Gordon Lightfoot sets the record straight on the Edmund Fitzgerald
 

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Gordon Lightfoot sets the record straight on the Edmund Fitzgerald
by Sue White | The Saginaw News
Friday February 27, 2009, 11:04 AM


As my phone interview with Gordon Lightfoot drew near, in advance of his March 15 show at Saginaw's Temple Theatre, I started telling my grandson Ethan about "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

We listened to the song on YouTube together, and then, because Ethan at 7 is a history buff, we did a Google search to learn more about sinking of the iron-ore freighter during the November gales on Lake Superior .


And while I talked to Lightfoot, Ethan started jumping on the couch, recreating the tragic night.

"It's been good to know ya," he shouted out, and then came "The hatch! The hatch! Water's coming in!"

Lightfoot laughed, and then asked if I had told Ethan the ship's story. No, I told him, you did.

"Well, let him know that there are several theories about what caused the sinking," he said. "It could have been driftwood hitting the ventilator cap. When that goes, it leaves a three-foot hole, letting in enough water to upend a ship carrying 26 tons of ore."

But "hatch" better fit the meter of the song, he said, so that's what most people hear in "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."