The Gales of November

Author: Robert J. Hemming
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: Contemporary Books, 1981
Pages: 248
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Immortalized in song by Canadian balladeer Gordon Lightfoot and still argued over by Great Lakes experts, the fate of the Edmund Fitzgerald and its crew has attracted more widespread attention than other thousands of shipwrecks recorded on the Great Lakes. The 729-foot ore freighter and its entire crew mysteriously and suddenly disappeared during a violent November storm on Lake Superior in 1975. 

Review: I knew the song, Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald, from childhood. It's haunting melody and tragedy of the shipwreck stayed with me for years. At some point I learned that the bell from this ship was located at The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Last summer we vacationed in northern Michigan and added this museum to the itinerary. My then 8 year old son was fascinated, by all the ships lost in the Great Lakes. 

This book alternates between intense, sad, and back to intense. Such a tragedy. Had these men lived the oldest would "only" be in their 80s, still possibly alive had fate dealt them a different hand.