FROM MODEL SHIPS TO SHANTY SONGS
by Peter von Buol
Special to Inside
The maritime history of Chicago and the Great Lakes was featured at the third annual Chicago Maritime Festival held at the Chicago Historical Society, North Ave. and Clark St., on Feb. 26. The festival highlighted the role that the Great Lakes, the Chicago River and other local waterways have played throughout Chicago's history.
Thousands of years ago, American Indians discovered the ease with which they could travel between the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes. In 1673, French explorers, led by Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette, reached the mouth of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan and saw the economic potential of the area due to its navigable waterways.
The day-long festival included maritime music, storytelling, seminars, ship models, nautical paintings and demonstrations.
Many of those who attended said the musical performances, especially the evening concert, were the highlight of the festival.
The festival featured a line-up of maritime musical performers from throughout North America. Singers and musicians included New York's Talitha MacKenzie, whose albums have topped world music charts. She is considered to be one of the premier performers of Gaelic music. Trained as a musical historian and an ethnic musicologist, MacKenzie's knowledge of nautical themes is not just from her academic background. She has also served aboard Tall Ships as a deck hand and shanty singer.
In addition to MacKenzie, the festival featured the French-Canadian trio Serre l'Ecoute and the Pacific Northwest's duo Pint & Dale.
Local favorites such as Lee Murdock and the Old Town School of Folk Music's Tom and Chris Kastle also performed at the festival. An array of special guest performers sang and played music throughout the day in the museum's main stage and its conference rooms.
According to Chris Kastle, who serves as co-director of the festival, music is featured prominently throughout the day-long festival because "it helps transport people to the time and place" where a song was written. Kastle's husband, Tom, is also a festival co-director.
"Nautical music puts you in the perspective of how people felt when they first wrote the song," said Kastle, who along with her husband is a faculty member at the Old Town School of Folk Music. "It's a living and dynamic history."
Kastle said nautical music doesn't always recall past events. In fact, Chicago continues to remain under the influence of the area's waterways.
"Songs are being written today about what life is like living along Lake Michigan," added Kastle. "You don't have to be aboard a ship or boat to write nautical music. You could just be standing on the lakeshore looking out at Lake Michigan."
Milwaukee's David H. B. Drake, a guest musical performer at the festival, said he enjoyed performing at the festival because maritime music strikes a special chord. "This is deep music, at a literally visceral level, as no human being can fail to be moved by the contemplation of the sea," he said.
In fact, Drake believes a full moon exerts an effect on the human body somewhat similar to its effect on the oceans' tides. "Our very blood [is similar to] to salt water. Just check any emergency room [during a] full moon [and see] what it does to people!" he said.
Drake hopes the interest generated by the festival will spur the city to build a maritime museum. He believes Chicago can overcome a climate that has seen tight budgets for its arts and cultural institutions. According to Drake, the strong public interest in the Chicago Maritime Festival indicates the city could once again support a permanent maritime museum.
The Chicago Maritime Society has been looking for a new home for its collection since its North Pier location closed more than a decade ago. "If the audience at the festival is any indication, it's obvious that it's needed and, to some extent, wanted," said Drake. He fondly remembers the museum's old location at North Pier and said he believes Navy Pier would be an ideal location, but rent at the pier may now be too expensive.
Interestingly, Drake also served as a crew member aboard Tall Ships. In the 1980s, he served as a crew member/musician of the 1960 replica of the HMS Bounty that was built for the 1962 version of "Mutiny on the Bounty."
The festival also featured historians and storytellers such as Ruth Flesvig Gibson. Gibson's mother, Ruth Erickson Flesvig, inspired Lee Murdock's song about the ill-fated Christmas tree schooner, the Rouse Simmons.
The old wooden schooner sank off Two Rivers, WI, during a fierce storm on Nov. 23, 1912. All crew members, including its captain, Hermann Schuenemann, perished while they were attempting to deliver a cargo of 5,000 freshly-cut Christmas trees to Chicago. Flesvig's family was one of those who did not receive their Christmas tree from Schuenemann's ill-fated ship.
To replace the lost tree, Gibson's Swedish-immigrant grandfather made what may have been Chicago's first artificial Christmas tree. He used the metal frame of an old umbrella and turned it upside down to hang his family's Christmas ornaments.
In addition to having the story influence Murdock's song, Gibson and co-author Rochelle Pennington wrote a children's book titled "The Historic Christmas Tree Ship" to tell the story of her mother's experience and the lost Christmas tree ship.
Gibson is not surprised by the continued interest in her mother's story, which has also inspired the perennial local Christmas musical, "The Christmas Schooner."
"[My mother's] story is a great story that people love to hear! New historical facts are being discovered all the time and that increases the interest," said Gibson.
In fact, the wreck of the Rouse Simmons was discovered in 1971 with its cargo of Christmas trees still preserved by the cold waters of Lake Michigan.
Gibson said she hopes the public's continued fascination with her mother's story will also help inspire the resurrection of the city's maritime museum. "The momentum, I believe, is likely to help nudge the museum project along," said a hopeful Gibson.
The annual Chicago Maritime Festival is organized by the Chicago Maritime Society, the Chicago Historical Society and Common Times, an Illinois arts and humanities organization whose mission is "to promote awareness and understanding of folk culture and history." It is held every year on the last Saturday of February.
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