50 years ago: The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald
November 10, 2025 12:12am
Exactly fifty years ago, on November 10, 1975, the 729 foot bulk freight carrier "SS Edmund Fitzgerald" sank to the bottom of Lake Superior (a.k.a. Gitche Gumee) while sailing from Superior, Wisconsin to Detroit, Michigan. Yes, I know Gordon Lightfoot's song said the ship was headed to Cleveland, Ohio. However, that was not historically accurate. Her destination was indeed Detroit. But along the way, she encountered a terrible storm with hurricane-force winds and 50 foot waves.
Another ship, the "Arthur M. Anderson," was helping the Edmund Fitzgerald navigate that night because the Fitz had lost her all her radar in the storm. Ernest McSorley, the captain of the Fitzgerald reported to the Anderson that the Fitz had a "bad list” and was taking heavy seas over the deck. The last communication between the two ships occurred a little after 7:00pm on November 10th when the Fitzgerald radioed, "We are holding our own." But a short while later, the Fitzgerald disappeared from the Anderson's radar screens. She had gone down. The twenty-nine men aboard the Edmond Fitzgerald all perished. No distress signals were sent before she sank.
The wreckage was located in 535 feet of water just four days after she sank. The U.S. Navy photographed the wreckage six months later, so we know the ship broke in two, with the bow half and stern half resting on the bottom 170 feet apart from each other. The exact cause of the sinking remains unknown. The U.S Coast Guard’s Marine Casualty Report stated that "the most probable cause of the sinking was the loss of buoyancy resulting from massive flooding of the cargo hold. This flooding most likely took place through ineffective hatch closures. The vessel dove into a wall of water and never recovered, with the breaking up of the ship occurring as it plunged or as the ship struck the bottom." That USCG Marine Casualty Report can be read in full here.
The Edmund Fitzgerald was the largest and longest vessel ever built on the Great Lakes. The ship's 200 pound bronze bell was recovered in 1995 and is now on display at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Paradise, Michigan. So who was Mr. Edmund Fitzgerald? What did he do to get a ship named for him? He was the president of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, which owned the ship. Seriously.
A month after the sinking, Gordon Lightfoot recorded his hit song "The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald" for his "Summertime Dream" album. In 1976, the song hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Rod Stewart's "Tonight's the Night" held the #1 slot. But Lightfoot's tune did reach #1 on the RPM singles chart in his native Canada (RPM Magazine, short for "Records, Promotion, Music" was the Canadian equivalent of Billboard).
More than 6000 commercial ships have sunk on the Great Lakes in the hundred year span of 1875 - 1975, but the one we all remember was the one Gordon Lightfoot memorialized in song. Lightfoot died in May 2023. But his haunting ballad that tells the tale of that great crew on that great ship on that great lake during that great storm continues to be one of my favorite songs.
If you'd like to hear it today, it's on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuzTkGyxkYI. A cover video by Home Free is at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um1PCCkyYHE. "The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee. Superior, they said, never gives up her dead when the gales of November come early."