The Edmund Fitzgerald Sank In Lake Superior 50 Years Ago Today

The first time I ever heard about this, was on one of my trip's home during college. My uncle picked me up from Logan, and I was telling him about how much I couldn't believe how big Lake Michigan was. He laughed and said something to the effect of, "No shit. Why do you think they're called the Great Lakes?"

He then proceeded to tell me all about Gordon Lightfoot and "The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald". Thanks to iTunes, I was able to buy the song and listen to it on my computer. 

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald launched in 1958 as the largest ship on the Great Lakes, hauling iron ore pellets between Superior, Wisconsin, and steel towns to the south. 

On November 9, 1975, it cleared Superior with a heavy load of taconite, running roughly in company with the freighter Arthur M. Anderson. 

The next day, a powerful November gale intensified over Superior. Snow, near-hurricane gusts, and steep seas battered both vessels as they aimed for the safety of Whitefish Bay. 

Shortly after 7 p.m. Eastern Time on November 10, the Fitzgerald vanished from Anderson’s radar. She sent no distress call. All 29 crew members were lost. The wreck was later found in deep water, broken in two, about 17 miles from Whitefish Bay. 

Official investigations pointed to a lethal combination of severe weather, structural stress, and flooding, but the precise sequence remains uncertain. The loss quickly became shorthand for the peril that Great Lakes mariners face when November comes early and hard.

“On the Great Lakes, memory is not measured in miles but in names, and the Fitzgerald is one everyone knows.”

Gordon Lightfoot wrote “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” in the months after the sinking, moved by reporting that brought the tragedy into living rooms across North America. 

He recorded it in late 1975, and released it in 1976 on his album Summertime Dream, and watched it climb the charts to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 that November. 

For many people, the ballad is how they first learned the names “Edmund Fitzgerald” and “Whitefish Bay.” Its verses read like a newspaper turned into a prayer. The language is plain, with a steady melody and insistent drums.

The song does what great memorial art does- invites listeners to witness, and to not turn away. 

Without the song, "the Fitz" might have slipped into the long list of Great Lakes wrecks that only specialists remember. With it, the ship and her crew have remained part of a living public memory for five decades.

Across the Great Lakes, remembrance is formal and personal. 

In Detroit, the Mariners’ Church tolls the bell and reads the names each year. 

At Whitefish Point in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum tells the story carefully and keeps the Fitzgerald’s recovered bell as a memorial. 

The bell comes out for the annual service, tolled 29 times for the men who were lost and once more for all who have perished on the Lakes.

Here are a few great documentaries on the tragedy - 

This is a pretty good timeline of the events and how it unfolded. 

p.s. - Billy Strings did a pretty good cover of the Lightfoot tune