Update - The Skies of November Turn Gloomy

November 10th, 2005

I'm standing on the southern shore of Georgian Bay once again. The north wind, which hurtles down the length of the Bay from about Manitoulin Island is so strong that I have to lean into it in order to walk.
After a fairly mild fall, the weather appears to be turning. Old Man Winter, it seems, is just getting warmed up.
As I stand here fighting the cold, I'm reminded of the fact that today is the 30th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Today, it's not hard to imagine what conditions must have been like for the unfortunate souls onboard her. It's also a reminder that even though we think of the Great Lakes as more of a playground now, they can quickly turn into a killing field. Just a few thousand metres from where I'm standing, over 60 ships have been wrecked, by my count, with hundreds of lives lost. Granted, most of these happened more than a century ago, but the loss of a ship like the Fitzgerald reminds one that even with our sophisticated navigational aids and weather satellites, we're not in charge of the Lakes.