The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 790: The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

Steven Rinella talks with best selling author John U. Bacon about his new book, The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Joined by Brody Henderson, Randall Williams, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider.  Topics: A room full of hockey lovers; the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald; how and why The Great Lakes are so much more dangerous than the ocean; a thin, long ship; the waves of Lake Superior; unloading, reloading, and sailing; the best captain and the best crew; Whitefish Bay; what made the ship break apart?; the people, their stories, and the voices of their families; and more. Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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This season on Blood Trails, each story begins with a hunter stepping into the wild, but not all of them come back. I'm Jordan Sillers, a journalist with over a decade of experience investigating stories about hunting, fishing, guns, and crime.

Join me as we track the truth through tangled cover and cold case files, where every trail tells a story and every story leaves its own trail of blood. Blood trails. Listen now on Spotify. Light. When I'm hunting, I need gear that won't quit. First Light builds. No compromise gear that keeps me in the field longer. No shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at

firstlight.com. That's F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. I got two competing ways I want to start the show. One, I just have to admit that I'm so excited I already wet my pants. There's one. Like, this is, This is the one of the most exciting conversations for me, because this is something that I, like, I'll just come out and say it. We're here to talk about the Edmund Fitzgerald, which is like weird. I was one year old, but when it happened, but it's sort of, I don't know, man, has haunted and inspired my whole life. Being from that neck of the woods. Sure.

The second opening I was going to use is how I've never done this before, but I want to. want to dedicate this episode to drost fits putt magoot my brother danny this one's for you and everyone at the porthole in sue saint-marie michigan side been there you guys by now know this there are two talents called sue saint-marie right across river from each other because why wouldn't you do that right uh one's u s one's canada canada produces nchel hall of famers the esposito brothers tony and phil et cetera, et cetera. Gretzky played there for a while. The American side produces guys like us.

When I went to, one of the times I saw Uncle Gord was at the hockey arena in Sioux, Ontario. Oh, wow. I've been to that. It's where the Greyhounds play. He, uh, I'll introduce you in a minute, don't worry. We'll get to that. I tell the story every other episode.

We're sitting there and we're watching Uncle Gord. You know, I'm talking about Gordon Lightfoot. And he's doing his show. He's got a lot of hits. People don't realize how he hits the man. Oh, yeah. They're in the book. Yeah.

But then later in the episode, later in the concert, this will kind of date it because the year book, the Gales of November, the untold story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon. Should you want to find out what the U stands for? Good luck. Not Ulysses.

He's very tight-lipped about it. At that, the 50th, we're at the 50th anniversary of the sinking or the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. And your book's perfectly timed. I read that you, that you wrote a proposal for this book decades ago or something. I did. 20 years ago, pitched it to my agent. He said, no. So I got a new agent.

As one does. You don't get the answer you want? That's right. I was struggling with that professionally this morning. Just this very morning. At that time, I can't remember what year it was. It would have been around 94, 95.

Okay, you're by 20. And I think, and I remember, it gets quiet. Gord comes out, the lights are down, and Gord says, it'll be, he says something to the fact of like, it'll be 20 years this November. Wow.

Or it'll be blank in the place just, I mean, erupts. Oh, yeah. Not, no, it erupts. Hmm. But that's home turf. That's very much home turf. Yeah. I mean, you're looking out, you know, you're looking out on white, we used to fish in

Whitefish Bay and like, dude. And when we're out there spearing, spearing whiteing, or sorry, spearing, uh, whitefish, we'd always be talking about, yeah, man. and telling people like that's where If you're fishing in Whitefish Bay Whitefish Bay, Lake Superior is 160 miles by 350 miles It's as big as the state of Virginia It's bigger than Ireland

People don't realize this unless you get up there If you're up there of course you can't see across any of the great lakes If you're in the middle of Lake Superior You can't see either side It's not because of the mist or the fog It's because the curvature of the earth It's just too damn big So there you go

So if you're out there by the way you know what you're doing obviously And Suisse-Saint-Marie is where the Sioux locks are. That's the bottleneck of U.S. industry. So all the iron ore, the copper, I know you guys got it here in Butte. Copper, the iron ore, limestone all comes from the northern part of the Great Lakes, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Upper Peninsula. It's got to go through this one spigot, this very tight widget at the Sioux Locks. Yeah, because Lake Superior Falls, 23 feet to Lake Huron or something. Well done, young man. This guy passes the place. Caught many a fish out of those falls. There you go. Exactly. It's a good place to catch him, actually.

during World War II, they built a new lock because they had to get all the iron and all the steel from up there down to build at Willow Run or the Ford Motor Company was. If you've seen Ferrari versus Ford, that's what it's all about. They're cranking out one B-24 bomber an hour, every hour for three years

during World War II. So they build a new... I'll say that again? One B-24 bomber, which has 1.5 million parts. I looked it up. They're cranking out one per hour every hour for three years. nonstop, there's Rosie the Riveter, all this stuff. Almost as fast as they were shooting them down.

Almost as fast, but not quite as fast. That's how you win the war. So FDR, during World War II, stationed 7,000 soldiers where you were at the Sioux Lox. It was the most guarded position in North America during World War II. Seriously? Yes. Because they were worried about saboteurs? If they bomb that, there's no steel for the planes.

No steel for the planes and the tanks and the shells, we lose the war. And FDR knew that. But who, like, who were they thinking would have been, like, they didn't mean like an aerial bombardment from enemy aircraft? It's the only way we can get there. But I would picture like, like I said, saboteurs, like someone planting explosives or something. Yeah, I guess that's possible too. Look, the ads aren't very good. Obviously, they didn't do it, right?

But they recognize that it was like. But if it happens, it's over. Now we're going to lose. Sort of like the perineum of the world, man. Paranium. See, these are the things I don't get normally. That's the name of the other. episode right there.

Yeah. I got to stay moose for this one, people. I've done about 30, 40 interviews. We've done NPR, CBS, and everything else. Yeah, I got to, I got to widen my strike zone here a little bit. We should just have a list of words when they're used for the first time in here. Ding, ding, ding, ding. I think Istanbul probably is a good, is another candidate.

Here's what, here's a word that has been used on this show, Hampton Sides. Hampton Side's been on the show a couple of times. Here's what Hampton Side says about the Gales November. Here is a work of spectral beauty destined to be a classic. Readers of Sebastian Youngers, The Perfect Storm. He's been on the show. Eric Larson's Dead Wake. We should put that on our list to people who get on the show.

And Nathaniel Philbricks and the Heart of the Sea will love this deeply reported tale from our vast inland ocean. With John E. Bacon's graceful and poignant retelling, the saga of the Edmund Fitzgerald now takes its rightful place among the world's greatest legends of shipwrecks and tempentuous, tempestuous. Tempestuous? You got it. Who got it? You got it. Tempestuous.

Seas. It's from Hampton Sides. There's a bunch of good quotes on the back of here. Ken Burns. He's been on the show. John U. Bacon has done it again. This is another riveting narrative that puts facts on a still memorizing legend, but this is more than getting the details right.

Bacon has distilled the essence of the story and rendered a huge monument to those lost, to those lost and a great gift to the rest of us, Ken Burns, filmmaker. I'm excited to tuck in. I haven't read it. I'll tell you what I did do is I looked at some of the pictures. It's just heartbreaking to see the pictures of the guys. It really is. In my life, I realized I've never looked at a picture of anyone that died on that boat.

Stephen, that's exactly why I wrote the book, wrote the boat book. I can't get that word right. And people ask me, what drove me? Yes, I want to find out what happened. And that's always part of the mystery here, of course. And we advance certain theories and we probably diminish other theories, but I'm not here to close that loop because you really can't. There are no witnesses. All 29 men went down with the ship, Aunt Ruth, who is the mother of Bruce Hudson, Ohio State student,

who takes a couple summers to get in the lakes. He's a 22-year-old deckhand who goes down with the ship. And that's her only child, which I can't fathom. She had a great line. She said, only 30-no, 29 men in God, and no one's talking. So we're all trying to guess. So what did drive me? And that's what it was.

Who were these 29 men? All right? What were their jobs like? What were their lives like? What were their families like at home? I interviewed half the families. They talked for the first time for this. I got six crewmen who'd been on the ship, obviously, before it went down.

And those are not easy to find. no list anywhere. And I got them all to talk. And it's just fascinating how it all works. And I learned in the process, here's a fun fact for your listeners who would be into this for sure. You talked to Great Lakes sailors. By that, I don't mean the guys with the sales, of course, these are commercial shippers, copper, like I said, copper, iron, all this stuff. They tell me consistently that sailing on the Great Lakes is more dangerous than sailing on the ocean. And that blew my mind. I grew up on the Great Lakes, so did you. How can that possibly be. And it's a few reasons. One is salt water. Salt water on the ocean, on the Great Lakes. And

by the way, do hand gestures work really well in radio? I bet they do. For some people, they do. It depends on how you're listening. Well, if you got the premium package, you'll get this one. So on the Great Lakes, you've got these sharp, pointy waves at the top, like mountain ranges, basically. On the ocean, the salt smashes those down, so they're nice and smooth. Oh, is that right? Yeah, you get smooth roller coasters, and they're twice as far apart. It spreads them out, and on the ocean, you get these storms from 500 miles away, a thousand miles away. So by the time the waves get to you, again, you have this general roller coaster.

Still no fun, and you've seen a perfect storm. But it's manageable. On the Great Lakes, they're sharp and pointy like mountain ranges. They're twice as close together. On the ocean, they're 10 to 16 seconds apart. On the Great Lakes, they're four to eight seconds apart. What does that mean? That means you can have the bow of your ship in one 30-foot wave,

nothing in the middle, and you're stern in another 30-foot wave. These ships are 700 feet long. And in between, you have 26,000 tons of iron. That's 4,200 adult elephants. It's enough steel, enough iron's ready to make 7,000 cars. What happens? It bends down. It sags.

Then you go over the next wave, and it hogs, and it hogs, and it sags, and it sags, and it hog. Bend a paperclip back and forth 10,000 times. That's how many waves you get in a day. What's going to happen? The paper clip's going to snap sooner or later. The Bradley in 1958, I got a chapter on that, we have witnesses. it actually snaps in half between two waves. Really?

The morel, 600 feet. I would picture that the bow and stern would, I just imagine that the bow and stern would cut in. And it would never have enough to lift it like a... It does. These waves are... Lifts the center. These waves are, don't mess around with the waves, man.

One of these waves is the same weight as two locomotive engines, one wave. And these guys get these waves every four to eight seconds. And the night of this November 10th, 1975. It's a storm of a century. They got a hundred mile per hour winds. That's hurricane force at that point. The waves were 30 feet regularly, which is still pretty intense. This ship only has 11 feet out of the water. So 30 feet means you're underwater 20 feet. Every time this happens, every four to eight seconds, that takes a toll. But then we now know from computer models

that if you saw that many 30 footers, you saw 10, 40 footers, you saw 3 or 4, 50 footers, and you saw one or two, 60 footers. And as one of the, Experts told me, this ship ended up in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time. It was the only ship in that one-hour area, basically. So there's part of your answer. We started out talking about... Sorry, sorry about that tangent, by the way. No, no, that's all no, dude.

You can do that all day long, I care. We started out talking about Gordon Lightfoot as kind of like a touch point where many, many people, like, undeniably, many people, when they hear the Edmund Fitzgerald, they know. know what that means because of the song entirely yeah no question do you you know i'm always interested in this concept of like there's like a there's like an object right and an a the object has a shadow hmm do i mean like if the object that's good like the object is the the sinking of the emin fitzgerald and it's like shadow is like that's perfect gordon life was the wreck of the em fitzgerald would like in all honesty would we be sitting here right now if it wasn't for that song I will say it from the mountain tops.

Absolutely not. Really? From 1875 to 1975, there are 6,000 commercial shipwrecks on the Great Lakes. That's one per week, every week for a century. Oh, man, really? 30,000 men went down. That's one a day, every day for a century. Wow.

And how many do we know? We know one. We know the Edmifist's Gerald for exactly the reason you say. And LaSalle's the Griffin. Hey, by the way, you non-Michiganders don't know what he's talking about, but I do. Well, that was the first ship. That was the first ship. The Griffin was the first ship on the Great Lakes.

And the Edmund Fitzgerald is the biggest ship to ever sink. That's exactly right. And at the time, the biggest ship, period, on the lakes. But, yeah, without that, there's no way. There's 6,000 we know one. Without the song, there is no book. It's just that simple. Really?

Yeah. What, can you explain? You kind of did a little bit, but can you explain that, that, that, oh, first I got another thing to mention. You're a sports writer. Yeah, so what am I doing here? Yeah. So, like, you've written books on hockey, football. football. Yeah. Yeah. Had you, um, is this your first like foray into kind of like deep history where

you're not able to meet the people involved and it's my second. Uh, the previous one was called the Great Halifax Explosion. Oh, that's right. I forgot about it. From 1917. Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry, from 2017 is when the book came out. 1917, this ship called the Mount Blanc, World War I, uh, is leaving Gravesend Bay, New York. That's a pretty good name with six million pounds. Gravesend. Gravesend. How about how professional? It's leaving Gravesend Bay, New York, basically in New York, with 6 million pounds of high explosives. That's T&T, not gasoline. Like hauling high explosives.

Hauling high explosives don't need oxygen to blow up. One good bump, and it happens. And it's in Halifax, harboring the way to World War I to blow up Germans is the idea, I'm sure. And instead, it bumps into another ship, a fire starts, well, the guys in the Mount Blanc, they know what the hell is going to happen. So they get in the rowboats and get out of there, French crew. the ship slips at 845 in the morning ghost ship slips perfectly into pier six at the base of halifax the timing's cruel because the kids are walking to school everyone's walking to work and it's burning so they're all going to come down to watch the burning ship they have no idea what's on it and how long

is this after everybody bailed off uh about 15 minutes oh okay very fast so pretty fast yeah and then at 904.35 we know exactly when because all clock stopped a two million high a two million two mile high mushroom cloud the first in the world's history one fifth the power of the atomic bomb blows half the city away of 50,000 people and Oppenheimer of course who built the A bomb see the movie Oppenheimer he talks about this he's when he did the math the only model the head for Hiroshima was this so this one fifth of power of the A bomb but people in Boston sent two ships two trains 100 doctors 300 nurses and a million bucks which back then's a lot of money and they of the 9,000 wounded they saved like 95

percent, which it should not have happened with the medicine at the time. That's what made the U.S. and Canada allies. I know this because my mom's Canadian, so trust me, if you want a different version of the War of 1812, give a Canadian two beers. And you're going to hear a whole different version of how all that went down. So I'm a hockey guy. I speak from experience here. That was my first far. There's a long answer. Sorry. I was my first for a end of that. That allowed me to write this book. Without that book, the publisher's never, would have given me money for this book. Got it.

So that proved I could get off the reservation. Oh, man, I think if you sent, well, whatever, you got it published. I was going to tell you how you would have got it published anyways. Explain that, explain that industry that the Edmund Fitzgererer was involved in. Great question. That's another thing. Dude, again, I grew up in Annabre, Michigan, not too far from Muskegan. We got up to Traverse City and so on.

I've swam in all these lakes. I've sailed on two or three of them. I thought I knew them. I didn't know anything. 95% of the stuff in that book I had no idea about. And one thing is how incredibly important Great Lakes at shipping is. The French Voyagers, here's your predecessors here on the Meteor podcast. These guys are badasses.

I can say that in your show, and I can't say that normally, so I'm taking advantage. No, we might bleep it out. Oh, man. Captain Buzzkill from my right over here. Here's my one chance, finally. Those Voyagers had 30, 40-foot canoes carved out of one tree. They got 400 million beaver peltz in two centuries, almost made beaver extinct. But they're wearing those hats in Europe, so that's billions of dollars of that.

Then you got lumber. More money is made by lumber than the gold rush. You got grain, the Great Lakes supplies the world with food, basically. And a lot of your food comes, all the zero companies are based in Battle Creek, Michigan, Minneapolis, Minnesota for a reason. But then you got, like I said, copper, which now you mine here. limestones you need to make turn iron into steel and iron it's by it was it probably still is the biggest producer of iron in the united states um here's a fun fact for you in 19 so this is silicon valley before silicon valley after world war two uh the great lake states five of the top

seven were all around the great lakes only california and texas uh were in that pile here's a fun fact for you 1960 census what great lake city was bigger than miami Tampa Jacksonville Nashville and San Jose, California. Cleveland. Toledo, Ohio was bigger than all those. That's how big it all was. So Detroit was the epicenter of all this stuff, and I grew up in the shadow of that one, there you go,

at the tail end of that. But this is what they did. 37 of the top 100 companies were all based around Detroit. Tire makers, oil companies, steel companies, car companies. GM's number one, Ford's number three, Chrysler's number seven.

That's, I mean, they had no competition after World War II. So this place is humming. They're making a lot of money. And these guys, the guys, 29 guys in the ship, the old guys, they grew up in the Great Depression, they grew up in the World War II. These jobs are hard, no question about it. But man, compared to being a minor or a farmer or a factory worker, you'd take it. Good union contracts. These guys are making good money.

A decan in 75, Bruce Hudson, the guy I mentioned. he gets out of Ohio State University. Is he a kid with no shirt on in the picture? Yeah. He's a badass. He's one of yours. He's got the long, the mutton chops, the long hair. Looks like Randall.

It looks like Randall. I like him already. There you go. There you go to the picture section. You'll know exactly what we're talking about. That's what I do anyway when I pick up a book. Perfect. You're my guy.

So this guy leaves Ohio State to be a deck hand. That's the lowest guy in the ship, basically. He's making in today's dollars, $180,000 a year. even back then he's making three times what a teacher makes four times and he's salted the money away except for one indulgence he's got a 1972 Dodge Challenger badass muscle car beautiful burgundy we found the car it's still in mint condition it's still fantastic

still is a sticker of Columbia transportation which leased the emithers-year-old I'm looking at it right now there's the sticker right there no shit really that car that was last year we took that photo I looked through these pictures of my 10 year old this morning Then I kind of choked up We were listening to The song will get you

Once you know the story The song kills you So he gets on the ship He's one of these guys And he's making good money He's saving it pretty well So he and his buddy Mark Thomas in that photo

They're gonna When the season ends in three days This was the last run of the season No matter what happened They're gonna finish the season That car is waiting for him In the dock in Toledo Three days later

The captain McSorley I'll get to him in a bit He's gonna retire after this run, after 30-some years, 40 years in the Great Lakes, promising his wife. All these guys, so we're going to get in that car and bomb across out west where you guys are to go to Colorado to get some Coors beer because in 1975, that was exotic. And you've got to be old enough to remember that one, by the way.

Oh, yeah, because they used to make all those movies about that. You got it. Like Bert Reynolds built his career on that movie. This story and that photo really is speaking to me. There we go. He's an Ohio man. If I did a couple cycles on a GLP. I think would be looking quite similar.

Well, Ohio man, one-third of the crew comes from Duluth, one-third from Toledo, one-third from Cleveland. So a lot of buckeyes. This guy was a buck guy also. But then he finds out in September, phone call back to the port bar in Silver Bay, Minnesota. Beautiful spot. The Silver Bay Municipal Bar,

and I've been there, of course, for hard-hitting investigative journals. That's all I'm doing here. Got to go out all the bars, Stephen. And the bartender who served him, Stephen Burns, is still, he was 18 at the time. He's 68 now. he's still there.

You're kidding me. Dude, I got so lucky on research again and again and again. The guy at the president's lounge in Superior, Wisconsin, he's still there. He served him the night before they left. So I'm getting all these guys. So Hudson finds out by payphone that his girlfriend in Toledo, who's a waitress, Cindy Reynolds, vivacious blonde and all that, she says, surprise, I'm pregnant. And, okay, you got that phone call.

You're not ready for that. So I'm not going to ask for personal experience here. Who's gotten that phone call and who hasn't? But you can imagine, if you haven't, that you pause, go, oh, my gosh. And he says the right stuff. He says, don't worry. We're going to move in together and we'll raise the child ourselves. And when she hears that, she goes, okay, go ahead and go on that trip because that's November.

The kids are not due to June. So now I think he's going to marry this girl, of course. But these are the stories that happen before November 10th, 1975. And you've got to care about the guys before they get in the ship. That's kind of my rule. Yeah. So these are real guys. I mean, these are your neighbors.

They had plans, they had futures, and of course, no one thinks this is going to happen. Hmm, yeah. Hunting big country isn't for the faint of heart. You got steep ground, long distances, and miles of crown land that aren't always easy to navigate. That's why Anex Hunt just got a serious upgrade for hunters in Canada. Now you can get nationwide coverage for less than the cost of a box of shells with major updates to crown land layers and new parcel boundaries where available. out access boundaries and terrain with confidence before you even lace up

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for the next era of gaming. Upgrade to smooth high quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. Every hunter knows that the wilderness is full of surprises. But sometimes what you find out there isn't an elk or a bear. It's something darker. They never made sense what law enforcement was saying to us. How could there have been no marks on her? This season on blood trails, we're following the trail of seven cases that start in the field

and end in the shadows. Each story begins with the hunter stepping into the wild, but not all of them come back. All theories are out there. You know, everything from murder to UFOs to Bigfoot. I'm Jordan Sillers, a journalist with over a decade of experience

investigating stories about hunting, fishing, guns, and crime. Join me as we track the truth through tangled cover and cold case files, where every trail tells a story and every story leaves its own trail of blood. blood trails listen now on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts that iron or come out of the iron ranges like in michigan's upper peninsula out of the iron mountains here on range exactly right it's called the iron range bob dillon is from there

he even talks about that in the book i'm from a place called the iron range that's my feelings and my songs come from he says so iron range is the northern part of minnesota northern part of wisconsin and the UP Upper Peninsula of Michigan. There's a fun fact for you. A few football fans. Wisconsin badgers are called the badgers, not because of the animals because of the miners. Because in the winter,

they'd live in the caves in the winter. And their nicknames were the badgers. So those are minors they're talking about, actually. So, yeah, hard life to say the least. But all that stuff goes to Duluth, Superior, Silver Bay, two harbors you put on the ships. And all the factories are Gary, Indiana, Chicago. Because they're smelting it down there.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. They smelt it right. in the dock, man. It's a very efficient process. These pellets called taconite. Should have brought some. It's a little rusty pebbles. Guy figured out how to do that. You know how fracking, reinvigorated, obviously drilling here in the United States. We're out of the easy stuff, so we start fracking. All the easy iron ore is gone after World War II. We used it up for World War II. So what do we do? We're screwed. Well, this one professor of Minnesota figures out how to

pelletize this iron ore, the scrap heap called taconite. You can actually use it. If you process it and so on. We've been using taconite now for 80 years. That's where we're on. So this guy figures it out. 500 million pebbles of the stuff go on a ship.

It's dirty. It's rusty. It's heavy. I've been on... When I tell you to wear a hat, I've been on two of these ships, by the way. The Arthur Anderson,

I was out with them that night. And I've been on the Wilfred Sykes also out with them that night. And they give you a helmet, you know, when you're a stupid writer guy, right? Okay, lamb lover with a soft hands.

Here's a helmet. Don't do anything stupid. So you put the helmet on, and you realize very quickly, there are pellets of the stuff nailing your head right now as you walk to the ship because they're loading.

Oh. And if you spill, they don't care. Trust me, from 30 or 40 feet down from those shoots, it'll crack your head open. So, yeah,

wear the damn helmet. That's my advice. And, like, that was, how much could you fit on that? Oh, yeah, we'll get you some. How much could they, how much of that stuff?

How much weight could they fit on that? You're not going to believe it. It's 26,000 long tons. It's a British measurement which actually Bigger than U.S. tons. Why they do that, who knows. But it's equivalent of 4,200 adult elephants.

Enough iron on that ship to build by itself 7,000 cars. And they make 50 runs a year. So one ship, the Memphis Gerald per year, gives you enough iron to build 350,000 cars. And the course of it was 18 years, enough iron to build 6 million cars. That's one ship. The shield scale of all this is just mind-blowing.

Yeah, and that thing, I didn't know, that thing was making 40-some trips per year. 50, yeah. And I mean, it's nonstop. It's nine months out of the year. And trust me, you're either loading or you're sailing or you're unloading. I took a Skip Barber race car class years ago for the Detroit Grand Prix. He said, you either put your foot on the gas, your foot on the brake.

If you're doing anything else, you're losing. So you're either going as fast as you can or as slow as you can. These guys, same thing. If your ship gets in to Zug Island, Detroit, a nasty little spit of land. At 3 o'clock in the morning, they're unloading. And then at 7 o'clock in the morning, they're loading. and then they're sailing and they don't wait for anybody or anything

you're constantly moving and I was kind of wondering if shipping's as big it was a great line from William said if this is dangerous why do it Willie Sutton the old gangster said

someone once asked him why do you rob banks and he said because that's where the money is he's got a point why if it's this dangerous 6,000 shipwrecks why do it because of where the money is

like I said the trade was that big a deal then I also wonder I live in Michigan. You live in Muskegan. Muskegan is one of the best natural ports on the Great Lakes. And that's in the book several times.

It's a very important port. And that's lumber in the old days. The lumber from Muskegan built the first Chicago that burned down in 1871. So that's your town. I was wondering, why have I never met these guys? I mean, I know factory workers, miners, farmers, et cetera.

I don't know any sailors. Because there are only 9,000 of them. 30 guys per ship, 300 ships in the heyday. It's only 9,000 guys. spread out over eight states, right? And also... But they all pass through the porthole. They all pass through the portal.

They got. And the second thing is, even if they live next to you, you still don't meet them. Run a ship back then, nine months out of the year. No vacations. No weddings, no graduations,

no birthdays, no nothing. I talked to one of these guys and he said, I'm a good family man, happily married, you know, 40-some years. I got three great kids. I didn't teach any of them

how to ride a bike or throw a baseball or hunt or fish. You're not home, and it's heartbreaking. So it's a hard life. He was just on the ships. Nine months out of the year, you're home for three months. And he said, there's nothing better than coming home in January with a big old bonus check that pays for everything.

These guys were paid well. There's no question about that. These guys, you know, they weren't even all high school graduates, but they were self-educated. They're very good at that. He had to pass all these tests. Come home with a nice big bonus check, and my kids run up to me, and they give me a big hug. And I'm home for three months, and my kids say, Daddy, you smell like a truck. And I say, no, daddy smells like a paycheck.

that's the life yeah you know there when they launched that ship there was like some weird stuff happened or like later seemed weird later seemed weird even at the time some of it seemed weird and by the way yeah talk about that there's kind of like three sort of i don't know man when you say launched you mean that night or when the ship was christened when they christened it yeah like the the the gal the first photo edmund fitz Gerald's wife goes to smack a bottle, champagne bottle, takes three hits to break it. A guy dies of a heart attack, right? And then they have like a North Korean-esque launch complication.

With the guys underneath it? Yeah. It's about right. By the way, you podcast listeners, media podcast listeners, this man has range. Hampton's size is a Yale-educated hot shot writer, one of my heroes. You've done your homework in this one as well, so you got it down. June 23rd, 1958,

15,000 people show up in Detroit to see this ship get launched. That's more than that Detroit Tigers average the entire year. Now, okay,

that's Tigers baseball. They sucked. Okay, I'll grant you that simple point, but it was a huge deal. And people came in their Sunday best to see this, and they had a launch padded,

and she was up there at the bunting and all that and her Sunday best. Three wax to break the champagne bottle. Sailors are notoriously superstitious. And they're already getting the bad voodoo on that

one. So that's not good. It took about a half an hour to get that ship into the water because guess what? It weighs the numbers in there. Some ridiculous number of tons. Crazy. It's the same height as the Detroit Renaissance Center, the tallest one. It's 730 feet, 729 feet. But it's no wider than the run from home plate to first base. It's 75 feet.

It's... Because of the locks? Because of locks. Is it really that narrow? These things are nuts And no ships like this Are built anywhere else in the world And if you're ship I'm scum ahead That thing is 25 yards wide

75 feet wide Exactly it's nothing It's crazy Your old ruler at school That's about the dimensions It's 10 to 1 They don't I mean in the ocean They make them shorter and fatter

Like you should basically Like you would normally Man I gotta just tell you a little deal about that When we used to hunt ducks Right at like Sugar Island Nevis Island in the St. Mary's River.

You have your ducks out, you have your decoys out, 18 inches of water. One of them sons and bitches would come by. Whush. First off, all of a sudden,

your ducks are in 36 inches of water. When that passes and the water comes in, your decoys are laying in the mud when it fills back in. And that's just when those, these big old ships are putting through. Yeah.

You're not going full blanchees are in the mud, and then all of a sudden, they come right back up. If you were hiding or fishing. It's like, but I would never guess that's only 75 feet wide. It's crazy.

They look like bigger than God. But it's, they are. It's 700 feet tall, you said? Well, it's 729 feet long. Oh, long, long. Gotcha. The Detroit Renaissance Center, if you know where that is, they've got the four shorter buildings and the tall one.

It's the tallest building between Toronto and Chicago. It is 730 feet. So there's a 73-story skyscraper on its side. And the nose, yeah. Ended nose, thank you. That's the phrase I need, Stephen, thank you. But only 75 feet wide. And again, if you're a shipbuilder and these guys were great shipbuilders,

you got three criteria. One, haul as much cargo as you can, because that's how you make money. Two, fit the damn thing through the Seulocks because they're only 75 feet wide as that's the limit right there. Like that sets the ship's design. And that's exactly what they did.

They were doing one foot of one and no inches on the other. I mean, this is maxed out. And then, of course, the third thing is handle rough seas. Well, if you're a shipping company, you can't do all three. Guess which two you're picking. Yeah. So these things are very poorly designed for rough seas.

Like I said, you can snap it between two waves. They roll back and forth, which is left and right. Hey, your podcast is awesome because your guys have been in boats. All right. They've been out fishing and so on. When you're facing waves, you think smash into waves is, you know, bad with a V-Haul. No, it's not. It's broadside that'll screw you up.

All right. In the trough. In the trough, baby. Exactly. Exactly, Brody. It's exactly what happens with these ships. Where do you not want to be in the trough? And that's what's going to happen later on.

So smash into waves sucks. And one of the guys, I got one guy. I got one guy, Rick Barthruly. You guys would love this guy. He's got, what's a bit like my buddy Randall over here? He's got, good people. Good people. Self-educated guy, very smart.

Sarkastic. Likes hot, dogs. Oh, hell yeah. So he does not own a computer. He has not got the internet. All he has is a cell phone. He's off the grid, basically, except for the cell phone. So, put me a year to find this guy, another year to convince him to talk to me.

He's the last guy left, to my knowledge of anybody on the Arthur Anderson that night, which is one hour behind the fits taking the same route. And they're the ones communicating back and forth. She's as close as we can get to what's it like to be on this thing. And he says, you know, you think you're smashing this wave. Unless you've been on one of these ships, you have no idea what this is like. Every wave is a train wreck. It goes bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, as it kind of crunches down.

And then it stretches out again. Then it goes bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And that's four to eight seconds. 20-foot waves, you ain't sleeping. There's no way. And they got 30-and-40-foot waves. So that's how they designed them. And it's 10 by one.

It's crazy. Has that design changed since then? No? No, because the Sue Lacks haven't changed. And they're finishing another one, the first one since 1968. They're doing that one right now. And trust me, they're going to get bigger. Now you've got 1,000 footers that are still 75 foot wide.

You're kidding me. It's nuts. How deep are they sitting in the water? That is a brilliant question. How deep are they supposed to sit or how deep do they sit? Loaded, unloaded. So, originally the plan was 14 feet of what's called free. You guys know what that is.

Again, dude, this is my first podcast, my first interview, I've done 30 or 40 by now. With big mariners. Yeah. People actually know what the hell of talk about. I have an expired captain's license. You're as close as I get, Randall. I'll take your expired captain's license. Yeah, you guys know what it's all about.

So, Freeboard is the distance between the water and the top of your deck. And the U.S. Coast Guard and others, ABS have got regulations on this. Okay. When the ship was built, in 1958, it was allowed 14 feet of free. freeboard and then therefore about 25 feet below the water yeah all these things you see those markers that is the plimsaul line they got a chap down you're on what's it called the plimsall line of british politician from 1840s uh who plimsal uh who made this line and ever ignored it except lloyds of london the insurance company you're you know where i'm going with this one yeah yeah

if you break that law we're not paying you a dime so now of a sudden the equation shift shifted in the old days in England in the 1850s, 1860s, they would overload their ships, take out a ton of insurance, sink it almost intentionally with crew on board, they didn't care, and collect the money. So this changed all that. So this is how evil it was. So they were allowed 14 feet, and then who knows why, in 1969, 71, and 73, the regulations changed and allowed it to go bit by bit from 14 feet above the water to only 11 feet above the water. In the engineer's defense, they didn't design it for that.

And by the way, one inch of tachinite, by the way, is tons, one inch. Cheating the thing is one inch is millions of dollars of tachinite, one inch. Is that thing just a big tub in the bottom or is it divided in the compartment? It's divided into three main cargo holds. And I've heard stories about guys who fell into those. Back then, you could drink on board and things like this and drugs were prevalent. You could, guys who fell in and died while trying to hose it down. So don't drink and hose, is my advice on that one.

but yes there's three gigantic holes it's most of the 700 feet yeah and I mean I'm standing there two feet away from these things and it's only like two feet I mean I can easily fall in it's one of those things we tell you don't be an idiot basically so but yes

that's a very good question and they unload it now they got self unloaders but back then they scooped it out so yeah so it's a crazy setup to say the least let's jump to that night a little bit they they're we've kind of established this run they're making oh i got before we jump to that night i got one more what are they coming are they coming back empty yes every time there's nothing

to bring up there nothing to bring up well here's a fun fact for you uh trains are twice as efficient as trucks and uh ships are three times more efficient than trains so ships are 600 percent more efficient than trucks and ain't even close so you carry so much on these ships you can afford to spend three days going to Toledo and come back empty because it doesn't It doesn't matter. Got it. Anything you put out a ship, you put on a ship. It's just far more efficient.

Got it. So you're right. And also when you're coming back, you're riding high. That's when you fill the ballast tanks with water to give us some, if you don't film with water, the screws, the propellers, which are 30 feet high. They won't even touch the water. So you got to weigh it down. Oh, no kidding. Yeah.

You'll just grind it to death. Huh. All right. So, yeah, I got to do that. But when I'm looking at a photo, even landlubber me, I can tell you when the fits is loaded and when it's not. And these guys can tell immediately. Got it. So you lose 10, you know, 5, 10 feet or something.

Yeah. So. So that night, or I don't know what time they take off, presumably they don't take off at night, but they take off. They take off whenever they take off, trust me. They take off knowing there's, like, like, what is their awareness of the weather? Like, what is the, what is the forecast when they take off? This guy might be a genius. Exactly right.

The two problems they had back then. That's a stretch, but I know that was bad. I actually like the positive vibes in the room right now. But I just know the wind is. I assume. That's rare, Randolph. I know the wind and the wires made a tattletail south. There you go. He knows the lyrics.

He doesn't pay any attention to the weather when we're in Alaska. It's 16-foot skips. But now, now I get paid attention. No matter of what the forecast is, I'll say, let's go have a look. You'd fit right in on this ship. So here's what happens. And you guys, your listeners got to know the weather. You got to watch the weather.

And one of my guys, his dad was also a Great Lakes captain. And he said, when the weather came on, and I'm a kid in Cleveland, everyone shut the hell up. And because that will determine if your dad, and your dad is listening like this. I didn't get that until I got in the ship. And the weather's why you come home or why you don't. Now, in this case, the gales in November, it's like hurricane season in Florida. When is that in September? Because the water's warm and the air is cool.

The water wants to rise. When you boil water on your stove at home, it evaporates. It rises, right? Because it wants to join the cold air and so on. It happens in November on the Great Lakes. November is notoriously dangerous. November 10th is the most dangerous day on the Great Lakes. Really?

Oh, yeah. And it's really worse than January. It's worse than December. It's worse than January because by then winter has arrived and the water and the air get along. They're not in contrast. So it's when they're fighting, you get waves. And on top of that, and you're right about the forecasting. So a few things happen.

One, it's 70 degrees on November 9th, the day they take off at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Okay. It's 70 degrees in Duluth. Wow. And it ain't supposed to be 70 degrees in Duluth, all right? You think that's great news. It's bad news. It's what I learned doing this book from the experts, the longer winter takes to arrive, the nastier it shows up.

It's like water behind a dam. And the more water you get, when that dam finally breaks, the worse is going to be. So 70 degrees on Sunday is really bad news. Just too warm. The water's too warm. And the air is, but the air switches, it's going to be, it's going to happen fast and nasty. Isn't that like this year? Everything's been real hot up there?

Yeah, basically, but exactly right, Cren. And if it happens suddenly, these guys will know better now. Yeah, and the Great Lakes are big enough. They'll create their own weather. They actually do. And what these guys told me, that you have faraway storms in the ocean, as I said earlier. The Great Lakes, they're called locally occurring storms, which means the damn thing right over your head. So you're fishing in the morning and you're rowing for your dear life two hours later.

It happens very fast. So winter's going to come from the Alberta Clipper from obviously Western Canada, across the Dakotas, Minnesota, and that's going to run all the way across 350 miles of fetch. And you guys know what fetch is across Lake Superior. That's nasty, cold, dry air. They knew, they expected that, basically. They didn't know how bad. They did not know about another storm they should have.

Some of the guys did know about this in the weather forecasting business. A hot, wet air coming in from California, Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa. straight up to the Great Lakes. These two storms are going to meet right in front of Whitefish Bay, your old fishing spot. Whitefish Bay is home plate. That's where you're trying to get to after two days getting across Lake Superior. Now you've got, it's like a catcher in front of home plate blocking your way home. And this captain does not know that.

So that's tragic. And then what happens? So he does know his in for a storm. So he and Bernie Cooper, they're Arthur Anderson. They're buddies, but they're still competing, of course, to get there first. And why to compete? If you beat a ship by a minute, you beat them by a couple hours,

because you'll get to the Sulawks first, only one ship at a time. You will get to the dock first. You unload first. That's four or five hours. A minute can be a half a day. So these guys are competitive dudes, to say the least.

But they still get along. Yeah, but they still come together. Or is it just coincidence that they're sailing together? No, it's not. Okay. They're talking to each other. And early on, around four or five o'clock on Sunday, they say, you know what,

this thing's pretty nasty. Let's take the northern route. Okay. And normally he had never do that, and McSorty was the best captain on the Great Lakes. Captain, he's 31 years old. He's been the youngest captain in the Great Lakes when he became a captain at 31. Now he's 63. He's been a captain more than half his life.

He's the most aggressive captain. He never turns around. He never takes the northern route. He never weighs anchor. He just goes, goes, goes. So the company likes that. He's the best in rough weather, they all say. Got a witness, Craig Sullivan, who's on the ship in 72.

He said, I saw that man park 729 feet of steel between two other freighters with three feet into your side and not touch a damn thing like you're parking your parallel parking your fort F-150. This man was the best. And he's also beloved, which those guys were not back then. These guys that throw hot coffee at you, yell at cadets and all kinds of other stuff. They're tyrants, basically. This guy was so beloved, his crew would follow him from ship to ship.

So you have the best ship in the Great Lakes, the longest, the fastest, the most luxurious. How about that? The best food. They had air conditioning in their bunks. They had air conditioning in 1958. Homes didn't have that where we're from.

Those are like leather furniture and something like that. Leather furniture, two VIP quarters for the rich folks, the people who write the checks, the national steel, U.S.

Steel, Ford Motor Company to entertain those guys. Because you want the best captain of the Great Lakes, you want the best crew in the Great Lakes, and you want the most money. That's how you get it.

So it was not wasted money. So, McSorily, here's a more heartbreaking stuff. They're supposed to end the season the week before. He tax on one more trip to get his bonus.

Why? His wife, Nellie, is sick in Toledo. She's got cancer, we think. I'm not entirely sure about that, but I've got some witnesses on that. So she's already in 24-hour care. She might be able to pull through. So this trip is for her health care. And he's about to retire.

So normally he'd never take the northern route, but he's thinking, who the hell is going to fire me? Go ahead. What was the advantage of taking the northern route? Smart man, Brody. Good job, Brody. A few things. One, they normally go straight across, like, Superior South as you can.

This is the straightest line possible. By taking the northern route, you get the lee of the Canadian shore. Okay. And you guys know what Lee is. There are 20 terms I've used tonight that I could not use last night. The song, Dehalla fishing man. If you're in a bookstore, Milwaukee, Minnesota, you better explain a lot of stuff. So this is my gang.

So you get the lee of the western shore, the northern shore. You're basically hugging Canada across superior. Now, a few catches of that, though. One is the safe, rational thing to do. So I'm not one of those ones that dump on McSorne and say he screwed the whole thing up. That's a rational move. Okay. But a few catches.

One of the yours you already know. It's pay me now or pay me later. So, okay, the first two legs are quieter and softer and not as windy and so on. But that third leg's going to be hell. Because now you're exposed. You have 350 feet, 350 miles of fetch. And now those waves are hitting you broadside. This is the, you're in your bathtub and this is the drain.

And go ahead, make some waves. What's going to happen at the end? It's going to be nasty at that end. So, and you're going to be hitting. those broadside, that's not what you want, all right, your last leg. That's going to be about 10 hours. Okay. That's one problem. Second problem is it's 14 hours longer than the straight shot, all right? You just gave that Southern Storm a 14-hour

head start to get to Whitefish Bay first. And I pause it in the book. This is the captain's call. Completely. Like he's no one else's. Unilateral, that's what's happening. Not a democracy. Yeah. The votes won nothing in all decisions. You might consult, and he did, but it's one-nothing and you are therefore responsible for all decisions. Another guy out that night on the Sykes, he said, this is too nasty, and this is one of the best captains in the Great Lakes also. They're the best at forecasting.

And he says, we're tucking in. We're going to go into the bay. And his crew is warning him. And ride it out. Right it out. Okay. And his crew is warning him, sir, if you do captain, if you do that, and there's no storm, it can be your ass with Cleveland, with the company. So that's, those are the pros and cons you deal with.

Now, McSorning don't want to cares. This is his last trip. So anyway, so 14 hours, here's the third problem. He does not know this route nearly as well. He takes the southern route, 50 times a year, really 100, back and forth. He's done that his entire career, 40 years at least. He's done this thousands of times. He knows all the islands.

He knows all the stuff out there and the currents and everything else. He does not know this. I had two guys on the ship that year. They said, we didn't take it in the last year and a half, not once, the northern route. Got it. Why does that matter? It's superior. It's 1,300 feet deep.

It's gigantic. Not quite. there's a little crappy pile of dirt called Caribou Island in the northeast corner of Lake Superior right when you take that final stretch down it's one mile by three mile it barely shows up on most maps

it's called Caribou Island I have no idea why can I interject yes and by the way it's your show historically here's the crazy part like Isle Royal yes being a wolf moose island historically was a Caribou Lynx Island I did not know that.

Yeah. Isle Royal is the nation's biggest. I'm sorry, it's the nation's only island national park. And it's 10 times the size of Manhattan, but no one knows that. So there's caribou up there like after 1900. Yeah. No, in the modern like in like modern America. Yeah.

Sorry. During American history, there was a caribou lynx island. That was news to me. And by the way, it's the first show also that I learned something. Oh, good. You can go there, you can hike up on a mountain on Isle Royal, and you can look at the biggest island in the biggest lake, on the biggest island in the biggest lake. That's in the book. It's a, IRO is so big, 10 times a size of Manhattan.

It's got a lake in the island with an island with a lake. Been there. There you go. Randall. Seating with my own eyes. And they use Iowa Royal. That's part of the Lee. They go just south of Isle Royal to get that protection.

The worst boat ride I've ever been on was getting to Isle Royal. Royal on the on the Ranger three from the from International Falls side oh god that's brutal and and yeah I've I've never been seasick before I was seasick on that all right we're getting pretty serious here here's the thing they used to do the guys on those ships they were working those ships I talked to one of those guys I had to cut the damn thing but this would be fun for you guys I remember dinty Moore hunter stew and all that stuff like one guy would start acting like he's sick with five foot waves five waves are enough to get these campers to sick he had some dinty Moore and he'd

all of a sudden go, blah, and spill the stuff. And his other buddy comes by and goes, oh, my God, he'd have a spoon, and he started eating it. And that, of course, the campers, the poor campers, they see that. They're over the side. Okay, so I derailed the Caribou Island. It's quite all right, because we needed that last. And I will never get another chance in my life to tell that story. Hunting big country isn't for the faint of heart.

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Blood trails. Listen now on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Caribou Island. It's one mile by three miles. It's called Kiribu Island. I have no idea. It's a swamp with mosquitoes. It's nasty.

The Caribou left. If they're ever on there, they swim across to Canada long ago. It's no reason to go there. But in front of it to the north, it's something called Six Fathoms Shoal. You guys know what a fathom is? My other folks usually don't. It's six feet. Six fathoms is therefore 36 feet.

If you're drafting 29 feet on a good day, and this is not a good day, you have no reason to be anywhere near this. There's nothing to gain. But it's all some misleading. It's not six fathoms. In some places, it's 11 feet. That's no deeper than your backyard pool. So you have no reason to be anywhere near this thing. Why would he come anywhere near it?

Got it. The storm now is 70 mile per hour winds, 30 foot waves. It's pretty nasty. Not quite the worst he's ever seen, but getting there. His long radar is knocked out. His short radar is knocked out. By waves. By waves.

Exactly right. Thank you. And Whitefish Point, and you've seen that lighthouse. It's the one lighthouse on the Great Lakes. Everyone's dying to see. That light, of course, goes out that night. The radio beacon, that signals the ships where you are also goes out.

Because why? The storm. I mean, the storm knocked the lighthouse out. Well, dominoes start falling. Power outages. And just dumb luck in some cases.

So, so there you are. So now you have truly sailing blind. All you have are what they call charts and we call maps. And it's about as big as this table. These things are like four by five. They're huge. And in the chart room,

you know these organic drawers. One says Lake Huron. One says Lake Ontario. I mean, you pull out six or seven per lake. Now, if you're old enough and you kids have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, but AAA gives them called a trip tick, all right? And to put all your maps on a trip all in an order, so if I'm going from Michigan to Montana, I would know how to do it.

And it works pretty well. That's how these maps work. But if you skip ahead, you're screwed because now nothing makes sense. So if he does not know where he is, Tom White, a great hunter also, by the way. It's also a sea captain in the Great Lakes. He said it's entirely possible. he would have changed maps too soon

you're in 30 foot waves you've not slept in 36 hours you get what's called motion fatigue that is like being drunk after 36 hours of these waves and you've not taken this route in years if he shifted his map too soon all right to get Whitefish Bay in the map because that's where he wants to go

the Caribou area is still there but it now disappears because the scale has changed so you might not be aware that you're anywhere near this and the Anderson is convinced that they saw them on the radar go right over six fathom shoal. If they did,

it would explain why two hours later he's talking to Bernie Cooper, that is the captain of the Memphis Gerald, McSorley, saying, my fence railings down, I've got two vent covers blown off by the waves, a few other problems,

and kind of in passing. I've got a list. All right, so you guys know what that means. That's my 30th term. I don't have to define to you guys, but tilting to the right to starboard. All right. Not that big a deal at first.

Two hours later, it's the first thing that he mentions. And these guys are very reluctant to admit anything is wrong with their ships for a few reasons. One, they're in competition. You don't put anything on the radio. You don't have to. Second of all, the whole macho aspect, man, we've all been on planes. We're experiencing a little turbulence here, people. Yeah, we're going to bounce up and down 200 feet.

We'll be okay here in just a few minutes. That's what these guys are like. So for him to admit this much is very unusual. So now you've got a pretty serious list. What does that mean? It means either taking water from the bottom, or the load has shifted or possibly both. And if they bottomed out at six fathom shawl,

that could be the reason. Once you've starboard, all right, you can't steer very well. But why wouldn't he have mentioned we hit? Here's the bizarre part. And I could not believe this either, but I had 10 experts tell me it's true. You might not have known.

And I thought that's impossible. Hit something enough to put a hole through that thing and not. And it didn't like knock your teeth out. It's sandstone, it's sandstone for crying out loud. This is hard, hard stuff. And you got a hard, hard ship. How could you not know that? And I talked to experienced captains saying, the waves are so nasty.

Like I said, they're a train wreck that you can't tell the difference between the train wreck of a good wave. And one guy, the badger that runs from Muskegon to a bit on it. Yeah, exactly. Manit's walk, right? That's right. Wiltsy is the captain of that ship. He said, I was leaving the breakwater one time. And the waves were so nasty, I thought I hit the breakwater.

I had not. And I didn't know this stuff worked like that. Okay. It does. So even a good captain can not be aware. so whether a tore hole or scraped it or whatever and we're not quite sure but anyway now you're listing if you're listing you can't steer properly

you're much more in danger of capsizing when you're going broadside and like a three-legged animal in the wild and you guys know what those are like all right one good wave now can take you out and when it reaches the point that they didn't want to be in as I said earlier the worst place the worst time 100 mile per hour winds and up to 60 foot waves and at some point the ship

Probably didn't come back up. We don't know. But that's the best guest. The best guess right now is that it hit. Did it hit something? That I think, if you're asking me... I know, like, I understand that no one really knows. But like, where's sort of the...

All right, let's get down and dirty. What is the sort of like academic consensus? There is not. Okay. But I can tell you this, some new data in here. Dick Race, there's a name for you. He's the best diver in the Great Lakes. He died in 2002.

when a 747 went in Lake Michigan in the 60s, he's the guy who found it when no one else could. The lakes are bigger than to think. He worked at the Chicago Police Department. He did his own work. He's the best in the lakes. Three guys who knew him well. Also the same thing.

The company asked him to dive down six months later on six fathom shoal. Yeah, look for a strike. Look for a strike. Exactly right, Stephen. And wherever that report is, by the way, I found the guy, Peter Groh, was in charge of a thousand boxes, bankers boxes of that company's files when I went bankrupt in 2004

he spent two years going through all these files he found every box and went through them all except for three the three involving the Edmund Fitzgerald and no one signed him out there's no trace that's where his report is I'm almost sure of it and I couldn't find it Dick race reported on this so his his file is gone

we don't know where it is and I tried like hell to find it but he told three different guys in Chicago Traverse City Muskegan exact same thing I saw the Fitzgerald's paint on that bottom. I saw a rock nearby with scratches that no animal can make that had to be from the ship. So is that proof? There wasn't like when they found the wreckage,

there was like no like autopsy they could do on the wreckage. Yes and no and it gets us closer to it, but it's not definitive. But anyway, so at 7 o'clock when Bernie Cooper calls him and he's the captain of the Anderson and he says, how are you making out with your problems? He says, and I quote, we are holding our own.

And that is the ringing line from Captain McSority. Those are the last words from anybody on board, whatever happened next. One thing we say that people academically even agree on, whatever happened was fast. And what's our proof on that? This guy is the best captain of the Great Lakes. If he had 10 seconds to get out an SOS with coordinates, he sure as hell would have done it. This guy's good. All right.

The lifeboats were secured. The life jackets were where they left them. Only one guy we've seen in the bottom is, wearing a life jacket. So whatever happened, it happened very fast. They say went 35 miles per hour down to the bottom. Wow. It might have cracked on top.

There's a guy on the bottom wearing a life jacket? Yes. How come he didn't float? Uh, because he's inside the, uh, inside the, uh, they're all inside the ship. Understood. Oh, they are? Yep. Somewhere in the pilot house and somewhere in the engine room, uh, but, and no one's in the

middle, so. Is that right? Yeah, we don't want to be in the middle. Not that, not that it worked out well anyway, but how deep did it, how deep, how deep, Did it end up? Here's the weird part. So, kind of an academic question. Did it crack on the surface as other ships had?

Or did it crack after it hit? And a lot of people say it cracked on the surface, and again, can't prove it either way. But here's a wild stat for you. It's down 530 feet deep. Now, you better, you know, you can't dive down there for the hell of it. You better know what you're doing, special gear, you know, license people, submersibles, all that stuff. So it's 530 feet down. But this ship is 729 feet long.

So even if it hit the bow, you have 200 feet out outside the water. That's crazy. All right. So that would certainly have cracked it at that point, with all the weight on it. So either one could have happened, and I can't say. Yeah, I never thought of it. It's taller than it is deep. And it's 530 feet deep.

How far are the two pieces apart? About a quarter mile. About like that. And in between, it's like one third, the bow upright. So you can see the M. Fitzgerald on the side. One third, the stern upside down. So we see in the book, Edmond Fitzgerald upside down, which is sad to see.

In the middle is about a third and it's just blown apart. And the tacking night is still down there. And all 29 men as well. And the line from the song, the Chippewa comes from a Newsweek story, but Gordon Leifwood got. The Great Lake never gives up her dead. What that means is if you- The lake it is said never gives up her dead. You'd think by now I'd be an expert on this stuff, but this guy's got the lyrics exactly right. Thank you again, doctor.

No problem. He's got it. He's right. The legate is said, never goes over dead. An honorary doctorate. I call that a professional courtesy. Thank you very much. Randall is real.

We need a light moment. That's good, too. Yeah, the author of the book who paid $2,000 for the rights, didn't get the lyric right. So thank you for that. Why is that? Because if you drown in Michigan, like Erie,

almost anywhere you go in the United States, bacteria will eventually invade your body. And they'll eventually invade your body. So your body starts floating up. So that's why they float up within a week or two, usually in drownings, fishermen included. On the Great Lakes, I'm sorry, on Lake Superior, you're so far down. It's dark all day long. It's pitch black.

It's so cold, bacteria can't live there. There's a sterile down there. It is sterile. Bacteria do not live down there. Almost nothing lives down there. So bacteria never invade your body. So these bodies hate to get grim, they do not decompose in the normal way. They're still largely recognizable.

But what has been the argument? Why haven't the families wanted to Why haven't the families wanted to bring up the remains of their relatives? One of them did for a while until she found out her. She's an only child also, Deb Shampo, just saw her two days go to Milwaukee. She's a 16-year-old girl when her dad's ship goes down, and they were very close. At first, she wanted to, and his brother was in Vietnam. And here's a little story.

He's 13 years old in the Great Depression when his dad dies, suddenly he's the oldest of five kids. What do you do if you're in rural, if you're in rural Wisconsin at that point, you drop out of school and you start working. These guys are tough dudes. So he paid for his kid, you know, brothers to get through school. He joins the military, sends checks back. He has decorated himself, gets in a ship, makes good money and gives the money back to his

family. But he always promised his brother in Vietnam. If anything ever happens to you, I will go to Vietnam and I'll bring you back. And he said that more than once. So when this ship goes down, his brother wants to do the same thing. I want to go down and bring you back. But Deb Champo realized, A, it's very dangerous. They've made three dives down there, no accidents.

But it's very dangerous to do that stuff. Two, the other people are also on the ship. And she said in the Marines, you never leave your men. So that was the ethos of leaving the guys on the ship. So they all agree, they're not going to come up. And they're all basically entombed there, essentially. They're all accounted for it. That I can't say for sure.

Well, I can. Because by now something would have happened. all 29 men are in one side of the other. You would never be in the middle of that ship anyway. But I'm just surprised. And the conditions were such that no one could be, no one would be on deck. It'd be like laughable to be on deck.

Exactly. And laughable is right. And no fence railing even on top of that. And so fast that no one ever attempted to jump off. Like no lifeboats ever washed ashore. No lifeboats dead, but only if they popped out on the way down. I see. And these things were destroyed.

Okay. But no sign that someone had taken any kind of steps to do. that the one life jacket is the only sign we have that anybody felt that you know doom was uh apparently these guys usually didn't wear life jackets some of these guys couldn't swim which seems crazy to me but coast got ever tested for it yeah and uh ransom kundi there's a name for you the nickname was handsome ransom kundi he told his daughter all it does is prolonging the agony so these guys and you have 10 minutes in that water anyway kind of a fatal it's like got it why bother kind of thing that's what that was the that was the mindset so it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's

It's assumed that the men drown. Yes, I think proven, basically. So 29 men. That thing went down fast. To answer your question, I don't think anyone's gone down there and counted the head count. Count of the dead. What was going on with the other captain? He was fighting for his life, of course, 30, 40 footers.

But he was not quite in his bad a place. He's an hour behind. Did he also take, he did take the Northern Route? The Northern Route, yeah. And he's another aggressive guy. This is unusual. But his radar's working. So they certainly avoided Caribou Island.

We got a map in there showing the two routes they took. Man, they took a wide swing around that whole thing. He told his wheelsman, we ain't coming anywhere near this thing. Right. I mean, I don't want to see it. And without an... And there's no reason to. Coming near the Sixth Fathom Shole.

Exactly. That's death. Without an SOS call, he realizes that something's awry when assuming, I mean, he loses contact. He doesn't get any response on the radio? Oh, I mean Bernie Cooper and the Anderson. At what point do they realize something's happened? They come to it slowly because, again, he's fighting for his life.

He's an hour behind, so the worst of it lasts about an hour, and that's where the Fitzgerald was. It's still bad when he comes through, 30, 40 footers, whatever. But so he's keeping a monitor, but you only check it in every half an hour, every hour, but he loses them on the radar. That concerns him, but that's possible. um that can happen then he tells his guy the power might have gone out on this ship which does happen that electrical systems can pop out but after an hour he realized this is not right so he calls

the coast guard and i hate to be critical of the coast guard these guys have saved thousands of lives and i got many of them in the book these guys risk their own lives are very very good but the su locks coast guard station did not come through that night they had two ships that did not go out um and the guys it wouldn't have it wouldn't have mattered it wouldn't have mattered by just got to be ready. But anyway. No, I understand the criticism. I'm saying it wasn't... No, it was immaterial. You're dead right. Yeah.

No pun intended. Sorry. But the Captain Cooper of the Anderson calls the Sioux Group in the Seulocks and talking to a petty officer branch. This guy's young buck. And he asked Cooper to go from Channel 16 to Channel 12 because Channel 16 is for emergencies. He's reporting to Memphis's Gerald being missing. is there a greater emergency than that I mean what's even close this guy's just not getting it

and Cooper's trying to get through me hey I think the ship is missing when they find to get the Whitefish Bay at 9 o'clock at night he's certain that it's gone yeah there's no reason why we wouldn't pass them it wouldn't be in what time did the ship break apart 7 o'clock 710 somewhere in there and that time of you're dark oh yeah

absolutely it's been dark for a while at that point it's like 430 if you know that area so the petty officer brand testifies a few days later and asked to explain himself his various responses and he says I thought it was important but at that time not urgent and I can't explain that answer so it doesn't again it didn't matter as far as what happened but it's still that's that's what Cooper's dealing with when they get to Whitefish Bay they've not even weighed anchor and and Coast Guard says can you go back out and look for the Fitzgerald to it says to who Cooper of the Anderson want to take

a iron ore freighter and go look for it yes and you just got in like this yeah skin of your teeth you are happy to be alive and so is the crew it's the worst storm he's ever seen his entire career and they ask him before you even drop anchor to go back out and you're like you said to take a loaded freighter out and look for a freighter 600 feet some oh it's actually longer at that point 700 some what the hell is he supposed to do it's i just gave a shrug for the radio um it's a fool's mission and they know damn well that you don't lose 729 feet of steel

it's a fool's mission they know that but in the Bradley in 58 and the Morel in 66 great first person testimony we've got in the book from the guys

there are three guys in one raft and four guys in another raft and ended up being two in one because guys died on the raft and stayed on the raft they didn't have the energy to throw them over at that point

at these horrible wrecks and they said we're freezing we have no energy to even grab a rope by the time they get us, what kept us going? You know, we're dying and so on. The only thing that kept us going was the thin threat of hope that's somewhere out there is some guy in the Coast Guard

or somewhere else who's willing to risk his life to save mine because you can't save my life any other way without risking yours. And Coast Guard guys die doing this stuff. I mean, other guys die too many examples, of course. So Coast Guard does that on a regular basis. That's what these guys did. And I asked Rick Barthulie, who's a 22-year-old guy on that ship, I said, what did you think at the time?

he said we knew it was a dumb idea and we knew there could be two ships in the bottom before we're done and that's exactly what Cooper tells the Coast Guard we could double the accident in this point. He said, but we didn't think twice because we knew they would do it for us

and that is the Sailors Code and as a chap recalls the Sailors Code all the American ships went out and all the ocean ships stayed in port because once again the Salty's learned that the Great Lakes are scarier

than the ocean. So those guys are heroes to me. When you say that the other the captain of the other ship you kind of answered this but it's one of come back on it the cat you use the term the captain of the other ship was fighting for his life yes like did he later describe describe like that i mean did he feel like he was in a life death situation i should have the thing uh i got on my pdf my computer how about that for a non-fist Gerald response um i can find exact quote when it when the coast guard uh captain tells him to go out uh he we have his

quotes on what he said. Where's that same thing? It's right there. I'll get in a second. He said, dig time. Do you know, do you know what the conditions are like out there? And the guy doesn't answer. And Cooper says, again, do you know what the conditions are like out there? And again, he doesn't answer. And I said, he didn't answer, but we can. He had no idea. Because even on shore with 20 footers going over your building on shore, if you weren't out there, you'd have no idea. And so Cooper knows, this guy's asking a lot and he has no idea what he's asking for. But They didn't, it didn't even stop and think. I mean, you didn't like it, but you got to go.

And these guys are a different breed. How long were they out there? About 14 hours, because that's how it takes to go to make a loop. Yeah. And the scary part of it. But that's the thing that I keep, I know I keep coming back to this, but like, loaded with all that iron orange shit. Yeah, you can't drop it first and go back out. That's, that's part of your problem.

I mean, his, his freeboard is no better than that. And you're going to do, you're going to, you're going to, you're going to, you're going to, like, throw some ropes? Like, you're going to try to pull. up along you're going to try to pull that thing up alongside a life raft i guess and and they have in the past they would try and it could but it would work i mean i don't know it also could be as much about like confirming and recovering bodies and or you'd find it adrift i guess yeah yeah and they found debris they found the lifeboats uh those things were steel not aluminum even arthur anders's lifeboat was destroyed by a wave and barthew described it it's like taking a pop can stepping on it and taking a

hacksaw through it. That's what our lifeboat looked like. And again, made of steel, not of aluminum. But what they dreaded, they're going back out in the seas and it's still bad and you're smashed into those waves. That's not the scary part. The scary part is the turnaround. Turn around. You have to pick the right wave to turn around in to go into the trough. Yeah. Well, it probably takes 15 minutes for those things to turn around. Well, exactly. 15 minutes takes an hour. These things are not that they're 60 miles an hour and they're big and slow. So you got to, and I talked to captains about this. It's dark, you can't pick the right wave.

It's too dark to see, like you're saying earlier. So just making that turnaround. And Barthuli, who's not an emotional guy, he said, trust me. When we got back into Whitefish Bay. The second time. There's a lot of guys that became very religious, yes, who had to come to Jesus' moment on your way back. So they knew how bad it was.

So those guys were impressive. The ocean guys did not go out. As I said earlier, John Hayes had sailed on both, 23 years, the Great Lakes and 12 on the ocean. He said, the Great Lakes and the Ocean, it ain't even close. And anybody who's sailed both will tell you the same thing. The Salty's always laughed at us until they got in the Great Lakes. Then they shut up pretty damn fast and started looking for safe harbor. And that night, a half dozen American Canadian ships went out, and all the Salty's stayed in bay.

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How could there have been no marks on her? This season on Blood Trails were following the trail of seven cases that start in the field and end in the shadows. Each story begins with the hunter stepping into the wild, but not all of them come back. All theories are out there. You know, everything from murder to UFOs to Bigfoot. I'm Jordan Sillers, a journalist with over a decade of experience

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And by the way, this is the best damn interview I've had. Just go out to lunch after this. I admit my ignorance about the media podcast. I'm not kidding you. I'm getting the best questions. That's been very impressive. So, 6,000 Super X between 1875 and 1975, November 10th, 1975 to the present,

almost exactly 50 years. zero not one so you go from 6,000 in the century to zero for 50 years and why is that just what you said stephen earlier forecasting is better they also take it more seriously communication don't just know the information tell the captain and tell the captain on a regular basis what they're in for today so they had more technology back then and one of my experts said when do you fix anything when it's broken all right 9-11 we're complacent we got smart about certain things we could have done things then to be smarter, of course. Same thing here.

But the biggest change, I believe, since then, is simple, common sense. The author photo there on the back is me at Whitefish Point. It's November 11th of last year of 2024, the day after the anniversary. I spoke with the families the night before. I'm looking at about 30, 40, 40 mile per hour winds there. I don't look too happy. About 10 foot waves. Every single ship, that day in my computer program on my phone shows this,

Every single ship was anchored in Whitefish Bay And I guarantee you In the old days Not one And if you're anchoring, you're fired You're not going to make it Or ridiculed at least So wait a day

Way to day, the next day in the Lake Superior After the ship went down, it was glass Oh You could have gone out one day later And made up all your time Straight shot So that's part of the tragedy I'll add to the tragedy

Eddie Binden, 47 years old first assistant engineer high in the packing order handles the engine been married 25 years to lovely Helen her photos in there in Cleveland area more or less he about to celebrate the 25th anniversary he's about to retire after this trip as well

he gets from Superior Wisconsin to Duluth to the jewelry store because Superior didn't have one apparently gets a very nice 25 year diamond anniversary ring and for reasons only he knows he does not pack it in his duffel bag he's going to see her in three days she's going to be there in the dock he lived two hours away he gives it to a friend and tells his friend to mail this to my wife and gives the address

that is so wild though man i cannot explain why he did that what he thought any of this but sure enough a week later she got to ring she wore it the rest of her life and never remarried uh but stories like that those are the stories that no one's got so it makes them human beings that's the best one's important thing. Man. Did you feel like when you started working on the book, did you feel it necessary to reach out to the family members? Oh, essential.

And it took me about six months to a year to get to them. I got lucky, the guy who is the director of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Whitefish Point. Bruce Land, true class act, former Army Captain Square Jod guy, all this good stuff.

He's a big Ohio State fan, but he got his master's degree at Eastern Michigan University in Ipsilani. So he's hearing me on the radio for years talking about this stuff and reading my football books and so and so I already knew me, thank God. He read the Halifax book.

And we got along very well. He had the trust of the families. I did not. He was their gatekeeper. He keeps all the wackos and the grifters away from them. But we got along and he told them to trust me.

And without that, the book barely counts, in my opinion. So they trusted me and that one worked out very well. They loved the book and I'm grateful for that. when we say the like if I say the families or if you you hear the families are there are there still 29 families there's some like semi cohesive units or are some of the families sort of dissolved and some have dissolved well Eddie Bendin and his wife Helen no kids I see so there you are which is why I feel very good about and she and she's and she's she's deceased okay I see she was 47 at the 3rd time. So there's no, there's no, in that case, there's no family spokesman. Three or four of the

cases they're not. Yeah. Um, a deck hand who's single, uh, there you go. Um, so in those cases, they ring the bell 29 times every anniversary. My son once rang the bell, he was eight at the time for Eddie Binden. Um, and he wore a suit and tie, took it very seriously. He practiced earlier in the day. Uh-huh. We have pictures of him walking away. Teary Evan, pulling tears, basically. So it's through my son. I discovered Eddie Binden. And then I, found a guy, Patrick Devine, who talked to me late in the process. He was very reluctant. Deckhand on the ship two months earlier. He was replaced by Bruce Hudson. He was mad about it at the time. He was. Yeah, it took 10 years to get over Survivor's guilt and all this. I mean,

he was in a bottle for a while, as he said. He loved Eddie Binden. Eddie Binden was his mentor and his boss, and just a great guy, knew his stuff, and was very kind to him and protected him. So now Eddie Bindon, you know, we'll know about Eddie Bindon now, at least. So I got to give you another one. Bruce Hudson, I told you that his girlfriend is pregnant. Ruth Hudson loses her only child. And I've got, my wife, I'm a late starter. I got a 10-year-old kid. My wife has assured me I've got an only child.

She's very clear on this. You've got two and you know who the gate kid is. I got three. Well, there you go. Who decided that, not you? Well, we didn't even intend to do that. Well, then no one decided that. There are accidents and there are accidents.

We can talk about that another time. But anyway. So, I like, just to clarify, that. That was our best accident. There you go. It was a genius moment. The third one, by the way, the trailers we call him. Everyone always says that.

Worth the price of a vision right there. But so Ruth Hudson, she finds out she's four foot nine. And her niece- Oh, I'm back up. This is not the girlfriend. This is his mother, Ruth. Thank you for the clarity. She has one child.

One child. She had one child. Her niece saw her every day, Pam Whittig, in the same neighborhood. She's been great to me. And thanks for the clarification. So Ruth Hudson, she's four-foot-nine. but she tells you that she's 5'5 and you believed her, apparently. She was a little spark plug, just full of energy and all this.

She, the company called nobody. She finds out the next day, driving to her job at the Bonnie Bell Cosmetic Factory in Cleveland on the radio. What? Yeah, this is brutal. This is cruel. This is before the time of, like, contacting next of kin before you announce. No, it was not. You should have contacted them immediately.

This is 1975. The company did not do what it's supposed to do. So Dennis Anderson, Channel 10 in Duluth, W-TOL, Channel 11 in Toledo, that's how these people find out, and neighbors fly out, and they knock in your door 10 o'clock at night and tell you that your dad's ship is gone. It's just brutal. So she finds out like that, and she thinks, I've lost my family.

This is, you know, we're a couple of one child. She finds out six months later that she's going to be a grandmother. Six months later? The person never thought to make the connections? No, the 17-year-old girl. the time. 20-year-old guy, 17-year-old girl, which back then was not that in common. She didn't tell her parents that she was pregnant. She didn't start showing into like month eight. That's when she calls Ruth Hudson, and that's a tough phone call. And Ruth at first

thought, you know, why you tell me? She goes, I'm not asking for anything. I think you should know that you're going to be a grandmother. And she has Heather. And Ruth and Heather are very close. They went shopping together and so on. Heather, Heather has four kids. And the oldest is Austin, now 25, who looks just like Bruce Hudson, apparently. And yes, Aunt Ruth played favorites. She lost her son, and she gains a grandson who looks just like them. It's pretty amazing. So, wow.

I know. These stories go on like this. I got to tell you one more. Yes, it's like just to... Sure. You're right, like putting the names to it. You know what I mean? Like, you never think that you'd run into a dude who's like, no, I lost my father on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

It's just like, it's just like, their chimes, their church bell chimes. It's a song to us. It's a song. We don't know anything else. I didn't know a single name. Church bell chime till it rang 29 times. That's right. And now they ring it 30 times for all the other accidents as well.

And so do the families. But yeah, I mentioned earlier, maybe I didn't. The last words, of course, McSorley, I did mention that. We are holding her own. So Heidi Wilhelm is a 12-year-old girl at the time. She's the youngest of seven kids. And all seven kids depend on one guy on their ship. And because the mom's raising seven kids.

She's working her butt off, too. Next door, knocks on the door, says your dad's ship is gone. So her mom's on the phone trying to get anyone to answer. No one does at the company. And they never called. Wow. What do you do? And the insurance companies didn't pay in many cases because it's an act of God.

You got some social security in most cases. Like it's like inherent vice or something. Yeah. Exactly. Inherent vice. There you go. Your legal degree is also paying off the day. And the company paid the minimum that they had to, basically.

maybe a year's salary well what does that get you with seven kids so and she said what do you do you do what we always do in the Midwest you suck it up you know we're gonna we're all gonna get jobs we're all gonna start working they pulled through they join the military they often went to then very cheap state schools

they're not so cheap anymore they raise kids he often did a combination Heidi's now 62 she's got a daughter Sarah she went to the Air Force her daughter Sarah's also in the Air Force and Sarah was born on the 23rd anniversary of the sinking.

November 10th, 1998, the grandfather that she would never meet, obviously, in a really great guy about all accounts. When she turns 21, this is six years ago. On November 10th, in 1990, or sorry, 2019, she gets a tattoo. And we're hanging out at Whitefish Point, a table kind of like this, butcher black table in the cruise quarters

where these people stay when they're in town. We're having some beers, we're telling some stories. This is where I got to know these people. And this is where I get choked up. And at this point, Heidi says, Sarah's got a tattoo. Sarah showed you on your tattoo. And she pulls up her left sleeve and her hoodie. And it says, we are holding our own.

Oh, man. And that's what these people do. And it's got me too, so. Yeah. That's how. Well, that's incredible. That's what these people wore. And I guess one of the points is they were heroes before the ship went down.

your steel your food all this stuff it's these guys so that's incredible so is it i was telling my little boy this and i realized maybe it didn't happen but i think it did they lifted the bell from the ship they did and that's in the museum and then they took another bell and engraved it with the names and put it back and then when one like gordon lightfoot died did they put his name on the bell they didn't put his name on the bell but they did at Mariners Church. Okay. They added it there.

They rang the bell for him when he died. And that's no small trick, by the way. You need special welding tools. You got an underwater welder who knows what he's doing. That bell is heavy. It's brass. Yeah. So bring that up 530 feet.

The family was there at the next boat over when they brought the bell up. Wow. That was an emotional moment, July 4th. Yeah, I've seen that stuff from that. And they put the other bell down there. And there's no, like, from what you know, there's been like like you didn't experience any kind of concerted pushback from families not wanting you to to tell this story and investigate individuals were some people unhappy

uh not with me um and so far knock on wood is for mike or whatever you got i was it's a composite no i think it's a bamboo i involve the families and also do something that most journals don't. If I'm talking to Brody or Stephen, I say, we're going to talk freely. I'll send you your quotes. You'll fix them as we need to. You have a right, I believe, to be quoted accurately. Yeah.

And that way you build trust, certainly. It takes longer, but you always get more than you think that way. Once you realize where you're going, people will usually own their opinions. It's being misquoted that I fear. I get misquoted. You get misquoted. I'm sure of it. Dude, it's to the point where, like, it's painful to participate.

Why am I doing this? It's painful to participate in anything. journalist it's and I got friends that just that don't I can't blame you in many cases and I'm a journalist why because they're 25 year old kids I mean budget cuts because no they already know like dude they already know what they want you to say that's the that's the crap I hate they need the they need a thing and then they call you for the thing and you say you know what there's so much more to it let me explain they don't want that and then you're like you know here's the thing you want but

you really need to understand and then it's just a thing they want I've seen it in hockey locker rooms and football locker rooms asked the guy the same question three or four times and I hate that kind of journalism one of my bosses once asked me I was doing a story on the

Potawatomi tribe basketball team in Escanaba, Michigan they played away games on Beaver Island and Mackinale Island because the casinos they get a little plane so this is pretty cool and my guy asked me

my editor said what's your angle? I said I got no idea I haven't met anybody I've not seen the place I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I got a lot of questions. All right.

I have no idea. So you go, and that's what you guys did here in this interview. You go where the interview goes. Don't just have your questions and force it. You get crappy interviews. You want a conversation. It's exactly what you guys are doing here. And yes, so I get nervous about that.

So with these guys, I mean, we talked 10, 15, 20 times. And to make sure that any scene involving them was accurate. And it's also scary how many things I'm talking to you. I'm writing it down. Things they got wrong or maybe they said, him wrong, but I probably got it wrong. I mean, you cover yourself that way. If some jackass in California says your book sucks on Amazon, I'm not happy about it, but it's going to happen. It already has. We're getting 4.7, but there's always a jackass in California. He's always out there.

We know that guy. Exactly. Who knows more about the book than I do. So, all right, pal, whatever, and didn't sign his name naturally. He's not, he's pretty tough until he's time to sign your name, but whatever. Keyboard cowards, as we call them. But what I can't have is somebody who's in the book telling me I got it wrong. If I did a book on your podcast, you know what I can't have happened? Is Corinne says you got it wrong. You say I got it wrong.

Then I got it wrong. So I've never in 14 books had anyone say misquoted, out of context, inaccurate, any of that. So these are the people, and I'm not trying to panter to them in writing the book. I mean, there are still tough things in the book,

no question about it. But it's accurate and it's fair. And those people, I mean, they trusted me. And I appreciate it. Without them, it's not a book. Did they feel like they I mean I assume that their feelings over time changed

you know throughout the writing process but did they feel like they'd never had a voice before I mean I sort of that's really good because it is it is one of these things where it's a line in a song to most people right and I imagine it's tough to open up about tragedy but at the same time like this story hasn't been And their story hasn't been told. And so there's, there's sort of a attention there between. That's well said and good insight. Six crew members who've never been talked to before, we've been on the ship beforehand.

Half the families I got to, the 29, 14, I have some voice in here. And they did kind of say that. We've been holding our stories back because we're afraid it'll get screwed up. I mean, I interview, you know, rich, famous athletes and coaches. They get quoted all the time. They don't care all that much. It's irritating to you and me a little bit, but so what, I'll get over it. This is their one chance.

You know, this is, these are people who are not rich, not famous, and this is their one chance to tell their dad's story in many cases. So, yes, there was, and the grifters have come and gone. Bruce Lynn, again, is my key there. And now we got to know them. I've known for three and a half years now. So now when I see them in Milwaukee or Grand Rapids, Michigan, or whatever, I get big hugs and they're crying and all this.

So that's how that one works. you um you mentioned like we wouldn't be sitting here were it not for the song yes no question and later on you mentioned there's like some local news coverage what was like the national awareness of this thing when it happened that surprised me actually um and uh there's far more than i thought oh okay and here's it was a national news story yeah and i wasn't sure about that when i when you when you pitch a book proposal to new york by the way i spent six months in that i this one that's unusually long usually about two months you write about 50 pages you send it out that you're kind of like a geologist telling show oil i swear to god there's oil in my land i swear to god just give me some money and i'm gonna show them what the time said about it exactly right exactly uh so then they call your bluff and say you know what here's some money take some say me go find the oil and you oh crap there better be oil down there yeah i kept on getting lucky more luck uh i'm working out at and i not recently obviously shame on me not enough hockey these days

but I'm working out about a year and a half ago or so and a buddy of mine, Larry Lage, who does Associated Press for the state of Michigan covers all sports. We've been friends forever. And he says, you know, Harry Atkins wrote the first story on the MFIS Gerald. Harry Atkins had his job doing sports before him.

30 years AP sports writer. I've been sitting next to Harry in the damn press box for decades. I had no idea. Really? He goes up that night with a crazy photographer. They get a plane in the wind. And he does a wonderful job. Oh, my God.

And he still had a copy. He's still alive. He's 84. He's still sharp. He gave me an original copy, computer printout of that thing from 75. And without a cell phone, without internet, this guy. It was like picked up on the wires and... 6,500 newspapers around the world.

Your shit, me. Including L.A., where life it was that day. Or the next day, whatever. He gets that. Newsweek magazine picks it up two weeks later. And he does a beautiful job. His name is Jim Gaines. He went to the University of Michigan.

We've got mutual friends in common He's still alive He's still sharp Lucky as hell And his story was so good That five or six lines in the song Are from his article Which I lay out in the two articles

Two chapters that are now In The Rolling Stone Let's do the damn song We might as well do it now You gotta ask about the song people Obviously So Gordon Leifett is an experienced sailor He did the Port Huron to Sala

To McIna race I've done that race It's like three days It's brutal You think it's oh let's go sailing I'm like, ah, it's freezing, you're cold, it's miserable. But he's a really good sailor, and he's serious about it. On November 10th, 1975, Monday night, he is working on a song in his attic in Toronto.

And it's an Irish sea shanty, the earliest song he can remember when he's three and a half years old, and he's obviously changing it. But he's working on this, he goes down to get some coffee. It's 10 o'clock at night, and the wind is howling in Toronto also. And he said he had the explicit thought, it must be hell on superior night. He was connected at that moment. I mean, he knew what these guys are going through. That's where the spirit comes from.

He starts working on the song. It doesn't play for anybody. He's too self-conscious. The reason I was. A lot of ways to screw this up. Remember, Body Heat, by the way, if you've not seen this movie, people, go see it. It's like 40 years old now.

Launched Kathleen Turner and Mickey Rourke and William Hurt. And at some point, William Hurt's character, a lawyer, wants to blow up his girlfriend's husband. Bad idea. And one of his repeat felon bombers, basically, he's teaching him how to do it. And finally, Mickey York says, Hey, man, do you have any effing idea?

I can probably swear on your thing, can I? Yeah, you're fine. There you go. You have any, if you have an idea, what the hell you're doing? Because if you're a genius, you can think of 50 ways that can go wrong,

and you ain't an effing genius. You can think of 25. And that's how I felt about the book. There are 50 ways to screw this up, and I might be able to think of 25. So, and that's how he felt, and I knew exactly how he felt. He made one mistake.

He made a couple mistakes. Oh, he made a couple mistakes. there's some ad lit there's some like assumptions about what the cook said and he says and he couldn't do Toledo right it's left fully loaded for Cleveland because he couldn't get it he couldn't get it he couldn't make Toledo so that was artistic license on that one but everything else I mean 26,000 tons all the stuff the ship was the prior to the American side I didn't know that that was actually I didn't know that that was actually a nickname for the admin absolutely and these guys the guys I talked to the sailors he said this guy nailed it the family say that he nailed it and his description

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What was the family's reception to the song? Well, before that, so he's going to record his new album in March of 76, about five months later. And they got 11 songs lined up, not this one. That's when he's convinced he's not ready. He's not played for anybody. But each day after they do their songs, He's screwing around with this on his guitar.

They're a tight band after three and a half days. They got five days rented in the studio. Three and a half days, they're done. And that's how tight they are. And he says, okay, you know, gentlemen, good job. Let's go. They're literally packing up their guitars and their instruments. And then the producer on the PA says,

why don't you try that song you've been screwing around with? And he says, it's not ready. It's not ready. And he says, look, dude, I'm charging you for five days whether you play a damn thing or not. So I'm here now, the band is here, why not give it a shot? So he gets talked into it. And he finally says, okay.

So he asked him to turn the lights down, and he's quiet for like a minute. The drummer, Barry Keane, still alive. And so is the bass player. God bless him both. He's there. He says, what do you want me to do? He's never heard the song. He says, when I want you to come in, I'll give you a knot.

Okay. So he's going a minute and 30 on the song. That's where songs end, 75, 76. and Barry thinks that, okay, you forgot it all about me. Nope, at 134, he leans over, he looks over and gives him a nod. That's when it comes in with a thunder and lightning.

You know that part. And he just makes it up in the spot. And they just keep going. After six and a half minutes, which is three times longer than a normal song, they finish and they go, that wasn't half bad. But he's a perfectionist.

Life it is. So let's try it again. Not as good. Try it again. Not as good. Three more times, four more times that afternoon. They come back the next day just for this one song.

not as good, not as good, not as good, all day long. And finally, they pick the song you hear on the radio is not a first take. The song you hear in the radio is the first time the band ever played it. And as Barry Keen... Could never hit that emotion again, man. You guys are brilliant.

That's exactly it. Oh. Very keen, he's been on five-odd albums for all kinds of games. Did you ever hear the Danny Warhol's cover it? Oh, yes, I have. And Billy Strings, by the way. Billy Strings, got a new version out from Traverse City, Michigan. He does a brilliant job.

He does? The Dandy Warholz kind of phoned it in a little bit They were big drug takers All I can say about that was throw a stick So was Gordon Lightfoot Yeah, he had a little problem He got clean around 1980 or 81 So that's when the Dandy Warhols were getting born

There you go But probably true too We're around that So Barry Keen tells me Look man First takes happen once in a blue moon First time ever played it He goes never ever ever ever

he said, I'm willing to bet, never in the history of rock and roll recording. And I asked him why, and exactly where you're going, Stephen. He said, this is not a song you think your way through. There's a song, you either feel it or you don't. If you feel it, the technical stuff doesn't matter. If you feel it, that's the spirit they've got to hear.

So, song comes out. They're on the midnight special, the old Friday night concert show. You're allowed to play six songs, and they don't pick this one because they think there's no way in hell that's going to work. And this song ends up being number two in 1976 behind Rod Stewart's Tonight's the Night with his hot, Swedish girlfriend,

Britt Eklinkoing in the background. That's the 70s, man. That's the me generation. This song is the opposite. Dude, he's got a couple, he's got a couple good cuts, though, man. Oh, there's no question. Rod Stewart, reason to believe. Oh, yeah.

And when you get the mandolin and all that, that's good stuff. But the point is this song never sure. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. He snored that that one. No, I'm a Maggie Mae guy. It's fine. There you go.

That's the mandolin. I guess it's like that. But anyway. But the families, they played at all the reunions. They play it for the grandkids who never met their grandfathers. Oh, they do. Yeah. Wow.

And Cindy Reynolds, the mother of Bruce Hudson's child, she said to this day, if it comes on the radio, I pull off and I cry. Really? And that's your best review right there. And Life is became great friends of the families. He's a hero in this book. He's given money for scholarships in Traverse City. Huh.

For the Great Lakes Maritime Museum. I saw him playing Traverse City once. There you go. Scholarships in his name, the Maritime Macatessen. Ruth Hudson is on her deathbed on November 9th, 2015. November 9th. Yes, this is the day before the 40th anniversary. And Gordon Leifwood goes to Whitefish Point not to play just to pay his respects to these handful of families.

That's what I mean, way out of the way, obviously. And he asked Pam, where's Aunt Ruth? And she's on her deathbed. Give me a phone. And that pictures in the book of him in the kitchen on the phone, talking to Ruth Hudson under deathbed. And she said, I promised Bruce I would be in heaven with him for the 40th anniversary he's been alone too long and that was her last phone call oh and she

gets off the phone and tells her tells uh the mom she's the child she said uh i was talking to gordon because that's how close they were so he's a hero in this book man i got to just hit you with something totally unrelated but a little bit kind of similar you know on neil young's old man the pedal steel uh it's in the book because because david cowboy rice weiss was on a date with another other Cindy, and they're playing Neil Young's, one of his albums, and that song is on it. Oh, old man. So they had a dude come in to, they had a studio guy come in to do the pedal steel on old man. Which is great.

Well, he just was warming up, and they had some tracks of him warming up, and that's what they plugged into the tune. And my understanding, I could be wrong, my understanding, they don't know who the hell it was. Wow. I don't know if that's true. But trust me, the stories are about the 70s and rock and roll? Yeah, it was true. What are you going to write an axe?

You know yet? I don't know yet. There's a few good options out there. You come work for me and Randall. We're in need of a writer. All I can say is careful what you wish for. Randall's burned out on history. Careful what you wish for.

Randall's got a history project. As long as you maintain the compliments, you know. Hey, they're easily proffered. Trust me. Look, you know very quick when people know what they're talking about when they don't, when you do these things. And it's like when people call up you. Have you ever heard my podcast or not? You can tell pretty quick.

So you guys, man, I'd never had an interview like this. 20 terms not defined at this table. No. I have to explain everything normally. But what kind of book are you going to do next? Sports? No, not sports. Probably do, there are a few other Midwestern disasters, sadly, that I know about that.

I'll probably dive back into those. This one, we're dealing with movie rights now. We'll talk about that. Sure, man. I was going to ask you that. Then I didn't ask, I get too jealous. Well, there you go. Don't get jealous yet.

Trust me. And plus, I don't know. Text me when I should get to. jealous. I'll let you know. Just text me to Jay. I know what it means. Dude, Jay.

Sit with that for a little while. As they say it in Casablanca, Humphrey Boggart, that's going to be the start of a great friendship. Classic ending scene. A Midwest disaster, but you don't want to wind up that they're like, you know, the great Midwestern disaster writer. Yeah, exactly. You don't want to be that guy, right?

Oh, no, bacon's coming. That's something bad. You don't want that. Stay away from that guy. Exactly. You don't want to wind up one of his books. So that's a possibility. The Great Halifax Explosion.

We're talking to Hollywood about that for a possible five-part TV series. Oh, okay. Previous book, Let Them Lead about coaching mild high school hockey team in Ann Arbor, the Ann Arbor, the Huron River Rats. I'm not making that up. For some reason, we're the only high school in America, named their team the River Rats. Go figure on that one.

That's a good one. That's a good one. So, but worst team in America. coached by the worst player in school history yours truly I still hold the record for the most games in here on uniform 86 I played all three years playing every game

with the fewest goals zero and I played forward so you're gonna do a book like how I did it no I did that book it's in this fifth printing but we're in a third draft with Disney Plus it's another Midwestern disaster story and Muskegan's in it

and Muskegan makes an appearance so yes so doing all that stuff first then I'll get back to a book. So, like, disasters like the Edmund Fitzgerald or your hockey career. Oh, my hockey team. My worst, my hockey career. It's actually, it's a family record, actually. I hold that with my brother.

He was also on the team. He also failed to score. I'm going to throw his ass under the bus right now. He likes to point out that he played goalie, but, hey, we all got problems, you know, so he didn't score a goal either. Well, if you have any say in the casting for this, and they're looking for a Bruce Hudson type. You're thinking Let me know Randall's the guy

Yeah You can see how buff Bruce was by the way He said to send Randall Instead of sending me one letter Send him two And it's no hot dogs Yeah

And H You'll know to get ready H NH 12 months Good news and bad news Good news is you got the part Bad news is Let me remind you what Bruce

It might I'll have to keep growing the hair out Much to Sidney's just right There's more to it than the hair, buddy. I don't mean to make a light of Bruce Hudson, obviously, but Pam did say she's about four or five years younger than Bruce, her cousin. And she saw him every day. She said, whenever Bruce came over, all her little 12-year-old girlfriends all came over, too.

Listen, I'm very, I'm very comfortable in. With your sexuality? Just where I landed. Where I landed. Very comfortable. Bruce is a striking man. He is a striking man. He's a striking man.

And his old girlfriend took the same thing. that him the photo of the guys at the wedding it's heartbreaking yeah they're human beings man never seen the pictures man i don't like i don't get it well i do get it but i mean it's just like it's like anything you just put and you're like shit man he's like guys like it looks like pictures of like just people from around when i was growing up i was gonna say my my parents were born on either end in 1950 by a couple years and this just looks like every photo that they have from their young adults. It looks like a wedding that they went to.

That's exactly. And their old Kodak photos, a little grainy. It was back in that era, those weddings would have been when you would take those little mince and cocktail peanuts and time up in a spawn sack. Yeah. And had a dollar dance. There's a classic for you. Yeah.

We got a photo of some of these guys at a wedding, probably a second batch of photos. And yeah, the guy's best man went down with a ship. And that's what happened. So as far as Hollywood goes, don't be. too jealous yet. So the guy I'm writing the hockey story with Jim Bernstein. He did Mighty Ducks. He did Renaissance Mance Mothers. And I've done about, I don't know, seven or eight trips now to Hollywood for various books. These Hollywood meetings. Have you had, have you had Hollywood meetings yet? Let's, let's have another podcast discussion about this sometime.

Oh, but you're not better. But anyway. No, no, no. It's like the first, early on, it would be that here's people that aren't, they're kind of like, they would come in and mind you for what's going on. in your neck of a woods. They want your knowledge without paying you. Because they're like, they're not out and about, and they're like, so what kind of things are you in and you're like, oh, did you know about this? You know about that? Do you know about this? You know about that?

And then later you learned just to shut up. Right. You just forked over the store, basically. So these meetings in Hollywood are kabuki theater. So they always... Another term that probably has not been used in this studio here. I guess the first term, I don't know what it meant. Paronym and kabuki theater. It's all been rehearsed.

Okay. It's like you think you're doing a pitch, but you're really not. So they always, meetings at 10 o'clock. Early it's going to be is 10.05, maybe 10, 10, 10. How late they make you wait is one indicator. Who shows up? Martin Campbell showed up from one of my meetings. He's the director of Casino Royale and Zorro.

Okay, that's a big boy meeting. Or the intern, right? And the quality of the water they give you. They give you the fancy, you know, the best volatile stuff. That's one thing. If the intern's giving you a start-from cup of tap water, you're just practicing. What about a middle ground? Like a pike gas.

We gave you a nice. glass and tap. You're not Hollywood, baby. I'm in Montana. I am in Bozeman, Montana. So, Bernstein told me, they said they liked it, they hated it. They said they loved it.

They liked it. If they actually paid you, they loved it. There's not one ounce of Hollywood. One ounce of loving Hollywood has the check clears. If you guys say, let's do lunch, we eat. There's actual food.

That's just BS in Hollywood. That's how you say goodbye. I believe that this, I don't even want to say the name, but I have to because he's such a controversial character. Here we go. The Congress, is he said, as Schiff of Senator

a congressman of California Adam Schiff he's a senator now from California I believe he was a screenwriter did you know that I did not know that he had written some screenplays

I think that it was Schiff I'm sure it was back it up back in up I've written some screenplay don't make me a damn screenwriter I believe it was I know it was Schiff

Adam Schiff had a quote from his old days he said I had no idea he said there are two answers in Hollywood yes and here's a check

how about this I keep getting yes you never go to a meeting and you get down to the meeting they go no we love it this is great

exactly oh we're gonna get a hold you we'll call you yeah this is the last we're gonna end the podcast we're gonna give this last bit of advice

this is career advice for people if you get into this world this business books and all that and you do these and you do Hollywood meetings here's how you end them well let me preface this

last night my buddy had to call, my boy had to call my buddy to ask a favor. I said to him, I'm going to give you a pointer. I want you to ask the favor. I don't want you to push for an answer. I want you to then say, Think about it. Give it some thought and text me.

And I said, that's how I want you to end the call. Okay? You're not after an answer. Give it some thought and text me. When you have a Hollywood meeting, end it by saying, thanks for the time. Here's what I'd like you to do. Get with your guys, think about it, and just give me a shout. And just, that's it.

You know what? That's it. Because it saves them going like, oh, it's fantastic. We're so excited. Do you know what I mean? Pardon me. Perhaps you've seen that gesture before. I did that the other day.

Is that thing on right there? And just leave it. Leave it. But you think about it. Get with your guys. Just let me know. That's how I'm going to end my next performance review here, I think. You know what? This is how I think I've done. You think about that. I'll tell you what. Reach back out when you're ready, you know.

That's right. Next year, the year after that, don't rush yourself. And then you hang up and it just never happens. Not looking for a snap judgment. And that way, you maintain your own dignity at least. I'll tell you what, I'm 0.20 my way. I might as well try it. your way is like sign this sign this so what do you think oh we love it we love it now you don't

all right ladies gentlemen the gales of November the untold story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John you Bacon New York Times bestselling author dude that was a lot of fun I'm glad you came it's such a

dude I can't wait to read it I'm in a little streak where I'm talking to writers I haven't read their damn bookship. I'm a little behind on my... Yeah, but you know what you're talking about. That's all I care about. That's big. And like I said earlier, people, don't think about that ship. You don't have to read my book. You got to buy it. The buying is the key. Yeah, buy that book. I'm joking, of course, but it's about the families. Uh, no, this is when, I swear to God, probably the best interview I've done so far. You know, when you feel the book, it feels good, man. It's, it's a heavy book. It's, it's like, it feels like, much, much like Hampton'sides blurbed your book, you should blurb this podcast. I'd be happy to give you a shockingly good

endorsement from a guy who doesn't hunt or fish No, you just feel that son of a bitch I don't know what I'm talking about normally But when I'm on, they were great Thank you so much for coming out I've got to do it and they're right This has been fantastic When you get another

You know, whatever you do for your next book Just check of me and make sure it fits We can wedge a lot in Some things we're not going to be able to wedge in Even if I'm interested Like, if you do a book about the mob or something, I'd be like, that's cool, but I can't wedge it in. Right. But this has got like bad weather, ships.

Bad weather, ships, sailors, all that good stuff. Fetch, Lee. See, freeboard, things I did not explain. Broadside waves. I mean, I can get 10. I don't need to wedge it in. I can put this book in like this. That's how it fits.

Right this one. It's right. It's 75 feet wide. It's right. And it's Johnubaken.com is the website. Book tours on there, all that stuff. Oh, I got one last tip for you. Sure.

When you talk to, you know what they should have done? They should have made this book, the proportions. So it's like a big, tall, skinny book. I've heard that's the next, that's next trend in book publishing. It's just not multi-proportions. A big tall skinny book, man. It gets your attention, doesn't it, people? Well, let me explain.

They ship in the gun, they ship in the gun box. That's right. Take that book into a bathtub. No, no, follow me here. Turn that thing around. John U. Bacon. Thanks again, man. Thank you. A real pleasure, truly. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you.

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Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. This season on Blood Trails, each story begins with a hunter stepping into the wild, but not all of them come back. I'm Jordan Sillers, a journalist with over a decade of experience investigating stories about hunting, fishing, guns, and crime. Join me as we track the truth through tangled cover and cold case files, where every trail tells a story, and every story leaves its own trail of blood. Blood Trails. Listen now on Spotify. This is an IHeart podcast.