Amanda Monthei

Outdoor and Environmental Storytelling

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My Enduring Obsession with The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

I have many dad-like tendencies—being a fan of yard work and Tom Petty, for a few examples—but perhaps my greatest dad tendency is my lifelong obsession with The Edmund Fitzgerald.

If you were raised anywhere near Lake Superior, chances are you may share this obsession. You likely also know every word of Gordon Lightfoot’s absolute folk banger, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Small Scar, Wild Story

“You have lung cancer,” said the ER doctor wearing gym shorts and lime green running shoes. I’d known him for less than an hour and here he was, handing me a life-changing diagnosis while wearing Under Armour. He was unfathomably casual, and I was skeptical.

The Women Before Me

I don’t feel much different from these women — I can see myself in their faces, in the smiles that can only result from days and days of hard work. I recognize those smirking grins, those exhausted eyes, those messy ponytails, the filthy hands, faces, arms. In this I find some sort of solace, a rare generational link between myself and the women who paved the way for me…

This, Despite Everything

What do we make of happiness we know is only a result of something so traumatic, so life-altering, so incomprehensibly tragic as the death of someone we loved?