Archives
Note #159: They that go down to the sea in ships (2025.11.10)
When Jin and I were in Scotland over the summer, we revisited a lot of the places we saw on our original walk along the Speyside Way in 2016. This time, we started where we had ended up the first time around: in Buckie, on Scotland’s Moray coast. Back in 2016, we arrived in Buckie late in the afternoon and left for Edinburgh via Aberdeen the next morning, so we didn’t have all that much time to look around. This summer, though, we arrived in Aberdeen, spent a few days there, and then took a bus to Buckie, where we would have most of the day before setting out again the following morning. There’s not a whole lot to see in Buckie from a tourist perspective, but that was fine with me; I just wanted to learn more about the history of the town. So, the highlight of our visit to Buckie (and one of the highlights of the whole trip) ended up being the Fishing Heritage Centre, a small museum dedicated to the history of the fishing industry in the town and staffed by local volunteers.
It was sprinkling rain and cool when we arrived, but inside the museum it was dry and warm. We walked around and looked at the items on display, and when we were done with our brief tour I sat down to talk to some of the volunteers. When I told a woman named Kathleen that I was a folklorist and interested in hearing stories about the area, her face lit up: “Oh, we have some books of folklore!” She brought out a few books that did indeed contain some interesting items. We read a few proverbs and old sayings that she would then comment on. Soon, though, I asked about what I really wanted to hear: her experiences and memories, and what life had been like in Buckie back when fishing was a big industry.
Our conversation was quite educational and interesting, but I’ll save the stories and tidbits for another day. The only thing I will say is that there was a theme that came up over and over again: the inevitability of loss in a seafaring community. I remember Kathleen telling me about the wreck of the Evangeline, and the story was so vivid that I was surprised to hear that it had happened in the 1905. There have been many wrecks since then, of course, and just about everyone at the centre had lost a family member at sea. I was reminded of the passage from Psalm 107 (quoting here from the King James for literary effect):
They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.
Except, of course, he doesn’t always bring them back to safe haven. Sometimes they go down to the sea in ships, and the sea claims them for its own. As it neared time for us to take our leave, Malcolm, one of the other volunteers, offered to take us to the Seamen’s Memorial Chapel. We gladly accepted the offer and walked down the street through the light rain to the small building. Malcolm—who had actually spent time in Korea working as an engineer at a shipyard—let us inside, where three stained glass windows on one wall of the small chapel let in a dim but colorful light; the central window depicted Christ standing in the bow of a fishing boat buffeted by wind and wave. Plaques lined another wall, each bearing the name of someone lost at sea. Malcolm walked over to the wall and pointed at one plaque in particular. “That’s my family name,” he said. I just nodded and said a quiet prayer. It seemed like the place for it.
It’s been nearly half a year now since that visit, and you may be wondering why I am suddenly writing about this. Well, I was reminded of it a few days ago when YouTube randomly played an old ballad from the earliest years of my childhood. When I was far too young to remember, a freighter sank in a storm on Lake Superior, taking all twenty-nine of its crew down with it. Gordon Lightfoot, a Canadian folk singer whose songs still tug at my heartstrings, wrote a ballad to commemorate the incident and the lives that were lost.
Listening to this ballad again after so many years brought back not only memories of my early childhood but also memories of the stories I heard in Buckie. It is a song that I think will resonate wherever men go down to the sea in ships. And, as fate would have it, today is fifty years from the day that the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in that storm. I don’t have anything especially deep to say about this. I just thought I would post my own little remembrance to honor the crew and all who have been lost at sea. That is all.