It is November 9th
as I am writing this, and I will be up until midnight just so I can be awake
and pour some whiskey for a toast to the 29 souls that lost their lives on Lake
Superior on November 10, 1975. I am, of course, speaking of the 50th
anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Just by naming the ship,
you started to hum the melody of the song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,”
by Gordon Lightfoot. But let’s not talk about the song now, and let’s just
settle on the history of this vessel and its sinking.
The Edmund
Fitzgerald was launched on June 7, 1958, and was named for the president of
Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which
invested a goodly sum of their money in the production of iron ore. The
christening was done by his wife Elizabeth Fiztgerald, and it was a bad omen
from the start when it took three times for the champagne bottle to shatter and
during the launch, one of the observers, a man by the name of Jennings B.
Frazier, had a heart attack at the ceremony and died. The Edmund Fitzgerald was
a record-breaking workhorse. The round trip from the docks where the ship was
laden with taconite in the form of pellets, to the docks in Detroit, Michigan
took 5 days, and the Edmund Fitzgerald could do the trip 47 times in a season.
At the time of her
sinking, the ship was captained by Ernest M. McSorley, and true to the famous
ballad, “With a crew and good captain well-seasoned.” They departed Superior,
Wisconsin at 2:15 pm on November 9. At 5 pm that day, she was joined by another
freighter, the Arthur M. Anderson, heading to Gary, Indiana. The National
Weather Service (NWS) altered their forecast for the Lake Superior region at
7:00 pm, including gale warnings. At 1a.m. on the 10th of November,
the Edmund Fitzgerald reported high winds and waves around 10 feet. By 2a.m.,
the NWS altered it from a gale to a storm. At 3:30 pm the captain of the Edmund
Fitzgerald reported that they were taking on some water and that the ship had
lost its radar. The Arthur M. Anderson, tried to direct the Edmound Fitzgerald
to Whitefish Bay. The storm continued with winds up to 58 knots, or 67 mph. At
7:10 pm, the Arthur M. Anderson radioed the Fitzgerald and asked them how they
were fairing. The captain cooly replied, “We are holding our own.” She was
never heard from again.
There are many
theories of what made the ship sink. Everything from Shoaling, a rogue wave, to
structural failures due to the storm. She settled in deep water and split into
two pieces. For over 20 years there were multiple submarine dives to survey the
wreckage. In 1995, the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians backed the expedition by
co-signing a loan in the amount of $250,000, they contacted Phil Nuytten who
was a deep-sea explorer and had designed an atmospheric diving suit. The
contract was to retrieve the bell from the Edmund Fitzgerald wreckage and
replace it with a replica bell. This replica bell would have the names of the
crew that lost their lives that day. There was one other task that Nuytten had
to do. He had to leave a beer in the pilothouse for the dead.
Every year on the 10th of
November, Mariners' Church in Detroit rings its bell for the 29 sailors who
perished and now their solemn ceremony is a tribute to all the lives lost to
the Great Lakes. Gordon Lightfoot, who wrote and recorded “the Wreck of the
Edmund Fitgerald” died on May 1, 2023. Later that year, on November 10th,
the bell rang 30 times. One extra for Gordon Lightfoot. The Edmund Fitzgerald
is gone to history or does its ghost remain? Yes, there are some stories out
there that the Fitzgerald is still trying to find its way home. A report of
some freighter or fishing boats seeing a large freighter moving silently toward
Whitefish Bay. One day perhaps, they will finally make it.