BEWARE THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER
by Tony Taton

History of the Great Lakes will prove November to be the worst month of the year for gales, blows and storms. During the 19th century many of these great storms swooped down into the Great Lakes basin with little or no warnings for in those years there was no radios, ship to shore or CB's to communicate with ships of the lakes.

The great majority of the vessels were made of wood and carried sails for power, plus there were not many tugs to help them when needed. Further, the Masters were very independent and trusted their own ability, many times ignoring what warnings they did receive.

Many of the ships' owners most important interest was profit first and concern for safety last. The large storms are caused usually by the coming together of cold air from northland and warm air from the Gulf and the Caribbean. Great masses of air collide and spew up cold temperatures pushing cold air, snow and powerful winds into a given area as they build up terrific pressure. Ironically, these storms seem to arrive during the month of November.

Being born and raised on Lake Huron, having fished commercially, worked on the ships of the lake and having known many lake captains, mates, engineers and some of the owners, we heard the tales and stories in all of the ports from seamen in the ships and businesses along the shores of all the lakes - from Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo. Also, all of the Erie ports up into the St. Clair flats, the rivers and into the upper lakes all the way to Port Arthur and Fort Williams, Duluth, Chicago, Gary, Indiana, and the steel mill cities along with the great grain ports of the west.

The last great November storm was in 1975, which claimed the Edmund Fitzgerald with its full crew in Lake Superior. Perhaps you have heard the ballad of the Fitz, by Canadian Gordon Lightfoot. Some of the storms date back into the 1800s and again, most were in November. In November of 1869, a great storm of some magnitude moved down into the lake basin from Duluth, it raised its fury as it moved east into Lake Erie and up into Thousand Island area of Canada as it moved into the Atlantic Ocean.

Old records recorded 97 vessels sunk, and the shores were lined with hundreds of drowned bodies of the seamen. Great damage was caused the full length of the storm's pathway as it blew itself out in the Atlantic. A November blow in 1842 claimed dozens of vessels on Erie and Lake Ontario, strewing wreckage along the shores of both lakes with great loss of seamen.