Davis Helberg, Duluth Seaway Port Authority consultant and former port director, tells it, in 1986 he was sitting in the backyard of a private home in Senegal, in the West African capitol of Dakar, after a long business day and mentioned to his hosts that he was from Minnesota. "They were very excited," Mr. Helberg remembers with a laugh. "They told me they knew a good friend in Minnesota and that he was a songwriter and musician, and his name was Charlie Maguire. They showed me his album, and right then," Mr. Helberg says, "I knew that I had to find a way of getting this folksinger who had been lately pestering me for a rides on the boats out on the Lakes. He had an international reputation, and I had barely heard of him."

That chance meeting of Mr. Helberg with some friends of Mr. Maguire who were living in Africa at the time was too much of a coincidence for Mr. Helberg to resist, and soon he helped Charlie gain transport on his first vessel, the M.V. Nordic Trader.

Charlie was invited to accompany the ship out of Duluth with 14,000 metric tons of barley and an all Filipino crew as far as Montreal. Mr. Helberg also assisted in arranging a ride on an iron ore carrier, the William Clay Ford. Ten years later there was another trip, this time on a working buoy tender, the United States Coast Guard's Sundew at the personal behest of another fan— then Commanding Officer (and budding guitar picker) William B. Brubaker.

Mr. Maguire topped off his 20 years of devotion to this project with a song-cycle entitled Rough Trade. It is a 14-minute suite called "fascinating" by New York City station WFUV, and it had its Duluth premier along with the rest of his "laker" collection in October at the Amazing Grace Café.

"I had to bring it back to Duluth, because it all began as an adventure as I hitched rides out of the Port of Duluth on these huge ships that sail the world," said Mr. Maguire. "My experiences as an observer and sometimes as a working member of the crew on these trips fueled me."

The four-song cycle of Rough Trade explores the loves and lives of those who sail for a living. Each song is a short story, blending into the next like waves tumbling onto the beach. The first song, Rolling on the Deck, was written on the Sundew and captures the work of buoy-tending. The second, Every Sailor on Watch, is a compilation of experiences on all three vessels. It praises a vigilant crew while warning them to guard their hearts. On the Beach is another compilation of voyages, tracing the consequences of a "rough trade" of youth for work and love for loneliness. Completing the suite, Les Legionnaires was written about real places in Montreal (after departing the Nordic Trader). It pulses with a smoky bistro's bossa-nova beat and a sailor pickup line, "come closer, explain it to me," in an affirmation of love and the human spirit.

Currently, Charlie Maguire is working with the Smithsonian Institution with the traveling exhibit Barn Again! and writes the theme music for On the Road with Jason Davis, a show on the Twin Cities' KSTP-TV. He has served as "Centennial Troubadour" since 1990, writing 27 songs about Minnesota State Parks, and was the first "Singing Ranger" in the history of the National Park Service, writing 25 songs about the Mississippi River from 1995 to 2003.

He has been a guest on Public Radio's A Prairie Home Companion and on ABC's Good Morning America, but he most enjoyed turning his guitar and vocal talents to this special program of writing his songs of the Great Lakes not far from where they all began.