“The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down, of the big lake they call Gitchee Gumee. The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead when the skies of November turn gloomy.” I would bet my last nickel most in Duluth and up the North Shore know every word of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

When I first saw Lake Superior as a teenager, I was truly impressed. I saw a vast sea. It is the largest, deepest, and coldest of all the Great Lakes.

At the time of the Fitzgerald’s fateful crossing, another nearby ship recorded maximum sustained winds of 70 mph and gusts that reached 86 mph. Average wave heights were almost 19 feet. I was 20 and living in southern Wisconsin when I heard the news. It was a big deal.

Ten years ago last month, a friend, Rick, and I decided to go backpacking on I

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