Robert Frost 

The land was ours before we were the land’s.

She was our land more than a hundred years

Before we were her people. She was ours

In Massachusetts, in Virginia,

But we were England’s, still colonials,

Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,

Possessed by what we now no more possessed.

Something we were withholding made us weak

Until we found out that it was ourselves

We were withholding from our land of living,

And forthwith found salvation in surrender.

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright

(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)

To the land vaguely realizing westward,

But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,

Such as she was, such as she would become.

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A change of scenery?

As much as we enjoyed our visit to the North Shore and Grand Portage, and we did, it was nice to get home to our own bed, to say "Hi!" to our dogs and the other inhabitants of our home, to have our normal coffee from one of our favorite cups and to see an oak tree or two again. Thanks for putting up with our short posts the last few days. We'll share more of the experience of the trip in future posts. Here's a view of the Lake Superior shore beneath our room.

To our eyes, the locale doesn't seem very hospitable (wave washed rock), but look at the amount of life captured by lichens, mosses, bushes and heavens knows what else. I don't know about the rest of the universe, but on earth, life seems to try to thrive wherever there's an unoccupied niche. That probably also applies to the human inhabitants of the area and to those, like the snow buntings, that find our North Shore territory better pickings in the Winter than their arctic breeding grounds. We noticed quite a few flocks once we got north of Two Harbors. Here's one bunting that posed in the middle of the road for us as we were taking shots of the Sawtooth Mountains.

In light of all that's being said these days about the potential impacts of global warming, I find the tenaciousness of life to be an incredibly optimistic sign. I'd like it even more, I think, if we focused on mitigation of causes (burning fossil fuels) rather than adaptation. The North Woods might become a northern extension of what's left of the Big Woods but that won't be the same. Minnesota is beginning to look at what needs to be done to adapt to reasonably anticipated local climate changes. I think we'd be better served with a more robust approach. Unless I missed it, the linked summary has no response from the Department of Employment and Economic Development. I've no idea why. Maybe folks think employment won't be affected? Particularly in northern Minnesota, I'd be concerned about that. We don't want to end up picturesque but dilapidated like these abandoned(?) fishing shacks.

Geraldine Connolly could well have spent some time in the Arrowhead before writing this poem.

Flathead Lake, October

By Geraldine Connolly

The eagle floats and glides,

circling the burnished aspen,

then takes the high pines

with a flash of underwing.

As surely as the eagle sails

toward the bay’s open curve,

as surely as he swoops and seizes

the struggling fish, pulling

it from an osprey’s beak;

so too, autumn descends,

to steal the glistening

summer from our open hands.

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Safe harbor

© harrington

A ship in the harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are for. Thirty-seven years ago, on November 10,1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald sailed from Superior, Wisconsin. It was lost, together with its crew of 29, on the way to Zug Island on the Detroit River. It left behind a great mystery and greater miseries suffered by the crews' families and loved ones. Superior is one of the Twin Ports, the other Twin is Duluth. Taconite, grain and wind turbine blades are shipped through the Twin Ports contributing to the past and future economies of My Minnesota. I suspect many of us who daily commute by car to our jobs seldom give a thought to those who actually risk their lives to earn a living. With so many wonders and opportunities in our Minnesota, do we daily take safety and beauty for granted and so fail to appreciate what we have?