<DIV><DIV><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">It was Thanksgiving 1905 and thirty-one ships were on Lake Superior, making the season&rsquo;s last, daring run--a run old salts had warned against, but to no avail against the shipping companies&rsquo; demands.&nbsp; What none of the sailors knew until it was far too late was that they would soon face the worst storm ever to hit the Great Lake, a storm that nearly half of their number would not survive.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</p> This is the story of that fateful storm, and of one of the worst shipping disasters in the nation&rsquo;s history.&nbsp; As the storm strikes without warning, readers are taken aboard the SS Mataafa</I> as it crashes into Duluth&rsquo;s piers, half of the crew freezing to death overnight as the other half survives by dancing through the dark around bathtubs set ablaze with scuttled pieces of the ship--all while 10,000 Duluthians set bonfires on shore to guide ships to safety. Next we find ourselves aboard the SS Ira H. Owen</I>, crashing into the cliff where Split Rock Lighthouse would later be built, too late for these men.&nbsp; And here too are the many ships, from Canadian shores to Michigan, where all hands were lost.&nbsp; It is a story drawn from the accounts of witnesses and survivors.&nbsp; It is a tale of people pitted against the elements, of a disaster so extreme that, in its wake, weather forecasting, shipbuilding, and compass-reading in light of the Iron Range&rsquo;s magnetism were forever changed. </DIV>