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The Fitzgerald Tragedy: Looking Back and Beyond
This 1-hour DVD was released earlier this year and is intended to coincide with the 35th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. For those already immersed in the lore and facts of the November 10, 1975, loss of the Big Fitz and its 29 crew members, this video does not bring new revelations. However, it is a treasure of interviews and excerpts with captains – many on the lake or involved later in the search that night – historians and others.
One of the two most memorable pieces is an interview with Julius F. Wolff Jr., who wrote Lake Superior Shipwrecks, a comprehensive masterwork detailing wrecks on Lake Superior. Dr. Wolff has since passed on, making these interview excerpts a rare chance to hear his expertise.
The other piece that I found most telling was reading of a work by Pat Kight, a cub reporter on the Sault Evening News the night of the tragedy. Hers gives insight into the people touched that evening, but also points out probably the only regret I have with this video as a commemorative wrap-up of the event: not enough background of the crew and their lives and deaths.
However, Don Hermanson has become adept at video telling of maritime tales. The interweaving of graphic aids along with views of articles and artifacts brings the story alive in a most interesting way and reiterates its enduring importance in our lake’s history.
- Konnie LeMay
The Dance Boots
This delightful collection of shorter and longer stories by Linda LeGarde Grover, an assistant professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth, earned one of two 2009 Flannery O’Connor Awards for Short Fiction. Publication this year of the collection is part of that prize.
The stories loosely follow a couple of families from a fictional reservation located somewhere near Duluth. The tales cover different eras, sometimes traveling backward in time, and often revolve around boarding school experiences and family gatherings.
I tend to judge all stories about families, especially through the generations, by whether humor parts the pathos. Grover’s collection easily passes that litmus test. One finds smiles, a couple of belly laughs and an ending to the whole collection that exits with the light chuckle of the Universe.
- Konnie LeMay
The Last Lightkeeper at Split Rock - A Memoir
“Split Rock” might catch your eye in the title, but the value and charm of this memoir lies in details about being a Coast Guardsman stationed along Lake Superior in the late 1960s.
Mike Roberts was indeed a last “keeper” at Split Rock Lighthouse, there from 1967 through its decommissioning in 1969 and on hand to turn out the light on the station’s last official years of service.
This book follows Mike from boot camp through time at Duluth, Split Rock and Grand Marais. As a storyteller, Mike is not given to embellishment or hyperbole, making the memoir all the more honest and reflecting the author and the times. There are a few forgivable blemishes in this book, such as unclear resolution of some photos, but the vignettes are readable and worthwhile.
For those of us less versed in mechanics, the treat in this book comes in Mike’s slices of family life with his wife, Mary, and newborn son Mark (and, later, little Eric). You understand the nervousness of first-time parents living - all year - at some distance from a doctor. It’s a bit of a chuckle to envision Mike painting Disney characters on the walls of a keeper’s house in Mark’s nursery. Then, of course, it was not a historic structure of the past, but a working station much in the present.
- Konnie LeMay
The Opposite of Cold: The Northwoods Finnish Sauna Tradition
This is a perfect fit for our region because lots of people - Finnish or not - are passionate sauna practitioners. The book is filled with beautiful images by Aaron W. Hautala. I love the sauna floating on a lake. There’s a great historic shot of Carl Rowan, a journalist named U.S. ambassador to Finland by President Kennedy, enjoying a sauna in Virginia, Minnesota, in 1963.
Michael Nordskog’s fine narrative celebrates the history of Finnish steam bath and how this tradition and social ritual is kept by immigrants to Lake Superior. You learn about a Lutheran church in Munising, Michigan, that may be the only one in the country designed to house a sauna. The public sauna in Ely, Minnesota, which started in 1915, still serves a variety of customers, from Finnish American regulars to wilderness campers.
Not everyone believes in the benefits of a sauna or the joy of “loyly” (that blast of steam from dropping water on the stones). Such skeptics may reconsider after spending time with The Opposite of Cold. Michael and Aaron will talk about their book at 7 p.m. October 14 at Clyde Iron Works in Duluth.
- Bob Berg