【羅藤樹下】費茲傑羅號貨輪沈沒的啓示 When the Witch of November Comes Stealin’

When the Witch of November Comes Stealin’

by Al Baker

December 22, 2022

“And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes the judgment.” -Hebrews 9:27

The Edmund Fitzgerald (AKA the Fitz), the largest ship on the Great Lakes (729 feet long, weighing 13,632 tons) left Two Harbors, Minnesota on Sunday afternoon, November 9, 1975, carrying 26,000 tons of taconite pellets (a means of extracting iron ore), and was on its way to Cleveland. Captain McSorley and his crew of twenty-eight men were well seasoned sailors. McSorley had captained Great Lakes vessels for over forty years. The crew knew very well that sailing on the Great Lakes in November, just prior to ships suspending operation for the winter months, could be very dangerous, especially if the gales of November came early, what the sailors called the “witch of November.” In fact at least 1500 vessels had been lost over the years, most of them sinking in November when dangerous “nor’easter” winds wrought havoc on the Great Lakes.

The weather forecast for the trip was not good. A storm system was moving northeasterly from Nebraska to Wisconsin and by the time the Fitz had traveled only a few miles on Lake Superior (the Chippewa Indians called it Gitche Gumme) the winds were up to fifty miles per hour with ten foot waves. Lake Superior is 350 miles long and has the world’s largest surface area of all fresh water lakes. When people drown in Lake Superior their bodies almost are never recovered because the lake’s water remains cold all year and thus prevents body decomposition and the release of gasses which cause bodies to rise to the surface. They said Superior never gives up her dead when the gales of November come early.

By 1 a.m. on Monday, November 10 the winds were 70 miles per hour, gusting to 100 miles per hour and the waves were thirty feet high. To make matters worse, both radar systems on the Edmund Fitzgerald had been knocked out by the waves and the lighthouse beacon at White Fish Point, only fifteen miles away, was inoperable as well. The men had to know they were in serious trouble. As Gordon Lightfoot has sung, “The waves turn the minutes into hours.”[1] The size of waves is determined by the strength of the wind, how long the wind is blowing at high speed, and over how much open water the wind travels. A ship called the Arthur Anderson was traveling ten miles behind the Fitz and was in radio contact, assisting the Fitz to stay on course. About 7:15 p.m. two waves thirty feet high came from the rear crashing into the Arthur Anderson’s stern and the ship handled the waves with no trouble. However, as many have speculated, the waves continued ahead to the Edmund Fitzgerald. The first wave hit, swamping the Fitz and plunging the bow of the ship under the surface of the lake and the weight of the water plus the weight of the 26,000 tons of taconite shifting to the front of the ship, caused it to plunge directly down to the bottom of Lake Superior, 530 feet below the surface, with the bow buried in the lake floor. A second or two later the second wave hit and the ship could not recover. Within a minute all twenty-nine men on board died. None of their bodies have ever been recovered.[2]

What should we learn from the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald? The writer of Hebrews spells it out very clearly, without equivocation. We will all die and then we face the judgment. We, of course, know this is true but most of us just don’t want to think about it. What will you do when the witch of November comes stealin’?

I remember my years at St. Simons Island where I attended the weekly luncheons of the Rotary Club. I always enjoyed those meetings. Almost every week the Emcee of the meeting would say, “Mr. _____ died this past week, let us have a moment of silence and remember him for the good he did in our community.” Most of the men in the St. Simons Island Rotary Club were retired businessmen, and I often wondered, as we bowed our heads for a moment of silence, if they ever thought to themselves, “Well, I am sorry to see Mr. ____ go. I wonder where he is now. And what about me? What is going to happen to me when I die?” I am pretty sure most of the men never really gave it too much thought. Right after the moment of silence, we would commence with eating our lunch and then hear a speech from a business or civic leader and then get back to our work or golf, or fishing, or whatever the retired men did.

I am sure the prospect of death had to cross the minds of the men who traveled the Great Lakes and heard the horror stories of death, especially when the “witch of November” came stealin’. I am also confident that some of the men were true believers in Christ and consequently had great assurance that if and when the gales of November came early for them they were ready, that they were in good standing with God. However, surely there were others who never gave it a thought, who had convinced themselves that when we die it is all over, that we simply go back to the dust from whence we came. They convinced themselves that either there was no heaven or hell or that they had nothing to worry about because they were pretty good people, that they occasionally attended the Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral in Detroit, where the church bell tolled twenty-nine times for the men of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

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1  <gordonlightfoot.com> Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

2  Mighty Fitz: The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Michael Schumacher.