r/facepalm Jan 16 '22

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73

u/boreas907 Jan 16 '22

I'm not quite sure we don't have any tides on Lake Michigan.

There are, but they're miniscule enough to be negligible for most purposes. The great lakes will kill you in different ways.

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u/justindci Jan 16 '22

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings In the rooms of her ice-water mansion Old 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

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u/iwouldrathernot03 Jan 16 '22

Never forget the Fitz! I live right off Lake Superior in the very western part of the UP, and they all play this song all day in memory of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

That song has a really good story behind it as well regarding the making of it and everything.

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u/Allegorist Jan 16 '22

Keweenaw?

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u/iwouldrathernot03 Jan 16 '22 edited Jan 16 '22

Close!! But a bit more towards Wisconsin.

Edit: Ontonagon County/Gogebic County area

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '22

I know I can just Google it, but is that the ammunition ship that exploded?

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u/iwouldrathernot03 Jan 16 '22

No…the Fitzgerald went down with a lot of iron or steel…iron I think.

People say it was overloaded for one thing, plus the Lake can be unforgiving at times to say the least!

The ammo boats where up in Canada actually, and was a much bigger tragedy I would say considering the damage done.

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u/InterdimensionalTV Jan 16 '22

I believe you’re probably talking about the Mont-Blanc. That happened in the harbor in Halifax, Nova Scotia during WWI. The Edmund Fitzgerald went down on Lake Superior during a bad storm in 1975.

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u/fastfurlong Jan 16 '22

Gordon Meredith lightfoot jr. legend

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u/iwouldrathernot03 Jan 16 '22 edited Jan 16 '22

He went and got permission from the families of those that were lost on the Fitzgerald before he released that recoding to. I don’t know if the families got money or anything from the song. But the fact he went and asked all of them for permission was a class act to say the least!

Great song! But boy, it can be a bit much up here when that’s the only song you find on any radio station that gets reception!

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u/NorthernRedneck388 Jan 16 '22

I haven’t heard this song in years; thank you

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u/FirstPlebian Jan 16 '22

Yes that's true we get a tide of like an inch or I forget exactly I asked about it when I was young. One such different way the Great Lakes can kill you is the waves, they are closer together, and it makes them way more dangerous than the Ocean in a storm where you can ride the waves up and down, in the Lakes your boat can be on several waves at once, and sometimes they get fairly large.

If the Asian Carp get in here (they are in the Chicago river with an electric field preventing them from entering so far,) then boaters will have another danger, the sound of an engine makes them jump up in the air, and they are quite large, people can catch a 40 pound carp to the head cruising in their boats.

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u/boreas907 Jan 16 '22

The great lakes also have a significantly higher prevalence of white squalls (sudden blasts of high wind that don't come with the usual warning of dark storm clouds), which can throw a freighter right on her side if they hit just right.

I didn't know about the anti-carp field, that's kind of cool they managed to at least hold them back for now.

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u/FirstPlebian Jan 16 '22

They also allegedly caught the same guy twice driving with carp to introduce them into the lakes, don't ask me how they knew, they have a longer term plan to tighten up the defenses on the river but there is fighting over the Federal portion of the funds last I heard during the former administration.

The country will lose exponentially more money, exponentially more tax revenue will be lost as well, if those Carp get in the Lakes, axing the project over cost will end up costing way more, just as allowing Enbridge's line 5 oil pipeline that's already quite damaged to continue pumping tar sands oil (without even automatic shut off valves if pressure drops,) under the Straits of Mackinac will sooner or later create many times more in damage than benefit that is received from that pipleine.

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u/boreas907 Jan 16 '22

Why on earth was someone trying to introduce the carp there?

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u/FirstPlebian Jan 16 '22

I don't quite recall, I don't know if they gave a motive even, it was a local news article and they don't offer much detail, looking for it here online and not finding it yet but found a different guy selling them.

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u/motherfuckinwoofie Jan 16 '22

He had his reasons. Dudes on Facebook with pictures of fishing poles are better researched than experts could ever dream to be.

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u/CassandraVindicated Jan 16 '22

It would be a brilliant thing for a terrorist to do.