As the music scene and countless fans mourn the death of Gordon Lightfoot, a group dedicated to preserving the memories and telling the stories of Great Lakes shipwrecks is expressing its own words of reflection after the legendary Canadian singer/songwriter’s passing.
One of Lightfoot’s most famous songs — The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald — as well as memories of the singer himself hold a special significance for staff and volunteers at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum located at Whitefish Point in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
“Clearly we’re all very saddened,” said Bruce Lynn, Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum executive director, referring to Lightfoot’s death on Monday at the age of 84.
Lightfoot made several visits to the museum over the years to mark the anniversary of the ship’s Nov. 10, 1975 sinking and met several surviving family members of the doomed ship’s crew.
Lynn met the folk singer during one such visit in 2015.
“He was one of the most gracious individuals,” Lynn told SooToday on Tuesday.
“He was interesting to me because he wanted to know about us and what we did, asking ‘how do you get into this kind of work, working in a museum?’ It was interesting because we were asking him all kinds of questions about himself. There he was, this internationally famous, extremely well-known and well-liked presence and he’s asking us questions about our work.”
Lightfoot visited the museum on Nov. 9, 2015, one day before the annual Fitzgerald ceremony.
“He really didn’t want it to be about him. He wanted that event on the 10th to be about the Fitzgerald and her crew and I thought that was really nice of him,” Lynn said.
Lynn recalled that he enjoyed watching the interaction between Lightfoot and Fitzgerald crew members’ families as they strolled around at Whitefish Point.
“There was mutual admiration. We know that he always had them in mind because in the lyrics he referenced ‘the faces and the names of the wives and the sons and the daughters.' We’ve all lost loved ones but they did in such a dramatic and public fashion and I think Mr. Lightfoot recognized that,” Lynn said.
“We were fortunate to be able to meet him and spend a little time with him and be in his presence for a little while."
In recent years, Lighfoot gave performances at Kewadin Casinos DreamMakers Theater in Sault Ste. Marie Michigan.
“When he would sing that song he would make reference to Whitefish Bay and speak very warmly of the museum,” Lynn said.
The SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior in a severe storm on the evening of Nov. 10, 1975, the disaster claiming the lives of its 29 crew members.
The freighter lies in two shattered pieces 160 metres below the surface of the lake in Canadian waters 27 kilometres from Whitefish Bay near Sault Ste. Marie Ontario and Sault Ste. Marie Michigan.
There have been numerous expeditions to the site and the ship’s bell forms the centrepiece of a permanent Edmund Fitzgerald exhibition at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum.
Lynn said that he credits Lightfoot’s song about the shipwreck as a factor in the museum’s continuing success as a tourist attraction.
“We talk about this a lot among the staff and when we talk about the Fitzgerald we absolutely have to acknowledge the fact that the public awareness of that shipwreck is due to his song.”
“In those lyrics he did a very, very good job of telling the story. We play a part in keeping the memory alive of that shipwreck and other shipwrecks on the Great Lakes, but if it wasn’t for Gordon Lightfoot that awareness of that shipwreck would not exist the way it does today,” Lynn said.
Lightfoot wrote the music and lyrics to The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald before the first eerie images of the shipwreck site were released in May 1976.
The song was released as part of Lightfoot’s Summertime Dream album in June 1976.
The song made it to number 1 in Canada and to number 2 in the U.S. in the Billboard Hot 100.
“All over the world I’m amazed at the places I go and you hear the song and people know the lyrics. It’s clearly one of the reasons people come to the museum. They want to see the bell. They want to see that permanent exhibit. They want to learn more about the ship and the crew and certainly Mr. Lightfoot had a huge amount to do with that,” Lynn said.
“He was a friend of the Shipwreck Museum.”