Song Lyrics-Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald Quiz

Answer: legend

"The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitchygoomee." Lightfoot had made the wreck famous when he came out with this song. The lake here is Lake Superior and that lake was always known for swallowing up ships in bad storms.

Answer: November

"The lake, it is said, never gives up its dead when the skies of November turn gloomy." Many sailors wanted to get one more run in for the season before the lakes froze over. However, when they pushed into November, they ran the risk of tackling monstrous storms which could get to be hurricane strength at times.

Answer: iron ore

"With a load of iron ore 26,000 tons more than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty. That good ship and crew was a bone to be chewed when the gales of November came early."

The Fitzgerald was carrying taconite. This ore is processed and used in steel for buildings and cars. This load was going to a plant to make frames for trucks.

Answer: American

"The ship was the pride of the American side; comin' back from some mill in Wisconsin."

The ship was made in the U.S. by a Great Lakes firm. The Fitzgerald would be the longest laker afloat at nearly 800 ft. long.

Answer: freighters

"As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most with a crew and good captain well-seasoned."

The ships on the lakes were known as "lakers". They were usually freighters which hauled all sorts of things from machinery to masonry.

Answer: Cleveland

"Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms; when they left fully loaded for Cleveland." They were heading for the major port of Cleveland. Cleveland sits right along a lake and was an easy access port for various industries.

Answer: north

"And later that night when the ship's bell rang; could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?"

North winds could get fierce at times on the lakes. Winds would come out of Canada and whip up these hurricane like storms which would be brutal to go through.

Answer: tattletale

The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound; when the waves broke over the railin'." Lightfoot was conveying how wicked these storms would start to get on the seas. He gave the wind a personality by saying how the wind sounded. It gave you the sense of an angry being wanting to drive out the ships that crossed her path.

Answer: stealin'

"And every man knew as the captain did too; t'was the witch of November come stealin'." With cold temperatures and high winds, the weather can steal body heat away faster than with no wind and cold temperatures. Since this was November and the lakes were getting colder, the high winds were too much for the crews sailing on them.

Answer: breakfast

"The dawn came late, and the breakfast had to wait; when the gales of November came slashin'." With a huge storm like this, the cloud mass would make the light of the day seem like it came later than usual. And now the crew would be busy fighting to keep alive onboard.

Answer: freezin'

"When afternoon came, it was freezin' rain; in the face of a hurricane westwind."

It was now getting rougher out there. When temperatures hover in the freezing mark, any rain that falls and lands on the decks would turn to ice. Freezing rain would start off as regular rain, but won't freeze until it comes in contact with the cold ground or object.

Answer: No

"When suppertime came, the ol' cook came on deck sayin', 'Fellas, it's too rough to feed yas.'" Lightfoot is giving you a sense of how rough it was getting for the ship and her crew. The wreck happened about 7 PM. That was when the Arthur Anderson lost contact with the Fitzgerald.

Answer: main hatchway

"At 7 PM, a main hatchway gave in; he said, 'Fellas,it's been good to know yas.'"

It was widely believed that a improperly attached clamp on one of the hatches was to blame. Without the hatches properly sealed off, water could get in and weigh the ship down. McSorley, captain of the Fitzgerald, had reported a slight list the day before.

Answer: peril

"The captain wired in that he had water comin' in; and the good ship and crew was in peril. And later that night when his lights went outta sight; came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

The captain never really thought the ship was in much danger other than the list he noticed the day before. In fact, his last communication to the Anderson was, "We are holding our own."

Answer: the minutes to hours

"Does anyone know where the love of God goes; when the waves turn the minutes to hours." Because these lakes are so big, it can get very dull and forbidding out there. And finding anything on the open lakes without proper radar would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

Answer: White Fish

"The searchers all say they'd have made White Fish Bay if they'd put 15 more miles behind her." When the Fitzgerald disappeared from sight, they were only 15 miles away from making the relative safety of White Fish Bay on the coast of Michigan.

Answer: faces and the names

"They might've split up or they might've capsized; they may have broke deep and took water. And all that remains is the faces and the names of the wives and the sons and the daughters." Nobody will ever really know what happened that day. All of the crew perished onboard when the ship went down and Lightfoot stated what would remain of the "legend".

Answer: Huron, Superior, Michigan, Ontario, Erie

"Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings in the rooms of her ice water mansion. O Michigan steams like a young man's dreams; the islands and bays are for sportsmen. And farther below Lake Ontario takes in what Lake Erie can send her. And the iron boats go as the mariners all know with the gales of November remembered." Lightfoot wanted to express how peaceful the lakes actually were even through the trying times of late fall storms.

The Fitzgerald lies at the bottom of Lake Superior and is in a peaceful place.

Answer: 29

"In a musty, old hall in Detroit they breathed; in the Maritime Sailor's Cathedral, a church bell chimed 'til it rang 29 times for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald." In the A&E documenttary about the Fitzgerald, this was one of the more touching scenes. Divers brought up the old bell from the wreck and replaced the original bell with one that had the names of the crew inscribed on it.

In the documentary, this verse is in the background as each family member of the crew rings the bell one time for each of the 29 lost.

Answer: Superior

"The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitchygoomee. Superior, they said, never gives up her dead when the gales of November come early." Lightfoot later made a song about another shipwreck that happened about 10 years prior to the Fitzgerald wreck. That ship was the Yarmouth Castle; sunk off the coast of Nassau after bursting into flames in 1965. Ninety people lost their lives in that tragedy.