People who have never seen Lake Superior do not often understand how deadly and terrifying it can be. I’ve been asked many times if there is a monster legend associated with the lake, because I am an American highway legend specialist and Scottish folklorist.
There are a few legends associate with the lake. For example, there is an old Anishinaabe legend that there is a sturgeon in Lake Superior that can swallow an entire city.
However, when I have been asked this question, I often respond:
The lake is the monster.
There are old sailor’s superstitions still current among sailors and residents of the towns around the lake. I learned many of them while working on the water one summer and gaining a newfound respect for Lake Superior’s incredible power. There is a sense among the people there that the lake itself is sentient.
One example of the lake’s power is a phenomenon called The Three Sisters. This is when three rogue waves form and wash across a ship so quickly that the water does not have time to clear the decks. Many shipwrecks have been caused by The Three Sisters, most notably the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The ship was found at the bottom of the lake split in half, and it is thought that The Three Sisters were responsible for its sinking.
Lake Superior is also so cold that it doesn’t allow the bacterial growth necessary for dead bodies to rise to the surface. The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead, as the old legend goes. There are many shipwrecks where the bodies are still there, almost perfectly intact despite having been down there for years.
The lake is a force of nature on its own, and as one explorer said, the most dangerous piece of water in the world.
The lake is the monster.
agreed. when you stand on its shores, you can feel it considering you. wade into the icy fridgewater and you feel like it’s tasting your skin, considering whether to spit you out or swallow you.
in a storm, the waves aren’t higher or wilder than ocean waves, but something about them is unsettling. they’re faster, somehow. more unpredictably spaced. they slap the seawall with a sharper crash. there is not enough money in the world to get me out on superior in a november gale. even the big ore tankers park up in duluth and wait it out.
i mean, these are ships the size of the damn shield helicarrier, loaded with the raw material for ten thousand ford trucks, and they hunker down for cocoa and soap operas when superior is raging.
just moving along like everyone else 