Our Changing Relationship to Lake Superior, 1975-2025

By David Beard, Catherine O’Reilly, Joseph M. Lane, Jennifer E. Moore, Timothy Broman, Chance Lasher, Robert Dewitt Adams, Luke Moravec, Moira Villiard, Anastasia Bamford, Nan Montgomery, Sheila Packa, Krista Sue-Lo Twu, and Jennifer Brady

This Open Rivers feature is occasioned by the fiftieth anniversary of the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.

The Fitzgerald was a ship moving taconite (iron ore) across the Great Lakes between Silver Bay, Minnesota, and steel mills near Detroit and Toledo. On November 9, 1975, the Fitzgerald was scheduled to transport taconite from Superior, Wisconsin, to Zug Island near Detroit. The ship never made it; the Edmund Fitzgerald was lost in a storm with no survivors—her entire crew of 29 men. She sank in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975, 17 miles north-northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan. The story is interpreted today at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, near Whitefish Point.

There is still international interest in the tragedy. Gordon Lightfoot inspired popular curiosity with his 1976 ballad, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” The song made the tragedy visible to many. But more poignantly, today, towns around Lake Superior get together on the anniversary of the shipwreck. Duluth hosts an annual “Gales of November” conference that commemorates the Fitzgerald and uses the history of the shipwreck to fuel interest in the Great Lakes. The Minnesota Historical Society operates Split Rock Lighthouse, which rings its bell in honor of the lost every November. We carry the Fitzgerald in our imagination and in our relationship with the lake.

The anniversary of the shipwreck is an opportunity to think more broadly about our relationship with Lake Superior. Of course, the lake has long filled our regional imagination. The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum is across the Upper Peninsula from the Museum of Ojibwe Culture in St. Ignace, Michigan. The Museum of Ojibwe Culture celebrates the long history of the Ojibwe people on the lake; it is also the final resting place of Pere Jacques Marquette, one of the Jesuit explorers who traveled through the Great Lakes region. In the Twin Ports—Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin—community members honor Ojibwe traditions at sites such as the Chief Buffalo murals along the Duluth Lakewalk, and the region’s Jesuit influences at Montreal Pier, Quebec Pier, and Allouez Bay. We recall the influence of French Jesuits and fur traders across the region—as well as the deep connections between Indigenous communities and Lake Superior’s shores.

By the early twentieth century, Montreal Pier and Quebec Pier were sites of commerce. The city of Superior was in competition with Minneapolis as the center of wheat and grain production, and several major companies built grain elevators and mills on the piers (Lake Superior Mills, Anchor, Listman, Cargill, and Belt Line). On the Duluth side, in addition to grain elevators, companies expanded infrastructure to support local iron mines. Today, the ports also transport the gargantuan blades of wind turbines for use in the Great Plains. In the period before federal environmental regulations, heavy industrial commerce caused environmental degradation in and around Lake Superior. Minnesotans imagined the lake to be a giant waste diluter at least until the 1950s, when the U.S. Army and the multinational corporation Honeywell dumped 1400 barrels of munitions waste into the lake. Honestly, in a way, many Minnesotans still viewed Lake Superior this way in the 1970s, if you consider how the lakefront in Duluth was used as a scrapyard. In the 1980s, the city repurposed the scrapyard for tourism in an area called Canal Park.

A lot has changed since the 1970s.

This collection of poetry, essays, and art documents changes in our relationship with Lake Superior in the fifty years since the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The collection is divided into two parts.

In the first section, each contributor examines their changing relationship with Lake Superior. Catherine O’Reilly, Joe Lane, and Jennifer Moore approach the concept of change from their requisite disciplinary frames: ecology, geography, and media history. Memoirs by community members Tim Broman and Chance Lasher chronicle their youth, foregrounding memories of their fathers who lived and worked on Lake Superior. Broman’s father, for example, was the captain of a boat operated by the same company that operated the Fitzgerald. Lasher’s father was an independent diesel mechanic who serviced many boats in the region. These personal histories, together with the section’s scholarly perspectives illuminate how our connection to Lake Superior has shifted in the last fifty years.

Hockey on a frozen lake. ‘Untitled’ by Krista Sue-Lo Twu.

In the second section, we look at art shaped by Lake Superior. Artist Rob Adams recounts how his art installations representing shipwrecks on the Great Lakes helped him reconnect with his father. Media personality and author Luke Moravec reflects on his personal history of diving in the lake and how these frigid plunges helped him build resiliency. Anastasia Bamford and Nan Montgomery together present art and poetry in dialogue, where the lake forms a horizon to human relationships. And, finally, we share an excerpt from a longer poem by former Duluth poet laureate Sheila Packa. “Surface Displacements,” extracted from the book by the same name, oscillates between a geologic perspective of Minnesota and an individual poet’s personal experiences of Lake Superior. The excerpt concludes where Packa begins to describe the rivers that run through our region. We include a link to the rest of the poem as part of a multimedia artwork created by Kathy McTavish, using digital sound and animation to bring Packa’s poem to life. Packa’s work is a reminder that the brief time of our consciousness and the vast time of geology, especially of the lake and its watershed, are intertwined.

This section of Open Rivers concludes with words from Jennifer Brady about the ways that the Edmund Fitzgerald continues to resonate today. Throughout the section, art by Krista Sue-Lo Twu, as well as art and photography from contributing poets and authors, brings our conversations to life.

In the spirit of Open Rivers, we appreciate the ways members of our diverse community have contributed to this work. Together, we have assembled a picture of our relationship with Lake Superior. Open Rivers brings together voices and perspectives of academics, community members, artists, and advocates who are united by a shared concern for our water futures. In this collection, an ecologist, a geographer, a broadcaster, a journalism professor, and several artists, poets, and memoirists—each shaped by the lake—come together to create the fullest articulation of our relationship to this body of water. If this is to be the last issue of Open Rivers, we hope we have lived up to the potential the journal set for us all in shaping the future of our relationship to our waters.

— David Beard

Part One: A Concept of Change From Disciplinary Frames

Then and now: Lake Superior in the time of the Edmund Fitzgerald

by Catherine O’Reilly

When the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in 1975, Lake Superior was slightly different from today. On one hand, it remains a large lake, holding approximately 10 percent of Earth’s liquid surface freshwater, and an important natural resource. But the lake has changed—for both better and worse—in the fifty years since that stormy November night.

There has been an increase in the frequency, intensity, and unpredictability of storms on Lake Superior, especially in the fall and winter. Stronger storms bring higher wind speeds, larger waves, and more extreme precipitation events. One of the most striking trends is the rise in the average and peak wind speed over the lake. Average wind speeds on Lake Superior have increased by 5 percent each decade since the mid-1970s, with peak gusts during fall storms increasing by as much as 20–25 percent. These winds generate larger waves—some exceeding 25 feet during major storm events.[1]

In the late 2010s, when water levels in Lake Superior were particularly high, stronger storms led to the rapid transformation of coastlines. Storm events have eroded beaches, overwhelmed outdated seawalls, flooded waterfront communities, and damaged harbors and piers. For example, along Minnesota’s North Shore, powerful storms in 2017 and 2021 tore away segments of walking trails and sections of scenic highways. Several popular beaches on Wisconsin’s Apostle Islands have disappeared due to erosion over the past decade, with some areas losing over 30 feet of shoreline in a single season.

The R/V Blue Heron is the research vessel of the Large Lakes Observatory on Lake Superior. ‘Blue Heron’ by Krista Sue-Lo Twu.

Precipitation over Lake Superior has increased by roughly 20 percent over the past fifty years. Extreme storms are also becoming more frequent, delivering more water in shorter periods. Heavy rainfall intensifies surface runoff, overwhelms stormwater infrastructure, and increases water pollution. In 2012 and 2018, Duluth experienced two “500-year” floods, which caused landslides, destroyed culverts, and heavily damaged roads and riverside infrastructure. These storm and precipitation trends not only reshape the lake’s coastlines but they also affect fish spawning grounds and water quality.

This growing vulnerability of shoreline infrastructure has prompted significant investment in resilience planning. Today, communities are adapting by mapping erosion hotspots, funding shoreline stabilization and green infrastructure projects, and updating stormwater management plans to prepare for more frequent climate extremes. Policy consultants and city officials in Duluth, for example, have put forward the Duluth Climate Action Work Plan.

Shifts in Fish Communities

The introduction of new species in the lake has continued. In 1975, researchers recorded about 40 non-native aquatic species in Lake Superior.[2] Non-native species such as rainbow smelt were dominant and outcompeted the lake’s native ciscoes, further altering predator-prey dynamics.[3] At the time, ships could still freely exchange water in their ballast systems with water from the Great Lakes as needed. This was the source of most of the non-native species in the lakes, a pattern that continued into the 1990s and 2000s until ballast water regulations substantially reduced the rate of introductions.[4] Today, there are many more new species compared to when the Edmund Fitzgerald sailed on Lake Superior fifty years ago.[5]

Native fish populations on the lake have revived. While sturgeon were rare in 1975, today these fish are slowly returning to spawning tributaries. Populations remain small and highly vulnerable, but in places like the St. Louis River Estuary, sightings are becoming more frequent—and some fish now exceed 100 pounds.[6] Cisco numbers have rebounded in parts of the lake, particularly in the western regions, benefiting from targeted population restoration, habitat protection, and the reduction of rainbow smelt populations. While the Great Lakes Fishery Commission declared shortnose cisco extinct in Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Ontario in 1980s, the fish were observed in Lake Superior in 2022—where they previously did not exist.[7]

Change in Winter Climate

One of the biggest environmental changes is the decline of winter ice coverage over Lake Superior. In the winter of 1975–1976, ice extended over 75 percent of the surface of the lake, which was considered normal at the time.[8] Average ice cover on Lake Superior has decreased by more than half since the 1970s, with some years seeing virtually ice-free conditions. The most recent winter ice coverage (2024-2025), for example, maxed out at 45 percent.[9] The shorter ice season causes the lake to heat up more quickly in the summer, and these warmer water temperatures, in turn, prolong the time it takes for the lake to cool enough to freeze in the winter.

Although less ice coverage has extended the shipping season for several weeks compared to the 1970s, it is unclear if the potential economic benefits will offset the long-term ecological consequences. There are also other less quantifiable impacts. Ice cover affects how exposed shorelines are to wave action and winter storms, and reduced ice coverage accelerates erosion and threatens coastal habitats. Warmer water temperatures also affect water quality and fish habitats, particularly for cold-water species like lake trout and whitefish, which rely on cooler, oxygen-rich waters.

Water Quality and Ecological Changes

In the mid-1970s, water quality around the lakeshore was poor. Pollution linked to heavy industry, sewage discharge, and mercury contamination impacted nearshore waters, especially near industrial ports like Duluth-Superior and Thunder Bay. Fish consumption advisories for toxic contaminants like mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) had just been issued in the early 1970s.

 Water quality concerns helped drive binational cooperation with Canada through the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (1972), followed by the passage of the U.S. Clean Water Act (1972). This led to significant improvements in wastewater treatment and point-source pollution controls along with the creation of “Areas of Concern.” Today, many historically polluted harbors have been cleaned up, industrial discharge curtailed, and “Areas of Concern” have shown measurable improvements in sediment loads, fish and wildlife health, and opportunities for recreational use.[10] Our desire to protect the Great Lakes extends to new efforts that would reduce the loading of sediment and nutrients in smaller tributaries, improving trout habitat and nearshore water quality.

Today, new water quality challenges have emerged. In the 1970s, plastic bags were not yet widely found in grocery stores and were only beginning to be used in large retail stores like J.C. Penney and Sears. The crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald never got to experience fleece fabrics, which were developed in the late 1970s. Today, even the middle of Lake Superior contains microplastics derived from sources like degraded plastic bags and fleece. Periodic algal blooms have developed in shallow bays like Chequamegon Bay and St. Louis Bay. These blooms often contain cyanobacteria, including some microorganisms that have the capacity to produce toxins that are harmful to animals and humans. Fish advisories still exist, including for new contaminants such as “forever chemicals” like PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), highlighting the enduring legacy of chemical pollutants in waterways.

Would the SS Edmund Fitzgerald recognize the lake? Probably, but it would know that things are different now.

Beacons of Understanding: Maritime Heritage and the Power of Informal and Place-Based Learning

by Joseph M. Lane

Learning often extends far beyond the walls of the traditional classroom setting, as it is driven by an individual’s curiosity, personal experience, and desire to understand the world from a firsthand perspective. This is the foundation of informal learning, which Jeffs and Smith (2011) describe as taking place outside the boundaries of formal schooling and within the lived contexts of everyday life. Place-based learning, as defined by Yemini, Engel, and Ben (2025), emphasizes the relationship between learning and the physical environments where humans live and work. Place-based learning draws on the meanings, memories, and personal experiences embedded in those places. Informal and place-based learning complement one another. Taken together, they form a tightly connected set of practices that ground meaningful learning. For many people, including myself, the combination of these types of learning matter, because they are anchored in the places we move through, the people we connect with, and the contexts that surround us (Dierking et al. 2003).

Background

Maritime heritage, on the North American Great Lakes, has held my imagination for as long as I can remember. Growing up near Lake Michigan, I learned a little about the Edmund Fitzgerald along with general facts about Great Lakes shipping, but I wanted to know more. In the late 1990s, when the internet became more readily accessible, one of the first things I researched was ships on the Great Lakes. None of my friends could understand why.

Before I knew it, I was hooked. I went to the library; I found old magazines describing what life was like onboard. I read articles explaining weather and climate. I dove deep into learning about ice coverage and the impact it has on the lakes throughout the year. I even met a couple of old sailors who spent time detailing their personal experiences with me. And, of course, I scoured the internet. As time went on, I learned more than just routine facts about the Big Fitz. I gained a more comprehensive understanding of the complexities that define this tragedy.

Consequently, the more I learned about the broader world of Great Lakes shipping, the more I appreciated the essential role of the lighthouses that served these vessels. For generations, lighthouses along the Great Lakes were dependable aspects of maritime navigational technology, helping mariners find safe passage through unpredictable waters. These remote and weathered structures hold countless stories of the region’s maritime past. Today, many of these sites are being reimagined, shifting from navigational beacons to sites of informal, place-based learning that connect visitors to the lakes in new and meaningful ways. In contemporary society, Great Lakes lighthouses offer a chance to think differently about where, when and how learning happens. These structures invite people to step out of the classroom and learn directly from the landscape and explore history, ecology, and culture. Lighthouses and their surrounding landscapes create a rarely identified opportunity for hands-on, place-based learning that is rooted in historical and scientific understanding through community and lived experience (Lane & Stoltman 2016).

St. Helena Island, Michigan: Informal and Place-Based Learning

The evolving role of lighthouses as spaces for informal learning becomes especially clear at the St. Helena Island lighthouse. This place—two miles south of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on the remote Lake Michigan side of the Straits of Mackinac—feels far away from any classroom. What began as a nineteenth-century navigational outpost has grown into a place where history, stewardship, and hands-on experience intersect in meaningful ways. Maintained by the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association (GLLKA), this 1873 lighthouse has hosted summer education programs for more than twenty years, offering students, scouts, educators, and volunteers a rare opportunity to learn directly from the landscape through immersion. Blending social issues, historical interpretation, and scientific instruction, St. Helena Island offers a model for informal education that is meaningful, interdisciplinary, and deeply rooted in the water-rich landscapes of the Great Lakes region.

On a warm July evening, a group of visitors hauled buckets of water from a nearby well into the summer kitchen at the lighthouse on St. Helena Island. These visitors came to this island with more than a tourist mindset; they came to reenact the duties of a nineteenth-century island lighthouse keeper on the Great Lakes. Guests are quite literally keeping this old lighthouse alive, and for those who’ve volunteered here, it may be one of the most memorable classrooms they have ever experienced. The work that volunteers complete is physical, but it also holds a strong historical significance. Visitors’ time on the island varies from hours to weeks, during which they are exposed to the many types of projects that are needed to keep the lighthouse functioning. From building latrines to painting the tower to cooking stew to feed the crew, today’s volunteer lighthouse keepers get a hands-on experience of the lives of those who once kept these lights burning. While the lighthouse utilizes some modern conveniences, the physical nature of the work helps visitors get in the mindset that they are there to learn from experience. By the time they leave, many feel they have gotten a small peek into what it might have been like to operate a lighthouse 150 years ago.

Among the many stories preserved at St. Helena is the often-overlooked role that women played as lighthouse keepers during the era when the station actively aided navigation. Women were officially classified as “assistants,” and a woman could only assume the position of keeper if her husband died. As head keepers, women balanced domestic responsibilities with the physically demanding work of lighthouse maintenance. In many cases, women’s labor was essential for tending lamps, hauling oil, keeping ship logs, and performing essential maintenance. Today, these women’s stories prompt discussions about technology, labor, gender, and how history is remembered.

In addition to its rich lighthouse history, St. Helena Island has become a living laboratory where visitors explore science topics such as climate variability, biodiversity, sustainability, and the physical forces that shape the Great Lakes. On St. Helena, these ideas come to life. Visitors learn by being immersed in the environment, by working, observing, and moving through a landscape that has been shaped by the same forces that surround them.

Learning in Unique Place-Based Settings

The St. Helena Island lighthouse shows how informal learning can genuinely add to what happens in a traditional classroom. It offers a place-based experience where science, history, and community engagement come together in ways that are grounded in reality. The site includes stories that are often overlooked and lets visitors step directly into the work and daily rhythms of island lighthouse life. This is a place where visitors can be a part of the landscape that shapes Great Lakes navigation, the weather patterns that lead to shipwrecks, and the infrastructure that has kept shipping moving for generations.

For many visitors, being here makes the material “sink in” in a way that lectures or reading material rarely do. Visitors typically arrive with a genuine interest in the operation of the St. Helena Island lighthouse. In that sense, the lighthouse is more than just a historic landmark, it has become a place where curiosity grows and conceptual understanding develops.

How Would Today’s News Media Tell the Fitzgerald Story?

by Jennifer E. Moore

Before I took the ferry to Wisconsin’s Madeline Island this past June for a weekend camping trip, I stopped into the Bayfield Maritime Museum to see what was new since my last visit. The volunteer docent spotted the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) sweatshirt I was wearing and struck up a conversation. He graduated in the 1970s and shared his fond memories of Duluth and his time on the shores of Lake Superior with me. While covering the highlights of the museum’s collection, he pointed me in the direction of the Edmund Fitzgerald installation. “Have you ever seen taconite?” he asked. “Yes, of course. Remember, I live in Duluth,” I replied with a smile. He told me he saw the Fitzgerald several times moving in and out of the harbor while attending UMD. I pressed a bit further about his memories of the Fitzgerald. I was particularly curious about what he remembered about the newspaper and broadcast reports from when the ship sank. He admitted he didn’t recall much about the news coverage, but he remembered when Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” hit the airwaves less than a year later. “That’s when people really started talking about it,” he said enthusiastically.

The volunteer’s vague recollection of news reports about the Fitzgerald tragedy—and their vivid memory of Lightfoot’s ballad—reveals something about the mid-1970s media environment. For those of us who live along the shores of Lake Superior, the Fitzgerald’s tragic story still resonates. The massive iron ore carrier passed through our waters, with its last trip departing from the Superior, Wisconsin, ship canal. While the Fitzgerald vanished hundreds of miles down the shoreline, one can’t help but think about the Lakers (shipping vessels that primarily travel the Great Lakes) gliding through the shipping canal today. It invites a haunting sense of scale that illustrates how the storm quickly overwhelmed the massive vessel, giving the crew no time to call for help.

As we approach the 50th anniversary of her tragic sinking, the story continues to carry special meaning for many of us who live and work in the Twin Ports. We still watch massive ore carriers come and go from both the Duluth and Superior ports throughout the shipping season. Had the Fitzgerald survived, there is a good chance she’d still be hauling taconite across the Great Lakes. After all, her companion on the night she broke into two and plunged to the bottom of Lake Superior, the Arthur M. Anderson, is still operating on the Great Lakes today.

In reading past anniversary remembrances and news coverage, I’ve found myself wondering what reporting would look like if the Fitzgerald were to vanish under similar circumstances today. With advancements in real-time geolocation tracking and mobile livestreaming, nearly anyone can document a historic event as it unfolds, creating a staggering volume and variety of content. News organizations that once acted as the primary gatekeepers of information have seen their roles diminish as they contend with countless unofficial sources—competition unthinkable in 1975. While some social media platforms push out news from official news outlets, they also act as echo chambers that amplify speculation over verifiable facts. The mysterious algorithm that shapes what we see online today would inevitably compete with journalists’ efforts to verify facts and report the truth.

Today, breaking news of the Fitzgerald’s disappearance would not come from a professional journalist working for a wire service as it did in 1975. Families with maritime connections and industry workers might be among the first to take to Facebook to share what they know and speculate on what happened. Citizen drone pilots would try to get their aircrafts as close to the wreckage as possible, providing the world with images that would have previously originated from official maritime sources, or professional news media. YouTube, TikTok or X (formerly Twitter) would serve up this early amateur video before traditional news outlets would be able to confirm what was happening from official sources. Hashtags about the ship sinking might trend before any official press conference was held.

As in 1975, we’d expect stories drawing parallels between the Fitzgerald’s fate and previous shipwrecks on the Great Lakes in the modern era. But, unlike the mid-1970s, this follow-up coverage would unfold at a dizzying pace across many media platforms. Today, we have an ever-expanding array of news media through which we can seek out around-the-clock updates. Perhaps we’d see explainer pieces on maritime safety, interactive maps embedded with weather data, or other multimedia packages from local and national news outlets.

News organizations would race to humanize the crew, mining social media accounts to help reconstruct the lives of the missing. Reporters would search Facebook and Instagram for photos, birthdays, recent posts, and personal milestones, and LinkedIn for insights into their career histories. They would also use social media to locate and contact friends and family members who had shared tributes online. A single tweet or photo caption might become the emotional hook to frame broadcast and digital media reporting. Producers would scramble to locate family and friends for interviews, capturing raw grief within hours of confirmation of an accident.

I can imagine podcasts, radio’s digital-age successor, playing a prominent role in storytelling. In today’s media ecosystem, podcasters contribute to both credible reporting and fringe speculation. Established investigative units would produce compelling deep-dive series that would examine every detail leading up to the wreck, as well as the aftermath of the tragedy. At the same time, less reputable voices might exploit the format to spread harmful narratives and misinformation.

Roughly two and a half years passed before the Coast Guard published the results of its official investigation of the Fitzgerald disaster. The final report identified defective hatch covers and cargo hold flooding as the likely cause of the Laker’s demise. Today, could the public tolerate waiting that long? People running Reddit feeds would attempt to dissect the evidence in real time. Some of it might be insightful. It’s easy to imagine that much of it would be wrong. Long-form investigative work takes time, but public pressure would demand answers fast, especially if early reporting could not explain why no distress signal was sent or how such a massive vessel could vanish without a trace.

Lake Superior and the storm it fueled was framed as a killer in 1975 reporting. But in 2025, what would the dominant narrative be? Would the story still portray the lake as a monstrous force, or might it evolve into something else? Today, human-caused climate change would almost certainly become the central news frame. With storms on the Great Lakes growing more intense and unpredictable, the sinking would be interpreted not as an isolated tragedy, but as part of a broader pattern linked to global warming. Additionally, with Indigenous perspectives becoming more visible in public discourse around water sovereignty and climate justice, the idea of being “water protectors” might push this environmental narrative further. These perspectives encourage greater reflection on the consequences of our own actions rather than the fury of the lake. In our age, the Fitzgerald’s demise would be less about the uncontrollable forces of nature and more about how human decisions, policies, and inaction set the stage for disaster.

It’s also hard to ignore a significant cultural moment that likely influenced reporting in 1975: the release of the movie Jaws. That film famously sparked widespread anxiety about shark attacks and the unseen dangers that lurk beneath the water’s surface. It’s a fear that permeates today, even jokingly on tourist t-shirts that Lake Superior is “shark-free.” Today, concerns embedded in modern reporting about the tragedy might include the real fear that politicians are ignoring climate change. News reports might also discuss the influence of the superhero films that help shape how we perceive power struggles between the so-called “villains and heroes” in the real world.

In interviews, Gordon Lightfoot explained that he drew inspiration for his ballad from a Newsweek article on the disaster that included an Anishinaabe expression that Lake Superior “never gives up her dead.”

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy

—Gordon Lightfoot, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”

Imagine if Lightfoot hadn’t read that article. Would his song—and the cultural memory it helped share—even exist in the first place?

A recent transportation disaster offers a real-time glimpse into the very media dynamics I’m imagining. Consider the mid-air collision that happened in January 2025 between a commercial passenger airplane and a military helicopter over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Static traffic control cameras captured the mid-air collision, providing unfiltered footage for the public to view and repeatedly rewatch. News organizations created timelines and graphic representations of the crash. Speculation surfaced on social media platforms and cable news outlets, with some commentators immediately and unfairly blaming overworked air traffic controllers. Human-interest stories also appeared featuring commercial passengers such as the Olympic hopefuls of the U.S. Figure Skating team returning from a training camp. In short, a cacophony of news circulated representing the best and worst of mass media. The chaos of the media environment surrounding this tragedy offers glimmers of the coverage that might unfold if the Fitzgerald sank in 2025. Conspiracy theories might quickly take hold on social media platforms as well as cable news channels. Was it corporate negligence? A government cover-up? Social media influencers might seize the moment to spin stories untethered from journalistic principles, prioritizing engagement over truth and speculation over verification. In the twenty-first-century economy, sensationalism is more important than accuracy.

Despite our romanticization of the past, there has never been a golden age of perfectly reliable news. But what has changed is the scale and speed at which “alternative facts” and divergent versions of news spread. In an era where deepfakes can do real harm through monetized social media posts and platform algorithms shape what people see, the media landscape has shifted. In such a world, a tragedy like the Fitzgerald might not become a solemn ballad but rather a battleground of competing truths. What might have once taken years to investigate would be dissected in real time by TikTok sleuths and YouTube “truthers.” The story would not just be about what happened to the ship, but about who gets to tell the story, and whose version wins the attention war.

The story of the Edmund Fitzgerald continues to anchor something deeper for those of us who live and work near Lake Superior. The lake shapes our lives economically, culturally, and spiritually. Whether remembered through song, scholarship, or other forms of storytelling, the tragedy of the Fitzgerald is a reminder that some stories reach beyond history and headlines. Speculating about how the tragedy would be reported today helps us see not only how journalism has changed, but also what we risk losing: a shared understanding of the world around us, trust in news media, and an appreciation for how time ultimately allows a story to find its own truth.

A Father and a Family on the Edge of Lake Superior

by Timothy Broman

Broman family snapshots. Image courtesy of Timothy Broman.

My father’s name was Orval J. Broman. He retired as a captain at the Oglebay Norton Shipping Company in 1987. The corporation was an ore mining company that operated shipping freighters on the Great Lakes. At one point the company’s flagship vessel was the SS Edmund Fitzgerald through their Columbia Transportation Division. From my recollection, being a merchant marine was the only job I ever knew him to have.

When I realized what his job was as a child, he held the rank of third mate, the fourth-in-command on the ship. During his time off, my father would study, applying himself in the hopes of getting promoted. He eventually got promoted to second mate, then first mate, and lastly, when he retired, he served as captain.

My father would work about eight months out of the year and then come home for the other four months—sometimes more, sometimes less. He would usually return sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, as the lakes froze. In some warmer years, he would stay out later than Christmas. It didn’t feel like Christmas if he was not home. When he finally came home, it would normally be only for a few months. Then, when the winter weather started thawing (usually March or April), Dad would get the phone call summoning him back onto the boats. It was a phone call he would avoid for as long as possible.

During the summer months, his company gave him vacation time. I remember him being at home for periods during the summer but only for a few weeks. Then he’d have to get back on the boats.

My father hated the job. I never knew this until later in life. He had been in the Navy during his military career, and I don’t believe that the experience made him want to go back out on the water ever again. However, he was a husband and a father. As his family grew to include four children, he realized the best way to feed them was to go back onto the Great Lakes as a merchant marine.

His shipping routes kept him on the western half of the Great Lakes, from Ohio west to the Twin Ports. My father’s usual routes on the ships took him to Silver Bay, Minnesota and occasionally to Duluth. He would load up taconite pellets, and then take them “downlake”—wherever they needed to go. His ultimate destination was usually to Michigan or someplace in Ohio, perhaps Toledo or Cleveland.

Occasionally, children of the crew were allowed to travel the route with their father. According to my mother, I rode with my father once, to Toledo, on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Family Together in Silver Bay

When my father came to Silver Bay during the summer, we would go visit him. Silver Bay, a small port city in Minnesota on the North Shore of Lake Superior, was about an hour or so north of Duluth. Unfortunately, I almost always suffered from car sickness. I would feel dizzy, and nauseous. I never threw up—I just always felt like I would. To help me with the trip, my mother gave me Dramamine. I would take one, and an hour later, we were in Silver Bay.

Once we arrived in Silver Bay, we would have to wait for my father to come off the boat. Once his ship docked at the pier, he would climb down the ladder that the sailors placed against the boat. As he climbed down that ladder, my little kid brain worried that he would fall into the lake. When he was safe on land, he’d hop in the car and we would travel up to Baptism River State Park near Finland, Minnesota.[11]

In Baptism River State Park, there was a picnic site where two rivers that ran from different directions converged. At the picnic grounds, we would sit together and grill food for our meal. We usually barbecued burgers or some hot dogs. From time to time, our parents gave us marshmallows to roast.

After a couple of hours, Dad would have to go back on the boats. The rest of our family went back to Duluth. For some odd reason, I never seemed to have motion sickness on the ride home—just the ride up.

Family Together in Duluth

If Dad ever pulled into Duluth port, he would get off the boat, and we would go out for dinner.

Initially, dinner consisted of hot dogs at a little station down at the Lift Bridge. (Memory fails me as to the name of the place.) Once Dad started making more money and my siblings and I were older, dinner plans changed. If Dad pulled into Duluth, we went to Joe Huie’s. (This was before the Chinese Lantern restaurant opened.)

The best way I can describe where Joe Huie’s actual restaurant was located is like this: if you’re getting onto Lake Ave. to turn onto I-35 heading South, the entrance point where you get onto the ramp is roughly where Joe Huie’s was located.[12] The restaurant was a little hole-in-the-wall joint, with tabletop jukeboxes on every table. We could drop our coins in and press a button for whatever popular music was available at the time. I loved the Beatles but my father hated to pay for them because he didn’t care for their music. The menu at the time was filled with items that were mostly less than a dollar. Cheaper entrees were 95 cents or less. Deluxe items were $2.50.

As my father did better economically, we might go to the Jolly Fisher, in downtown Duluth. The old location was between Lake Avenue and 1st Avenue East on the upper side of Superior Street.[13] From the old location, I remember the lobster tank, cloth napkins, and Shirley Temples with cherries on top. Was the Jolly Fisher Northland fine dining? You betcha.

Eventually, the Jolly Fisher burned down. They later reopened in what is now the Minnesota Power Building. They closed in 1992 after Red Lobster came to town and battled them for existing customers. There were grumblings that the chain was non-Union, and Jolly Fisher had an organized union. For my Dad, that mattered a whole helluva lot.

November 10, 1975

I’ve told this story before.

The night the Edmund Fitzgerald went down, I was home alone. I was 15 years old, with three siblings. I have no idea where they could have been—maybe working, or babysitting. Who knows?

My mother was at an auxiliary meeting at the Ship Masters’ club.[14] The Ship Masters’ club (I’m not sure where it was located) was a local Duluth chapter. It was a social club like the Elks club or the Lions club. It had a private bar, and it was for men who worked on the boats, and their wives.

The phone started ringing at home sometime after dark. People were calling with a panic in their voices, wanting to know if my father was currently serving on the Edmund Fitzgerald?

My Dad worked for the Oglebay Norton Company, who had leased and operated the Fitzgerald. He worked for different boats every year, and there were a few boats that had funky names like the Armco, the Wolverine, and the Reserve. The rest of the Fleet had formal names (something) like the William T. Jones, the Robert Thomas, and also the Edmund Fitzgerald. These were names of people that I did not know.

I could always remember the names of the ships like the Reserve. I could never remember the names of the ships formally named after people.

So, the calls were coming in. Maybe a dozen or so. They all kept asking, “Is your Dad on the Fitzgerald?”

And I would answer with, “I don’t really know. Every year it changes. Why do you want to know?”

The caller responded, “They said the Fitzgerald had sunk.”

“It did?”

Apparently the only local TV station that was reporting it at the time was WDIO—our ABC affiliate.

But I didn’t know if Dad was on the Fitzgerald. And the only person who would know was my mom. And she did NOT like to get phone calls at her meetings if they were not important.

After getting several panicky calls from people, I had to call the Ship Masters’ club.

The wives were members of the Ship Masters’ Ladies Auxiliary club. Their membership was based on their being married to a member. They themselves weren’t actual members—if a husband who worked on the boats divorced his wife, she could no longer come to the club. (Remember, this was the 1970s.)

I knew when I called she would not be happy to be interrupted. And she wasn’t. She had made it very clear that we weren’t to bother her at her auxiliary meetings unless it was super important.

The bartender answered the phone. I said, “I need to speak to Georgeann Broman, please. It’s extremely important.”

He hesitated for a moment, so I had to tell him again, “It’s extremely important.” It takes a few minutes for her to come to the phone.

I was sitting there, listening to the people at the club in the background—people chatting, drinking, arguing, laughing. I got the feeling they didn’t know, yet.

My mom finally came to the phone, and she started snapping at me because she thought that I was home with one of my siblings and that we were having one of our stupid fights. She was upset, and she told me I shouldn’t have called and that whatever it was it could have waited.

I’m trying to get my words in and she just wouldn’t let me. So, I finally blurted out, “Mom, the Edmund Fitzgerald sank.”

She went dead silent. I said, “Is Dad working on the Fitzgerald?”

Her quick reply was, “NO.”

She tells me which ship he is on, but I forgot it as soon as I heard it (“No” was the only answer I needed at that moment).

Her next question was, “How do you know it sank?”

I said, “WDIO is announcing that the Fitzgerald has supposedly sunk in stormy waters on Lake Superior.”

Mom turned to the bartender—I could hear her turn her head away from the phone—to ask him to change the TV to Channel 10.

The second he switched the channel over, the whole room went silent. I could hear it over the phone.

I needed to wrap up the call. My mother now had other things on her mind—lost friends and people she knew who were on that ship.

I said, “Okay. I’m just getting a lot of calls from people who are panicking but now I can tell them that Dad isn’t on the Fitzgerald. I’m sorry I had to call you.” And then she hung up the phone.

As a side note, when Gordon Lightfoot sings about the cook on board the boat telling fellas “it’s been good to know ya,” it’s because the regular cook was off the boat in Duluth and was really sick with the flu. The company had to find a substitute cook. Poor fellow.

My dad retired in 1987. Oglebay filed for bankruptcy in 2004. In a way, this was the bookend of a way of life and being for a family in Duluth, Minnesota.

Blue Giants Waiting

by Chance Lasher

I have a distinct childhood memory of riding in the backseat of my family’s 1999 Chrysler minivan, leaning my head into the center aisle, looking out the front windshield, and thinking I had entered a different world.

We were at the intersection of Central Entrance and Missabe, which sits just below the crest of the hill above the city of Duluth. I could see right over the slope of the road, past the Coppertop Church’s rusted green roof, and over the trees. There, the vast blue face of Lake Superior peered up at me with a sun-gleamed smile. I stared back, in wonder and in fear.

My family lived in Hermantown, at the top of the hill. You’d think we would visit Duluth more often, given that we only lived 30 minutes away, but our whole world existed on the top of that hill—schools, groceries, friends, all of it. Duluth, and by extension the lake, existed as an Elfland in my mind. We all knew once you crested the hill, time stopped—reversed, even. Only on special occasions, like a doctor’s appointment, or if family came from out of town and wanted to see the sights, would we drive into Duluth.

I would gawk at the city from my car seat window. Those red brick facades and roads and the schools with high clock towers and crenellations seemed like they were from a different time and reality. How could a city so old exist on such steep slopes? Surely a strong storm would wash all the old houses off the rock and into the lake.

Lake Superior watched us from the gaps between buildings. It loomed—even if you couldn’t see it, you knew it was close. I knew there were songs about the boats that had sailed there and the storms that sank them. I knew the waters were cold enough to preserve your body, even after death. I had once dipped my feet in the waters as a kid. It stung, and I was too scared to go back in. Every time we drove over the Bong Bridge connecting the Twin Ports, I wondered if the whole thing would just collapse and the lake would swallow us, as she had done to many other boats.

Dad knew the lake. He worked as a diesel mechanic on the thousand footers–the long, ore carrying boats that sailed the Great Lakes. In the summer, he found the occasional job, but when the water froze and sealed the boats in port, winter work began. By January he’d be gone. He wouldn’t return until March or April, sailing to Toledo, Detroit, Marquette, Cleveland, Ashtabula, and Sault St. Marie, places that all seemed like foreign lands to me as a child.

The rest of the house didn’t get out much. Ma had to take care of four kids alone. All of our family was from North Dakota, another vast and isolated place. Home for us kids was the house and the surrounding woods and prickly raspberry bushes. As kids, we plucked the berries we didn’t eat into white ice cream pales. Inside, we read Garfield and The Magic Treehouse. We played Pokémon, Super Mario, and The Legend of Zelda. Mom would only let us play our Game Boys for one hour each, so the rest of our free time we’d end up drawing all our favorite characters from these games and stories. And the maps. We’d all lay on the carpet, each with our own drawing pad, sharing color pencils, and sketch out a game’s overworld map. We were seasoned adventurers. We knew those worlds better than we knew our own street name and our parents’ phone numbers.

As I went from elementary to middle school, my social world became more impossible to navigate, and I retreated—or remained—in those other worlds. My imagination was my resolute, steady friend. Soon I was drawing maps for a world of my own creation: Arca. The mountain range there was the literal spine of a dead giant, with treacherous, tortuous roads from summit to foot. The great city of Isa Augusta sat on the coast, off the northern foothills of mountains. The Isabellacan Ocean beat ceaselessly at its eastern shoreline. Beyond that shore, I didn’t know where the ocean ended, but I dreamed of its cold, dark depths and knew something lived down there, something older than humankind.

I would ponder such horrendities until a thump of boots on the stairs interrupted my reverie. Dad. I’d freeze. Other times, I’d hide under the covers or hop into the closet. Usually, I wasn’t fast enough.

Dad stood in the doorway. He called, “Come out to the shop. We gotta work.”

The shop was a dingy place with ruddy overhanging lights, a rough workbench, and shelves of screws and O-rings. I remember the cardboard slung across the concrete floors, and above all, the smell of diesel. His blue coveralls always stunk of it.

Dad always found work for me and my siblings to do. He didn’t like to see us drawing or playing video games, although he never said so. He worked with his hands and valued that more than anything. “It’s a good skill to learn,” he’d say, slow and emphatic, whenever he was dooming us to a particular task. “It’s good to learn.”

I hated working in the shop. Sure, I learned a few things. We changed the oil in the minivan, jacked up the car, rotated tires, changed brake pads—all good things to learn. I wore the knees of my blue jeans into stringy white lipped holes. But more often, Dad would give me the most menial and meaningless tasks. Unscrew screws from scrap, clean the grease out of this, file the edge down of that, wash the cars, squeegee the cars—grunt work. Work for work’s sake.

When you don’t get to practice making choices in what you do, you learn that others will make them for you. Do the grunt work and you’ll be taken care of. Work is your worth as a man. If a man wasn’t working, then he wasn’t worth anything. These were the beliefs I internalized.

Dad did not consider art to be work. This could not stand.

So anytime I worked with Dad, I half-assed it. Summer became the season of excuses, hurried plans, obfuscation—anything to not go out to the shop. Anything to take back my own time, back to the maps and the games and the stories. I found my own way to be busy. I saw the disappointment in his eyes. Winter was a blessing. It meant he had to go out to distant lands and work on the thousand footers, and I would have my time.

Despite my avoidance towards Dad’s antics, I found it hard to leave home as a young adult. I had just learned how to drive, and expanded my mental map of Hermantown (and my map wasn’t big to begin with). I’d never driven in downtown Duluth, or the Twin Cities, on my own. Despite all the maps I’d created, and despite my unconscious hunger for adventure, I played it safe. I had really good grades. I could have gone to a lot of colleges across the country, but I picked a local community college. I’d save money living with my parents instead of having a dorm. Lake Superior College was still on top of the hill, so it was easy driving. When I transferred to the University of Minnesota Duluth, it was also on top of the hill. When I got my own job to avoid working with dad, it was also on top of the hill.

COVID-19 hit. My college classes went virtual, and I took a gap year. I stayed home. I watched the news from my laptop and felt like the world was constantly ending. I finished a novel that will never see the light of day. I despaired.

Dad came in before the winter of 2021 and said, “You need to get a job. I could use help with winter work out on the ships. It would be a good experience.”

No amount of money in the world would have convinced me. My sister called it being banished to Ohio. To be gone for months at a time, living out of a hotel, unable to see friends, and working with Dad every single day—sounded like a hell personally crafted for me.

I quickly applied for a different job in Duluth. I’d have to drive, but hell, it would be better than being banished.

I had nightmares. I’d be driving one of Dad’s old trucks into Duluth for some reason. The road would start solid, but then I’d get on a thin bridge with no guard rails. By some perverse dream logic, the road would narrow, and the longer I drove the narrower it got, until the tires slipped and my car plummeted into the blue waters below.

I woke up in a sweat. I thought of quitting my job before I’d even started.

But I didn’t, and that job taught me a lot.

I worked with folks with disabilities. That meant driving them to work and to community activities across Duluth and Superior. I had to brave steep roads, the Bong Bridge, and parallel park on the downtown streets. People lived in Duluth, not just sailors and ghosts from the 1920s. I talked with my coworkers. They liked Pokémon and books too. I made friends.

Soon enough the vaulting streets of Missabe didn’t paralyze me with fear (although you should always be nervous on that road in winter). I could navigate the city without being married to GPS. Duluth was no longer mythic to me. It is a real, traversable place.

In the summer of 2025, I moved out of my parent’s place. I settled in the foothills of West Duluth. Closer to town. Closer to the lake.

Late that summer, I swam in Lake Superior. I took a trip up the North Shore, to a beach in Knife River. The stone beach baked the soles of my feet so badly, I stepped into Lake Superior. It was so cold it burned. I retreated to the shore, teetering between the sun-baked stones and the icy water. I remembered Taliesin Jaffe’s words, “If it scares you, you should probably do it.”

I walked until I was knee deep. Waist deep. Chest deep. Under. Into a different world.

Water, like a vice grip, seized me. I kicked and thrashed to keep warm. Still, I didn’t leave. I had to go further. Out deep enough where my feet didn’t touch the bottom. I treaded water until I was sore.

Afterwards, I stumbled up the shore, laid a towel down on the hot stone beach and thawed. A tension I didn’t know I had evaporated under the sun.

I thought back to the conversations I’d had with my Dad. The basic pattern of our relationship hadn’t changed, even after I moved out.

I suppose the new job is keeping you busy?

Yes, very busy.

How’s the truck?

Good, it drives good.

I just got done with a job on the American Spirit. Boy, that ship is a disaster. You know, I could always use help this winter. It’d be a good opportunity…

As I sat, I saw a ship, merely a blip, on the horizon. As it disappeared, a pining filled me. I thought of how little of the world I had seen because of my fear. I thought of my old maps of Arca and the ocean. I thought of all the secrets in the frigid depths of Superior.

I trailed my feet through the shallows of the lake. My world had expanded, but the wide world was much vaster. There are places I have yet to be, I thought. There are stories I have yet to tell.

There are more giants waiting.

Part Two: A Relationship to the Lake, Mediated by Art

Lake Superior horizon. Image courtesy of Nan Montgomery.

Wrecks of Lake Superior

by Robert Dewitt Adams

Superior, Wisconsin, felt like the middle of nowhere, but it turned out to be fascinating—like nowhere else. I’d spent most of my life on the east and west coasts. Then, my wife and I moved with our two-year-old to the Upper Midwest for her new job. I couldn’t believe she’d chosen it over a job in Oregon. At least the snow was a novelty. Growing up in the Washington, D.C. area, school was usually delayed or canceled at the first thin accumulation of the white stuff. The thrill of winter weather was so entrenched, it got me through each dark season in the Northwoods. There were the crazy shoreline ice pileups, ice caves, and ice roads across the Apostle Islands, a frozen amusement park under the ripple of the northern lights.

Art and image courtesy of Robert Dewitt Adams.

As a history nerd, I love learning about the places where I live and visit. So, as the baby slept in the car seat, retiring Professor Dick Hudelson, whom my wife was replacing, took me on a tour of sites around the Twin Ports. I used that experience for a series of work, “In-Site: Labor History of the Twin Ports,” funded by my first Arrowhead Regional Arts Council (ARAC) Grant.

Robert Dewitt Adams with his daughter, shown in front of the Lake Superior piece. Art by Robert Dewitt Adams. Image courtesy of Justin Anderson.

I’d remembered seeing Minnesota as an island of blue on the TV maps of Reagan Red in the 1984 election. I felt honored to learn more of the region’s progressive labor history, especially as I joined the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Marveling at the huge freighters on the ocean-sized ‘lake’ from Canal Park, our daughter Geneva and I would watch them squeeze under the lift bridge, cover our ears for the horns, then get ice cream or popcorn. I thought about those mariners, the mine workers, and the dockhands who sometimes got crushed between train cars. One afternoon as we explored the Twin Ports, I noticed sets of my favorite childhood game, Battleship while shopping at a thrift store. My dad had spent his career in the Defense Intelligence Agency after his time in the military. As a result, my childhood was filled with strategy games, war toys, battlefield tours, war movies, and M*A*S*H. I mused about what art I might make with these sentimental objects.

The Prove Art Collective opened in Duluth the same year we arrived, and I started applying for their calls for work. I showed my first Lake Superior Battleship map in 2012 at Prove’s one-year anniversary celebration. Researching wrecks on the lake, I used the game’s red pegs to indicate the different sizes of power-driven vessels that sank and white pegs for capsized sail vessels. I reimagined the militaristic game as a battle of humans vs. nature to depict the present threat of human-induced climate change. The nurturing influence of the work’s quilt-like squares also contrasted the war game elements.

Next, I made a larger-scale Lake Michigan piece for the “45^th Parallel” show at Wisconsin’s Phipps Center, (that latitude line runs through the lake). For that piece, I began adding lake depths symbolized by different colors of game boards from the forty years of different Battleship editions I’d personally collected and from the 100+ sets that my family had lovingly shipped to me from the D.C. area.

“You Sank My Freighter! (Wrecks of Lake Michigan)” 2014. Thrift store Battleship game boards and pieces, thread, wire, glue, 45″ x 89.” Art and image courtesy of Robert Dewitt Adams.

The Duluth Art Institute (DAI) accepted my proposal for an installation of all five Great Lakes, and the ARAC awarded me a grant for the show that ultimately became 2017’s PLAY. I had initially envisioned hanging them on a giant wall, but the DAI proposed hanging them mid-air. The idea was brilliant, as the assemblages moved like a wave in passing air currents and became more interactive as viewers moved through and “under” the lakes.

Art by Robert Dewitt Adams. Image courtesy of Dr. Sarah LaChance Adams.

I collaborated with my friend John Finkle, who had worked on tall-ship riggings. John gladly clambered up into the gallery rafters to hang my pieces. Acknowledging that viewers would be drawn to play with the game pieces, I provided a wall where people could play with extra game sets. The show was well-received and fostered discussions of the role that seemingly benign influences like play and games have on people’s enculturation into society. Guggenheim Fellow Elizabeth LaPensee also exhibited her video game Thunderbird Strike, which draws on North American Indigenous mythology, at PLAY. The game is a battle against oil pipeline infrastructure around the Northland region of the Upper Midwest and the Great Lakes. It was great connecting with other game lovers, discussing the escape that games provide, their ethical considerations, and their metonymic qualities (for me, symbols of connection with my father).

My plan to mount a traveling exhibition of the Battleship lakes at art centers around the Great Lakes was interrupted by another job move to Florida. However, I hope to achieve this goal someday. Currently, I’m digging into this state’s odd history while hoping to find some shipwreck treasure.

I’ve Gasped and Bled Because of Those Waters

by Luke Moravec

For twelve and a half years, beginning in the early 2000s, I jumped in Lake Superior at least once a month. That’s 150 months in a row. Always fully submerged, always cold, always to fulfill a self-imposed challenge. This was important to me.

After five years, when the TV news covered my anniversary of plunging, it was clear that my hobby was, if not important to others—at least interesting.

So, I kept doing it.

Luke Moravec is shown in front of Lake Superior on a gray day. Image courtesy of Luke Moravec.

Sometimes, keeping the streak alive was through a narrow path that required strategy, stoicism, and a dash of stupidity.

My coldest jump in the lake was at Shovel Point in February of two thousand and something—the years have all bled together.

The temperature outside was -12 and there was no open water in town. Prepared to hatchet my way through the ice, if necessary, I found a slushy mess near the pebbled shoreline. With the car still running, I made a dash for the water, dunked under, and scrambled back to the car.

Though none were colder as the thermometer goes, plenty of months caused me real concern and chilled me to my heart. I’ve gasped and bled because of those waters. I’ve fought for my life in that lake.

And I’m not alone. Many have fought for their lives in and against the lake. And, yes, sometimes the haunting melody of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” plays as an echo from some ignored corner of my mind. My routine is dangerous, and it’s worth repeating that I have literally struggled for my very life, but isn’t it all a bit pedestrian? Aren’t I still just a guy who likes to play in the water?

Life threatening or not, there is a difference between me and many who are still on the lake floor. Those who perished in shipwrecks—those who did not manage to exit the icy waters—didn’t fail because they lacked the will, but because the will of the lake was stronger. Maybe I’ve just been lucky. Maybe the lake has just never chosen to rage against me. Maybe I’m just one of the spared.

I gave up the streak years ago. Gone are my days of aggressively charging the waters, fleeing from its force, tallying my conquests, and quantifying my value in relationship to one of the world’s most consistent killers. However, my visits to the lake are still frequent. I believe the years of dutiful attendance to the waters have made me more at ease with Superior. I used to be afraid of its size, its depth, its wildness, but after a youth of flirting with boundaries and challenging Mother Nature, I now feel comfortable there.

Now, on occasion, you may see me fifty meters off the shore, floating amid the gentle waves, further from land than a younger me ever would have dared venture.

The Chief Buffalo Memorial Mural Space in Duluth, Minnesota

by Moira Villiard

Chief Buffalo was a revered figure in the history of Ojibwe people in the western Lake Superior region. The murals are an ongoing effort to convert a large maze of walls near the Lakewalk to an educational public art space. Painted in collaboration with over 500 local community members, the project focuses on the journey of Chief Buffalo, a story that was previously inaccessible through art and public space in Duluth. In addition to reflecting on the past, the murals also feature contemporary imagery of Native people and our existence and connection to the land today.

Flanking a winding staircase in Duluth, Minnesota, the murals serve as a space for reflection and gathering for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members. Image courtesy of Moira Villiard, photographer Mike Scholtz.

These murals were designed and painted collaboratively by a team of artists led by Moira Villiard (Ojibwe and Lenape direct descendent), including Michelle Defoe (Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe), Awanigiizhik Bruce (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe), Sylvia Houle (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe), with assistance from over 500 community members and artists. Image courtesy of Moira Villiard, photographer Mike Scholtz.

The visitor’s experience of moving through the space enriches their understanding of the collective histories of Minnesota and the Great Lakes region. This section of the mural features a wall designed by youth from the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa community. Image courtesy of Moira Villiard, photographer Mike Scholtz.

“The treaty was not a grant of rights to the Indians, but a grant of rights from them — a reservation of those not granted.” US v. Winans (1905).

Chief Buffalo

Chief Buffalo (circa 1759–September 7, 1855), known as Bichiki (Bizhiki, Buffalo/Bison) and Gichi-waishke (Gichi-weshkiinh, literally Great Renewer but referencing the Woodland Buffalo/Bison), was a revered figure in the history of Ojibwe people in the western Lake Superior region. Born around 1759 at La Pointe on Madeline Island along the south shore of the lake, he was a member of the Loon clan. He was seen as a compassionate leader for his people, particularly in his dealings with the British and American governments. Famously, in his 90s, he journeyed from Wisconsin to Washington, D.C. to sign the Treaty of 1854.

In addition to the Treaty of 1854, which contained a provision setting aside a reserve of land for the chief in present-day Duluth. Buffalo also signed the treaties of 1825, 1826, 1827, 1837, 1842, and 1847, which ceded land across what would later become the states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. In 1852, Buffalo and others made a long journey to Washington, D.C. in protest of the policies of Minnesota territorial officials who sought to remove Ojibwe communities further westward. One of the most historically important events during this period was the 1850 Sandy Lake Tragedy, a scheme orchestrated by Minnesota Territorial Gov. Alexander Ramsey. Thousands of Lake Superior Ojibwe journeyed to Sandy Lake to receive an annual treaty payment, which Ramsey purposely delayed until after the start of winter. The dangerous winter trek resulted in the deaths of several hundred Ojibwe people from starvation, disease, and other ailments. As a result of Buffalo’s actions, policies were changed, culminating in the 1854 Treaty. This treaty created permanent homes in reservations throughout the region and recognized the inherent rights of Ojibwe people to hunt, fish, and gather in their traditional lands.

The impact of Chief Buffalo and his story is not limited to just the Native community but is relevant to all who call Duluth and the North Shore of Lake Superior home. His journey is part of our collective histories in Minnesota and the Great Lakes region. Many of the towns and communities established today would not exist without the treaty-making in which he and other Ojibwe leaders participated.

Traditional florals designed by Michelle Defoe feature prominently. Image courtesy of Moira Villiard, photographer Mike Scholtz.

The walls feature both historical and contemporary depictions of Indigenous people connected to our region, maps of both treaty territories and Chief Buffalo’s famous journey, Ojibwe stories, and folklore. Image courtesy of Moira Villiard, photographer Mike Scholtz.

Murals

These murals were designed and painted collaboratively by a team of artists led by Moira Villiard (Ojibwe and Lenape direct descendent), including Michelle Defoe (Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe), Awanigiizhik Bruce (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe), Sylvia Houle (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe), with assistance from over 500 community members and artists, including guest artists Waylon Lanham, Mana Bear Bolton, and Conor Fairbanks. The walls feature both historical and contemporary depictions of Indigenous people connected to our region, maps of both treaty territories and Chief Buffalo’s famous journey, Ojibwe stories and folklore, and traditional florals designed by Michelle Defoe. This project was honored in a ceremony in 2019 and continues to serve as a space for reflection and gathering for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members.

These murals came about in a partnership between the Duluth Indigenous Commission, descendants of Chief Buffalo, the Zeitgeist Center for the Arts, and countless volunteers and individual donors, including several local and state funders.

These murals came about in a partnership between the Duluth Indigenous Commission, the Buffalo family, Zeitgeist Center for the Arts, and countless volunteers and individual donors, including several local and state funders. Image courtesy of Moira Villiard, photographer Mike Scholtz.

Photos by Mike Scholtz (https://www.mikescholtz.com/).

 For more information about Moira Villiard, visit https://www.artbymoira.com/)

fight or flight

by Anastasia Bamford

well
that’s the question
but maybe not
the only question

the fire is bright
and lively in the dim room
the wine is smooth and rich
outside in the darkness
the lake hurls her arms
full of water and stones
onto the shore
the stars are hidden
behind clouds
but they are still there
constant

in the morning
you can make me coffee
and i will hold you
as the sun rises over the waves
the dog will have her breakfast
we’ll move through
the dance of our days
until they come for us

perhaps they are never coming
or they are always coming
bravery is in living
life in the open
in spite of fear

~Election night, 11/5/24 10 pm

‘Sunrise’ by Anastasia Bamford.

Our Freya

by Nan Montgomery

As our mother lies dying in hospice,
I recall her playful claim to Viking ancestor,
Eric the Red. So, it seems fitting
to seek refuge by the big lake.
Only blocks away from her hospital room
well-known steps lead to my stone chair
shaped by the caprice of nature. My
snug fit me just right. A great boulder
overhang keeps me lee to the wind.
I burrow into the space.
Superior roars like a storm-wracked sea.
This November, like so many,
brings the famous gales that sink great ships.
She roars the last day I will see my mother
in this world of wind and water. Surely
keening wind informs the forever mist,
receive our Freya.
Valhalla awaits.

‘Seen in Passing’ by Nan Montgomery.

Surface Displacements

by Sheila Packa

An Acre of Music or a Room Closer To It — Lorine Niedecker

The minerals whisper: iron, manganese,
copper, nickel, platinum, and titanium.
On the Laurentian Divide, a river falls over stones
to Hudson Bay. Another falls south through fields
to the Mississippi. The third river goes east
through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway.

^

Handfuls of water. A body of sea smoke, of wind,
a body of motion, an ocean without salt.
In the benthos, tailings from taconite mines.
In the basin, shipwrecks and broken bottles and sunken
barrels and bodies the lake has claimed.

^

On a bridge made of paper, my voice turns to vapor.
On a bridge made of iron and steel
I veer between traction and black ice
wander through beams and woven branches
follow the rain in its tracks through roots and excavations.
I cross before, almost, never,
the thunder of interior dialogues through heavy machinery.

^

Practicing the old art, my father crossed a slope
holding a slender branch, calling the water.
Now, in a dark room, a daughter holds a cello to her breast
divining. In the instrument is the old tree.
The bow rises, glides, floats above the bridge.
The wood turns toward harmonics.
Calls of the geese overhead vibrate
against the windowpane. Her fingers tremble
like strings and the water answers.
A car comes down the street. The driver
locked in a dream, rolls down the hill. Slower
Still. The branch dips and the invisible pours
into the containers. The forked branch
didn’t know it had lost its root.
It only had yearning.

^

I call the rivers in the forgotten language
call the Sawtooth Mountains,
forested slopes with snowshoe hares and deer beds
and bears’ dens and lynx.
I call shore’s perpetual threshold.
In the city, in a house, I call a moth
caught between two panes of glass.
To catch it will damage the wings.
To leave it means it will perish.
I write with the trapped and desperate flight.

^

No one can follow the map of the bee.
Their business is in every direction,
from tiger lilies into the hives to the chives
to other realms with heads of clover.
Apple blossoms. In the lavender colonnades
of mint through the rooms of June
into purple irises, yellow daylilies, deep inside
delicate tunnels with hardly a foothold
hidden in clouds of pollen.

^

Along Fourth Street, a river climbs a bed of stones
amid revelers, but alone
over a steep slope with winter’s melt
below a bridge, a bird on a wire, hidden by trees
past a canvas tent and pillow with nobody home.
The constellation of Orion
roams through clouds and goes on a shifting path
with the sleepless river, plunging deep.

^

A river catches herself as she is falling.
She is a cloud that breaks open and the earth
that holds the seed as it is broken.
The farther she has gone, the closer she comes.
The more she lost, the more she found.
Her body is formed by what she touches.
Blind, she sees. Deaf, she hears.
The wind is her breathing. In her emptiness,
she fills. In her erasures, she is writing.
The colder the air, the deeper she goes.
The more that it rains, the more rain she carries.
The more stones in her path, the more she laughs.

To watch and listen to a multimodal, digital composition by Kathy McTavish and Sheila Packa with the entire poem, as set to McTavish’s visuals and music, visit https://wildwoodriver.com/surfacedisplacements/surface.html

Afterword and Conclusion

by Jennifer Brady

As one of the four elements—earth, water, air, and fire—water is rich in symbolism that helps us better understand human experiences in the natural world. Water sometimes symbolizes emotion, life and death, and purification.

Water is essential and interconnected with all life. The Anishinaabe creation story, for example, recalls a flooded land, purified of conflict, where the muskrat dives down to the water’s depths to retrieve a small bit of soil from which the world was created on the back of the turtle.

Water is both generous and dangerous. In Homer’s The Odyssey, the sea represents personal transformation and the perilous journey home.

Water is a threshold. Diving into the ocean or crossing a river may mark transformation, a change to one’s path, or a rupture to one’s identity. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, the flowing, lyrical narrative is chock-full to the brim with water imagery. As Sethe is escaping enslavement, she gives birth in the river’s waters, echoing the forced, violent crossing of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean. In the novel, water is the threshold between slavery and freedom, death and life, past and present.

Water has been commodified, used for power plays, stolen, and rerouted. Film director Icíar Bollaín’s haunting También la lluvia (2010) depicts a fictional film crew’s production of a historical movie about colonization in the Caribbean. During production, the crew becomes entangled in the real-life events of the Cochabamba Water War, in which Indigenous Bolivians protested the privatization of their water supply by a foreign corporation.

Water is a powerful metaphor for the human journey. The ebb and flow of tides, the gentle lapping of waves, and the intense, cleansing downpours all beautifully reflect the rhythms of life events. Moreover, the mysterious depths of our lakes and oceans serve as profound mirrors to the human psyche.

The underlying tone of this feature of Open Rivers sways between nostalgia and commemoration, and between past and present. Remembering tragedies in our waterways reminds us of the power of water. Fifty years after the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, 68 swimmers took to Lake Superior to swim the remaining journey of the lost freighter.

In relay teams, the swimmers covered a total of 411 miles—from the wreck site in Lake Superior to the downed freighter’s intended destination, Detroit. One news outlet covering the event wrote, “While no one swimmer could handle the entire distance alone, this team effort reflects unity, strength, and remembrance.”

At the University of Minnesota Duluth, we also remembered the tragedy on November 6, 2025, with the performance, “The Gales of November.” In unity, with music and spoken word, we commemorated those lives lost on the Great Lake.

In all its forms—mythic, literary, political, and personal—water flows through our stories as both a mirror and a force. It reflects our histories, our struggles, our transformations, and our hopes. From ancient creation myths to modern acts of remembrance, water connects us across time and space. As we gather to honor the memory of the Edmund Fitzgerald and those lost to the depths of Lake Superior, we are reminded that water is not only a source of life but also a keeper of memory. In commemorating through music, movement, and story, we affirm our shared humanity and the enduring power of water to shape, carry, and connect us all.

Duluth aerial lift bridge in a snow globe. ‘Untitled’ by Krista Sue-Lo Twu.

All images of artworks in this piece are used with the permission of the artists.

Work Cited

Dierking, Lynn D., et al. “Policy Statement of the ‘Informal Science Education’ Ad Hoc Committee.” Journal of Research in Science Teaching, vol. 40, no. 2, 2003, pp. 108–111.

Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association. St. Helena Island Light Station. Accessed 16 July 2025, https://www.gllka.org/st-helena-island-light-station.

Jeffs, T. & Smith, M. K. (2011). What is informal education? The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education. Accessed 20 November 2025, https://infed.org/dir/welcome/what-is-informal-education/.

Lane, Joseph M., and Joseph P. Stoltman. “Guided Educational Tourism as Informal Physical Geography Education on St. Helena Island, Michigan.” Journal of Geography, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1080/00221341.2016.1206953.

Yemini, M., Engel, L., & Ben Simon, A. (2025). Place-based education–a systematic review of literature. Educational Review, 77(2), 640-660. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2023.2177260.

Footnotes

[1] Desai, Ankur R., et al. “Stronger Winds over a Large Lake in Response to Weakening Air-to-Lake Temperature Gradient.” Nature Geoscience 2.12 (2009): 855–858. Jay Austin, one of the coauthors, is a researcher with the Large Lakes Observatory. Austin was interviewed about this work for NBC News.

[2] For more data about invasive species in the Great Lakes region, see NOAA, “Great Lakes Aquatic Nonindigenous Species Information System (GLANSIS),” NOAA – Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, https://www.glerl.noaa.gov/glansis/index.html. Accessed 5 Dec. 2025.

[3] Myers, Jared T., et al. “Reassessment of the Predatory Effects of Rainbow Smelt on Ciscoes in Lake Superior.” Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 138.6 (2009): 1352–1368.

[4] Maya Sundaresan, “Years of Regulation May Have Reduced Invasive Species Risks in the Great Lakes, Study Says,” Great Lakes Now, 29 Apr. 2022, https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/04/regulation-invasive-species-great-lakes/.

[5] Mills, Edward L., et al., “Exotic Species and the Integrity of the Great Lakes,” BioScience 44, no. 10 (1994): 666–76.

[6] Schloesser, Joshua T., et al. “Rehabilitation progress can’t be assessed without a measuring stick: Development of a recruitment index survey for lake sturgeon in Lake Superior.” Journal of Great Lakes Research 51.1 (2025): 102460.

[7] Shrovnal, Jeremiah S., et al. “Vertical distribution of Lake Superior cisco (Coregonus artedi) spawning aggregations and implications for population monitoring.” Journal of Great Lakes Research 51.1 (2025): 102424.

[8] NOAA. “Great Lakes Ice Cover.” NOAA – Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, https://www.glerl.noaa.gov/data/ice/#overview. Accessed 5 Dec. 2025.

[9] NOAA. “Great Lakes Ice Cover Near Average for the 2025 Season.” NOAA, https://research.noaa.gov/great-lakes-ice-cover-near-average-for-the-2025-season/. Accessed 5 Dec. 2025.

[10] Langston, Nancy. Sustaining Lake Superior: An Extraordinary Lake in a Changing World. Yale University Press, 2017.

[11] Baptism River State Park later merged with Tettegouche State Park.

[12] The address at the time was 103 Lake Street South, a building which was later demolished. For more information about the institution that was Joe Huie’s, see MNopedia at https://www3.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/place/joe-huie-s-caf-duluth.

[13] According to Paul Lundgren, the Jolly Fisher operated from 1942 to 1992. The original location was at 15 E. Superior St., where the Duluth Technology Village sits today. After 1979, it was located at 10 W. Superior St., which is presently the Minnesota Power Plaza. For more information, visit the Perfect Duluth Day website at https://www.perfectduluthday.com/2014/03/19/jolly-fisher-if-it-swims-we-have-it/.

[14] The International Ship Masters’ Association is a voluntary organization of dues-paying licensed professional mariners and others associated with the maritime community of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway.

Recommended Citation

Beard, David, Catherine O’Reilly, Joseph M. Lane, Jennifer E. Moore, Timothy Broman, Chance Lasher, Robert Dewitt Adams, Luke Moravec, Moira Villiard, Anastasia Bamford, Nan Montgomery, Sheila Packa, Krista Sue-Lo Twu, and Jennifer Brady. 2025. “Our Changing Relationship to Lake Superior, 1975-2025” Open Rivers: Rethinking Water, Place & Community, no. 29. https://doi.org/10.24926/2471190X.12858.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24926/2471190X.12858

FORTHCOMING Download PDF of Our Changing Relationship to Lake Superior, 1975-2025 by David Beard, Catherine O’Reilly, Joseph M. Lane, Jennifer E. Moore, Timothy Broman, Chance Lasher, Robert Dewitt Adams, Luke Moravec, Moira Villiard, Anastasia Bamford, Nan Montgomery, Sheila Packa, Krista Sue-Lo Twu, and Jennifer Brady.