The Edmund Fitzgerald

                Earlier in the Freedom Tour, we visited the nature/visitor center at Neys Provincial Park.  We loved it there.  It has a nice center and was quite informative.  I was both shocked and moved to find on display a life ring from the Edmund Fitzgerald, which was found by a light house keeper washed up on shore a few years after the ship was lost on this impossibly big lake, Superior.  Why here in the campground of this little known provincial park, I ask myself.  We were not supposed to stay at this lovely park on the north shore of Lake Superior.  We got bored at Rabbit Blanket and so headed down the road to Neys, which has a long, sandy beach littered with driftwood and some very interesting geological features. 

Now, Gordon Lightfoot is one of my all-time favorites.  I have a number of his songs in my repertoire.  I play a Guild guitar because Gord always played them.  I have never learned “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, even though I am moved by the story (true) and it is quite easy to play.  I enjoy listening to the song, but I doubt I will ever undertake to play it.  The original is just too good and too haunting.  Because the wreck happened on Lake Superior, where we were then touring, I had found myself thinking of the song or singing the pieces of it that I know.  According to the lyrics, “the sailors all said she’d have made Whitefish Bay if she’d put 15 more miles behind her.”  I found Whitefish Bay on the map.  It is at the far end of the lake from Neys, making it’s being there all the more unexpected.   Neys is probably more than 200 miles away from Whitefish Bay.  Yes, the lake is that big. 

                What drew us to this place?  Have I received a message?  It is certainly tempting to find deeper meaning in such a curious occurrence.   Maybe it’s that we should be less structured in our travel plans and open ourselves to the unexpected.  Maybe we should have stopped in today in Elaine's House of Dreams in Lakota, North Dakota. She arranges flowers, sews, bakes and serves coffee and food. I am sure she has a wonderful story to share.  Wish we had heard it.