While I have shared pictures mostly of calm Great Lakes waters, the late fall and early winter each year brings a reminder: The inland seas are dangerous. Since 1979 there are records of over 8,000 boats and thousands of lives lost on the lakes. One of the most recent, famous, and mysterious wrecks was that of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in the waters of Lake Superior. 

The “Fitz” was, when it launched in 1958, the largest ship on the Great Lakes at 729 feet long. It mostly carried iron ore from mines near Duluth, Minnesota to iron factories in Detroit and Toledo.

The ship left Superior, Wisconsin at 4:30 PM on November 9, 1975 bound eventually for Toledo, Ohio. By late that night, conditions had changed from what had been predicted. A storm turned into a November gale with waves greater than 35 feet high reported and near hurricane force winds. A November gale, also sometimes called the November witch, is caused by low atmospheric pressure over the Great Lakes pulling cold arctic air from Canada and warm air from the south. When these two collide they can create substantial, dangerous wind conditions. 

The Fitzgerald remained  in contact with another ship, the Arthur M. Anderson, once the storm started. The Fitzgerald came in and out on the radar. The afternoon of November 10th, it reported that two vents were damaged and the boat was taking on water, but said both pumps were working. At 7:10 PM Captain Ernest M. McSorley communicated “we are holding our own”. But by 7:15, the Fitzgerald disappeared from the radar and never reappeared. All 29 people on board were lost including 15 from Ohio. The wreckage was eventually found about 17 miles from Whitefish Bay and the Sault Ste. Marie area. 

The cause of the wreck remains unknown. The boat lies 530 feet below the surface making exploration and investigation hard. The most common theories from government agencies and industry organizations: (1) The boat “shoaled” on an underwater mountain range, essentially scraping itself and potentially incurring more damage than the crew was aware of; (2) The boat experienced leaking hatches (doors) from faulty or improperly closed clamps; (3) The boat experienced hatch damage caused by unknown debris. 

The event was memorialized and inscribed into cultural knowledge by Canadian singer Gordon Lightfoot, who was inspired to write his hit “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” after reading a Newsweek magazine article about the shipwreck. After the wreck, new regulations and policies were put in place for Great Lakes ships including mandatory survival suits, increased freeboard (height between water level and deck), depth finders and more frequent inspections.

May we keep the memory of the ship and those lost.