I’ve always enjoyed the song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” The skillful blending of electric and acoustic guitars pleases me, and I love the epic style in which Gordon Lightfoot delivers the lyrics. Even though he mentions the Great Lakes, a shipment of iron ore, and other quotidian details, he sounds as if he’s singing of faraway adventures and heroes.
I never considered it one way or the other before this evening, but the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a real ship. You know how you can be aware of something without ever really thinking about it? So with that song and I.
Her fate was much as Lightfoot sings it. The lake freighter Fitzgerald, nearly a seventh of a mile long, was carrying 26,000 tons of iron ore when she sank November 10, 1975 46°59.9 N, 85°6.6 W, in water 530 feet deep.
With (obviously) no witnesses, it will never be clear exactly what happened. She went down without a distress signal, so it must have been quick. At first, it was supposed that she broke midship in surface turbulence. However, the two pieces rest quite close together, implying she broke on impact with the bottom.
The official Coast Guard report blames faulty hatches that allowed the Fitzgerald to take on water unnoticed over a long period of time, ultimately leading to a catastrophic loss of buoyancy. An alternative theory is that she unknowingly scraped a shoal, and took on water that way. A Discovery Channel-sponsored investigation postulated that rogue waves, long only hypothesized but since proven to exist, took her down.
The Wikipedia article, from which I’ve drawn in this post, has more details. Go check it out.
The ship’s bell was recovered on Independence Day, 1995. It was subsequently restored and is now on display at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum.
The Great Lakes have claimed more than 6,000 lives in shipping accidents. Their immense size creates potential problems more on a scale with ocean navigation than what we generally associate with fresh water. When you consider river navigation, for example, many problems are self-limiting. There isn’t enough water in one place to effect large weather changes, for one thing. It’s pretty tough to be 17 miles from land, as the Fitzgerald was when she sank, for another. (Actually you can be 80 miles from land in the middle of Lake Superior.)
Is anything so simultaneously romantic and horrible as a death at sea? Nature may be tamed in some contexts, but never shall she be domesticated.
God bless the 29 men who died in Lake Superior’s “ice water mansion” one night 32 years ago.
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I actually REMEMBER watching news reports of the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald when it happened, and I remember thinking, even at seven years old, how unreal it all seemed. Shipwrecks were things of stories and history – they didn’t happen NOW, when we’ve got radios and helicopters and modern safety equipment.
My children know the words to the Lightfoot song – we love it too – and it makes me happy that another generation will know the story and remember the loss.
I was 10 years old, and living in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario at the time. My brother and I were playing road hockey when the storm hit. The wind was so strong it blew the CB antenna down on our house, and shifted the house somewhat(we were renting an old house) I remember hearing about it on the news, and at school the next day.
PRESS RELEASE
35th Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial Service
RIVER ROUGE, MICHIGAN — A memorial service is planned for Wednesday November 10, 2010 to remember the 29 men who died when the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975.
The ceremony is set for 6 to 8 p.m. near the Mariners Memorial Lighthouse at Belanger Park, off Belanger Park Drive and Marion.
The event is held in River Rouge because that’s the city where the vessel was built in 1957 and ’58.
Several speakers will give their memories of the ship, including people who helped construct it and relatives of some of the deceased crewmen.
Artifacts and photographs also will be on display.
At 7:10 p.m. — the time the ship sank — a wreath will be tossed into the Detroit River. A bell will be rung 29 times in memory of each person who died.
A plaque presentation and lantern lighting is planned. Refreshments will be provided at the end.
Event organizer Roscoe Clark has a Web site devoted to the vessel, which contains several video clips, photos and new information about the ship, at http://www.ssEdmundFitzgerald.com
Earlier in the day, an Edmund Fitzgerald open house will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. at the River Rouge Historical Museum, 10750 W. Jefferson Ave.
http://www.RiverRougeMuseum.com
For more information on either event, visit the Web site or call Clark at 1-810-519-2148 or Dolores Swekel at 1-313-842-7822.
S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald 38 Year Anniversary
November 10, 2013
RIVER ROUGE — A memorial service is planned for Sunday November 10, 2013 to remember the 29 men who died when the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975.
The ceremony is set for 6 to 8 p.m. and the heated tent open at 4:30 p.m. for viewing Edmund Fitzgerald artifacts, near the Mariners Memorial Lighthouse at Belanger Park, off Belanger Park Drive and Marion.
The event is held in River Rouge because that’s the city where the vessel was built in 1957 and ’58.
Several speakers will give their memories of the ship, including people who helped construct it and relatives of some of the deceased crewmen.
Artifacts, photographs and videos also will be on display and you can talk to the Fitz Ship Builders, past Crew Members and Fitz Family Members.
At 7:10 p.m. — the time the ship sank — a wreath will be tossed into the Detroit River. A bell will be rung 29 times in memory of each person who died.
A plaque presentation and lantern lighting is planned. Food and Refreshments will be provided free of charge.
Event organizer Roscoe Clark has a Web site devoted to the vessel, which contains several video clips and photos of the ship.
Earlier in the day, an Edmund Fitzgerald open house will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. at the River Rouge Historical Museum, 10750 W. Jefferson Ave.
This year, the service will be web cast free of charge for those viewers all across the US and Canada