I’m not sure I’d go that far. But it is a great song. Very true to the historical events.
I spent decades on the Detroit River within 3/4 mile of the shipping channels. There is such a mystique about Great Lake Freighters...their sheer mass and the fear and respect they command when operating a boat near them. You’d think they would produce large waves, but instead they displace water...the water level drops 2 or 3 feet in seconds along the dikes as they approach, and later surges back in, as thousands of cubic feet of water are pushed around. More than once I’ve had my boat swamped by doing a half-ass beaching job pulling up on the rocks or shore. Yet the actual wake is only inches high. In winter, a mile away from a cut in the channel, you’d hear the ice crack as the freighter’s huge displacement pulled out water.
I was 17 when the Fitzgerald sank. Like 9-11, if you’re from around there you can remember what you were doing when you heard. Friends of mine duck hunting that day or the day before got stranded by extreme low water in the lower Detroit River since the same November NW winds pushed it all out to the east end of Lake Erie. November is always our extreme low water mark. The Great Lakes water archives have graphical data, it’s fascinating to look up these historic days.
In 1972 the first thousand footer, Stewart J. Cort came down the Detroit River. The whole junior high came outside on our riverfront-school lawn to watch.