Having experienced Lake Superior up close, I always felt that "ice-water mansions" was just an especially poetic and lovely description of its vastness. It is huge, beautiful, and forbidding, even in the summer.
I have no particular feelings about Dr. Zhivago
It had never even occurred to me that the 29 times was anything other than one chime per lost sailor, not the very lengthy ceremony of 29x29 (and I am trusting you on the math, John
)
In 2006, the maritime church in Detroit changed the ceremony, and rang the bell 8 times...1 for each of the Great Lakes, 1 for the Detroit and St Clair rivers, 1 for the St Lawrence Seaway, and 1 for all the sailors lost at sea. I don't know if it was for that year only, or if it is something that has continued.