“By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, Daughter of the moon Nokomis …”
— H.W. LONGFELLOW, 1855
It has been more than 60 years since I first read Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha,” and it is the flawed memory of an old man that had me believing all these years that the quote at the top of this page was the beginning of the legendary poem.
It wasn’t.
In fact it wasn’t even anywhere near the beginning of this famously long poem in the epic tradition of Homer, Virgil and Spenser. In fact, it was in the fourth section of the poem, “Hiawatha’s Childhood.”
I don’t know if elementary school kids still learn 19th century poetry, especially by old white American guys, but all those years ago when I was in elementary school, it often tied in with studying American history. Longfellow’s “Ride of Paul Revere” is a good example.
“Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year…”
I preferred Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Concord Hymn,” written in 1837 for the dedication of the monument to the battle than came the morning after Revere’s ride.
“By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world.”
Longfellow wrote many other great poems, but whether it’s political correctness or just the passage of time, he doesn’t make most lists of the 10 best American poets. Neither does Emerson.
Old white guys, huh?
Gitche Gumee, the Chippewa name of the lake we call Superior, is maybe the most majestic body of fresh water in the world. It contains three quadrillion gallons of fresh water — that’s 3 with 15 zeroes — which is enough to cover all the land in the Americas with a foot of water.
Technically, Superior is the second-largest lake in the world, although it is the biggest that is called a lake. Asia’s Caspian Sea is larger, although I have seen some listings that combine Lake Superior and Lake Huron as one lake and it’s larger than the Caspian Sea.
As I have written earlier, I have traveled extensively in the United States and have been in all but four for at least a small time. The least I have seen of the country is what some call the northern tier, from Lake Superior across to the West Coast. I have actually seen only one of the five Great Lakes. Lake Erie in Northern Ohio.
I have actually been to a number of places in the Pacific Northwest, although nothing farther east than Bozeman, Montana, until you get to Fargo, N.D. I have written before about wanting to ride the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle and maybe someday I will. I have been to Seattle three times, in 1988, 2009 and 2011.
But if I had to choose, I think I would rather see Lake Superior. It’s something different from anything I have ever seen before, especially heading to the northern shore and seeing Superior from the Ontario side.
Just about all I know of the Greatest Lake is Gordon Lightfood’s amazing song from 1975, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” It’s the only pop song that mentions all five of the Great Lakes and adds the Chippewa name of the greatest.