And how many days can you wait out... that ol' north westerly wind?

*(I am humming that to the tune of Bobby D's 'blowing in the wind - which among other things is what we've been doing during our prolonged stay near Whitefish Point)

The quick and hopefully mildly entertaining scoop as our journey has come to a weather bound waylaying hault.

We arrived to Whitefish Point a few days behind our intended arrival to be shut down by some northwest winds barreling across 200 miles of open water for an additional four days. Luckily the imagination runs strong in this duo as well as ability to become sloth-like should conditions call for that necessity.

The first day we journied from our wind protected encampment to search out a dire answer to our question "Which way was the wind blowing when the Edmund Fitzgerald went down?" By reasoning of deductive nature my bets were on a North West or North wind. Other folks we encountered deemed North East, and more often than not, lots of folks hadn't the faintest idea; this ironically enough would be the case at the shipwreck museum. We'll get to that though.

Whitefish Point actually has some amazing iconical history. It happened to be the FIRST light on Lake Superior (built somewhere around the time Wisconsin became a state 1848 and first lit in 1849), complete with a lifesaving station. That is a crew of burly guys would go out in 25ft surf boats (not like the surf skis we're used to) row through some crashing waves and rescue ship wreck victims near the vicinity. How wild is that? So here we are, admiring this looming lighthouse, reading all about it, hearing from the history bearers and what do we find? That one of the main lightkeepers for the station was from the Bayfield Area... He along with his family served as light keepers on Sand Island, their children were born in Ashland, Wisconsin and they transfered to the Whitefish Point station to earn an extra $10 dollars a month. Small world eh? The light has been essential for over 150 years and guided ships to and from the Sault Ste Marie area almost failessly, except for the night the Edmund Fitzgerald went down when the automated system clicked itself off for some reason or another... *(Some additional information can be found here: http://www.exploringthenorth.com/whitefish/whitefish.html)

Meandering through historical buildings we able to appreciate the work and dedication which has gone into this facility, educating visitors and providing a glimpse into maritime life and history. The mannekins can be a little creepy, tourists a little pushy, but all in all its a worth while stop- especially if you get waylayed on account of the weather. Some of the informants though leave a bit to be desired; in this locale of maritime glory we were unable to locate a shipping schedule, the correct channel to contact frieghters to increase their awareness of our presence in the shipping lanes, and our million dollar question: "what direction the wind was blowing on November 10,1975... In the museum you'll find artifacts from boats dozens of decades old, mystical sea gulls plaquered from the cieling, hypnotic music- although Gordon Lightfoot's story will not tell you the wind direction, and more tourismos than you can shake a stick at. Everyone loves maritime history. After marooding through the main room, checking out a sweet film about the raising of the bell off the Fitz, paroosing the boat house; we journied into the the gift/book store where we put to use the Evelyn Woodhead speed reading skills we acquired in college to skim a half dozen books about this majestic 729ft frieghter, confirming speculation that the wind was blowing 290 degrees Northwest up to 90 mph creating waves greater than 30ft!

With that mistery set aside we strode back to camp in awe of the mighty power of this here lake. Luckily our friend NOAA was predicting a wind shift the next day, giving us a window to cross into Canada and experience an entire new set of unknowns. Through intermitent sleep that night the wind seemed to be building in a consisent direction to what it had been the previous day. Come day break the fog was so thick we could barely see the beach, except for the white froth washing upon the shore... Needless to say we did not journey onto the lake that day. During the day the bellow of fog horns doppler effected its way in and out of our presence as frieghters headed towards and from the St. Mary's River system. Late afternoon sun began to break through the fog and our new favourite sensory guessing game began:
Determining direction...

How to play Determining Direction:
Place yourself out of sight of passerbyers and the gigantic frieghters on the lake, once you hear one you have to determine whether it is upbound or downbound... As the ship draws nearer you may leave your post to confirm or deny the guesstimate you created not so long ago...

If you are correct you may revel in the glory that you pretty much are a big dork and can wait for the next ship to come through, if you are incorrect you'd better get back to your post and learn how to listen...

The next day we knew we weren't able to go due to wind direction and since that time the entire experience has melded itself into one conglomeration of sunrise, sunset, wind during the day, wind during the night, fog, people looking for rocks, waves, tall grass, dunes, some cards, a sweet book called 'Lake Effect' and some sleep.

Eventually though the fog would lift, the wind would die down, our minds would embrace what we were about to do, and the boats would move from their multiple day docile rest. The weather permitted the passage from our hidden dune village within the boundaries of near shore land, to beyond five nautical miles from shore past the U.S. slash Canadian Border into the crown lands of Ontario and up the coast for an entirely different shoreline and geologic history...