• Jay@lemmy.ca
      12·
      2 months ago

      The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Of the big lake, they called Gitche Gumee

      The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead

      When the skies of November turn gloomy

      With a load of iron ore, twenty-six thousand tons more

      Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty

      That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed

      When the gales of November came early

      Gorden Lightfoot The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald https://youtu.be/9vST6hVRj2A

        • Jay@lemmy.ca
          3·
          2 months ago

          I assume that’s where Mr. Lightfoot got it as well, but when I read your comment the first thing that came to mind was the lyrics to the song.

        • Jay@lemmy.ca
          3·
          2 months ago

          I think Gorden got it slightly wrong in the song ( It should be Gami, not Gumee)

          According to the wiki,

          The Ojibwe name for the lake is gichi-gami (in syllabics: ᑭᒋᑲᒥ, pronounced gitchi-gami or kitchi-gami in different dialects),[14] meaning “great sea”. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote this name as “Gitche Gumee” in the poem The Song of Hiawatha, as did Gordon Lightfoot in his song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”

          But since Gorden’s song was so popular a lot of folk assumed Gumee was correct.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Superior