I’m not gonna except to say that I was there that night. I don’t mean on the boat of course. I was in Sault Ste. Siberia. My brother had a fancy multi-band radio that picked up ship radios and he listened far into the night as the Arthur Anderson called for the Edmund Fitzgerald. No response.

It was spooky walking the moominbeach after that because the storm totally cleared it of all logs and other debris and we kept thinking we were going to see bodies washed up on shore. But Superior (they say) never gives up her dead. I’m not sure that’s exactly true. I have seen a lot of dead bodies on the moominbeach but they always belong to seagulls or occasionally a deer and once when I was a kid a dead dog washed up, which was really interesting to watch as it decomposed. I can still kinda remember one of its eyeballs… (Sorry)

Not all the seagulls born on Round Island make it. Some of them get sick or injured and die on the moominbeach. If we’re lucky, they die when we’re not looking but some of them linger for daaaaaays. At first, they try to fly off when you approach them but they don’t get very far and eventually they lie on the ground and you can hear their labored breathing as you walk by. Once I was up there and there was one that was particularly bothering me. My brother was coming up and when he got there I asked him to get his gun (I am not anti-gun but I do not shoot them) and walk down the beach with me to dispatch the seagull and put it out of its misery. Wouldn’t you know, when we got there, it had finally died.

Once when I was walking around to Cedar Point, I got to one of the little beachlets along the way and WHOA! Dead baby? It was a Huge Shock until I realized it was a baby DOLL.

None of this is intended to disrespect the crew of the Fitz. It was a terrible tragedy and I am thankful that with today’s improved weather forecasting and safety protocols, lake freighters are able to wait out storms like that in safe places.

P.S. What is that mound of sticks in my photoooo? Lower left. Is it a muskrat house? I don’t think Bucky Beaver lives around here.

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