The Big Lake has many moods. Deep into September and awaiting the dawn, I’m hopeful of one that is…revelatory? I’ll find out in a few moments…
The guide at Split Rock Lighthouse appears happy with the crowd. I estimate about a dozen of us gathered above the lake, reflections of the mid-morning sun moving across the water. After welcoming us he leads off with the question: “What is the largest lake in the world?”. I try, I really do, but can’t help myself: “Are we talking about surface area or volume?” My wife shoots me one of those looks, perfected after many years together; the guide produces a semi-strangled sound, a cross between a chuckle and sigh. The planned presentation is already off the rails…
The answer to both questions has to do with Lake Superior and Lake Baikal (found deep in the immensity of south central Siberia). Lake Superior is the largest lake in the world by surface area (31,700 square miles), Lake Baikal by volume (5670 cubic miles). Lake Superior is the 3rd largest by volume, after both Lake Baikal and Lake Tanganyika (in the heart of the East African Rift). NOTE: Both the guide and I stay away from the oddity that is the Caspian “Sea”. In general it is not considered a “freshwater lake”, has had periodic connection to the Black Sea over geologic time, and so typically is not brought into the conversation.
Post-presentation, the guide and I are having an amiable conversation about the significance of the enormous expanse of the lake. Those 31,700 square miles require a coastline 2700 miles long, a length of 350 miles and a width of 160. I’m thinking that that is a huge interface between water and sky. And that gets me thinking about: my day to this point, the Ojibwe and early French explorers on the lake, November 10, 1975, and how the lake is big matters.
“Lac Supérieur” (French for “upper lake”, i.e. above Lake Huron), “Gitche Gumee” (first coined by Longfellow in 1855 for “The Song of Hiawatha”, and then used by Lightfoot in 1976 for “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald)”, and, of course, the Ojibwe from whence Gitche Gumee (“gitchi-gami”, “kitchi-gami”, among others). Many names, many moods….
I set out from Beaver Bay about 30 minutes before dawn, looking for the sunrise. Finding what looks like a favorable spot, I wait. The sun cracks the horizon and the Big Lake is…not calm, more like quiescent. The energy is there, waiting…the vast surface turning over in its sleep, not awake just yet. Within the hour the first intrepid kayakers are out of Beaver Bay, paddling on a pond. The Ojibwe, the French, the kayakers out of Beaver Bay, the sleeping lake’s an invitation.
Mid morning. After exploring the lighthouse grounds, I find a vantage point and watch the sailing crowd make their way out on the water amongst the paddlers left. All of us are watching the wind. The sailors are headed toward it, the paddlers away, all watching…watching the surface of Gitche Gumee.
We all sense the lake’s mood today, and decide to go with it. Lightfoot’s “…gales of November…” are still weeks away, but one does pay attention. Always. There are a number of things in play: meteorological conditions imported from the Gulf of Mexico, wind speed, wind duration, and the length of open water over which the wind is blowing. “Fetch”, the length of open water over which air is moving in a consistent direction completes the trifecta: wind speed + wind duration + fetch = waves. The surface of the lake is so large that air moving in a consistent direction, from literally any direction, can create enormous waves.
The big storms of November and December usually start with a low pressure system moving N-NE out of the Gulf of Mexico. In many cases the system will weaken as it moves away from the Gulf and have little impact on the lake. Sometimes however, a deepening depression will form in which the low strengthens and wind speeds increase into it (like in a hurricane). If the depression sits south of the lake, then northerly winds blow across 160 miles of open water to drive waves onto Superior’s south shore. If by truly unfortunate happenstance the low sits off the E-SE side of the lake, then W-NW winds drive the waves across 300+ miles of open water toward Sault Ste.Marie.
The truly unfortunate occurred on November 10, 1975 as Captain Ernest McSorley and the Edmund Fitzgerald made their fateful run for the lee waters behind Whitefish Point. It proved an unequal contest as the ship was pitted against the full force of Superior. Tracking the strong low pressure center on the south shore of the lake, Captain McSorley had taken a more northerly route across the lake in order to minimize the fetch produced by a north wind. When the low moved further to the east, the wind switched to the W-NW and the great length of Superior was in play against the exposed laker as it made its final southerly turn… “That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed…”. The vast expanse…The long reverie is broken as I notice the afternoon sun on my back. The lake surface is a sheet of dancing light, the water sparkling for the sailing crowd, the lake’s mood playful with the energy brought by the afternoon breezes. The paddlers have long since retired to Beaver Bay for lunch and I’m soon bound for Betty’s Pies for either the blueberry or bumbleberry (it’s Fall after all). “By the shining Big-Sea-Water.”… Indeed.
