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Gales Of November Remembered: 50 Years Ago This Fall Came The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald
Andrea Zani
Andrea Zani is managing editor of Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down …
— opening lines to "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," by Gordon Lightfoot
On Nov. 9, 1975, loaded with more than 26,000 long tons of taconite iron ore and carrying 29 crew, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald set sail from Superior for what was to be a five-day journey to a steel mill near Detroit.
The 729-foot Fitzgerald, a giant workhorse of a freighter, had made this trip on hundreds of occasions before, plying the Great Lakes over and over in its 17 years on the water. This time, the ship never made it.
The day after the Fitzgerald’s departure, on Nov. 10, “the gales of November came early” to Lake Superior, as the late Gordon Lightfoot sang in his haunting 1976 ballad about the fateful journey. The storm pounded the freighter with the full force of Mother Nature and then some, unleashing winds of up to 70 knots (80 mph) and relentless waves reaching as high as 35 feet.
Around 7:15 that evening, the Fitzgerald’s captain, Ernest McSorley, made his final radio contact with a companion ship, the Arthur M. Anderson.
“We are holding our own,” McSorley told the first mate of the Anderson when asked how they were faring in the storm, according to a transcript of the radio call.
Previously, McSorley had indicated the ship was taking on water and listing in the rapidly deteriorating sea conditions of Lake Superior. Both the Anderson and the Fitzgerald sought to reach the shelter of eastern Lake Superior’s Whitefish Bay.
“OK, fine, I’ll be talking to you later,” the Anderson responded. The Fitzgerald was never heard from again.
In the ensuing days, Coast Guard and U.S. Navy aircraft and vessels searched for the ship presumably lost in the waters of Lake Superior — the largest, coldest and deepest of the five Great Lakes — initially finding some wreckage about 17 miles northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan.
It wasn’t until the following May that the ship itself was finally located with the help of sidescan sonar. An underwater recovery vehicle was used to identify and photograph the Edmund Fitzgerald, broken in two under 530 feet of frigid, murky water.
The bottom of Lake Superior, in Canadian waters between Michigan and the province of Ontario, became the final resting place for the ship and all 29 crew.
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion
Fifty years later, the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald remains one of the most memorable and impactful shipwrecks in Great Lakes history, though there have been hundreds of others. The Fitzgerald is still the largest ship ever to go down in the Great Lakes.
Lightfoot’s famous song, released just a year after the wreck, helped immortalize the event. And the perplexing circumstances surrounding its loss have made it something people still talk about today.
“The tragedy resonates due to the nature of the event, the famous song many know and the enduring mystery of why the ship sank,” said Steve Ackerman, emeritus professor in UW-Madison’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.
Ackerman, a meteorologist who is one of “The Weather Guys” heard regularly on Wisconsin Public Radio, has given numerous presentations about the Fitzgerald over the years and already has nine such talks scheduled this year between September and November.
“There is still significant interest in the sinking, especially as this November marks the 50th anniversary of the tragedy,” he said.
Corey Adkins, communications and content director for Michigan’s Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, agreed that interest in the Fitzgerald is heightened this year.
“It’s off the charts,” he said. “There’s always a big interest, but this year seems to be maybe five or six times more than normal. People want to be part of remembering this.”
Adkins said about 80,000 paid visitors come to the historical society’s Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Whitefish Point in a typical year — 150,000 if counting quick stops in the gift shop. Even higher numbers are expected this year.
“People just tend to gravitate toward that shipwreck, even though there are many other wrecks out there,” he said of the Fitzgerald. “People just seem to hold on to this one.”
As for why that is, both Adkins and Ackerman had the same thought: People are captivated by the mystery.
“It just disappeared,” Adkins said. “The Arthur Anderson was talking to the Fitzgerald that night and all of a sudden, the Fitzgerald went off the radar.”
Added Ackerman: “I think the biggest mystery remains … why did the ship go down?”
So what exactly did happen to the Edmund Fitzgerald? No one can say for sure, but there’s plenty of conjecture to add to the enigma.
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They might have broke deep and took water ...
Though communications from the Fitzgerald during the storm suggested it was getting pretty heavily battered, the ship ultimately never called for help and its lifeboats were never launched. The latter fact was determined afterwards when the lifeboats were found badly damaged, apparently smashed while still secured to the ship.
The Coast Guard determined the ship went down abruptly and catastrophically, concluding there were several main factors at play in the sinking.
Because of its heavy load of taconite pellets, the Fitzgerald sat very low in the water (a long ton equals 2,240 pounds, giving the Fitzgerald a cargo weight of more than 58 million pounds). That increased the frequency with which water could flood the deck as well as the overall amount of water that could overcome the ship.
Water crashing onboard might have entered the cargo area through hatch covers, which caused the Fitzgerald to sink even lower and take on increasing amounts of water with each wave.
Possible damage to the ship’s hull might have allowed still more water to enter the ship. Speculation was the Fitzgerald had incurred damage near Lake Superior’s Caribou Island by grazing a sharp, rocky outcropping known as Six Fathom Shoal.
Ackerman said the sinking likely was caused by “a combination of several factors,” not the least of which was the weather.
Forecasting had improved by the 1970s — compared to a terrible 1940 “Armistice Day Storm” that killed over 50 duck hunters in the Midwest, for example, he noted — but there was still great uncertainty. And that left plenty of room for catastrophe.
Wade Strickland, director of the DNR’s Office of Great Waters, said the loss of the Fitzgerald was a “sobering testament to the sheer power of Lake Superior’s storms.”
“Even with this freighter’s immense size and modern equipment for its era, it was still lost to the storm’s fury,” Strickland said, noting that the time of year, autumn, likely played a role.
“Lake Superior is notorious for its unpredictable weather due to its immense size, and the fall months are generally known for dramatic storms in the Great Lakes region,” he said. “Fall is a time when large air masses of different temperatures and moisture content collide and create low-pressure systems. These can intensify over the Great Lakes.”
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed …
With the November storm raging, the Fitzgerald’s journey could have been impacted by rogue waves, exceptionally large and unpredictable waves that can appear suddenly on Lake Superior.
“The main factors that contribute to huge waves are strong and persistent winds and a long fetch, or uninterrupted distance over the water,” Strickland said. “Those winds build up momentum and push the waves even higher.”
This includes a phenomenon known as the “Three Sisters,” a group of three rogue waves in rapid succession. A ship hit by this devastating trio of rogue waves can’t shed water fast enough in between them and is overwhelmed.
Once thought to be a maritime legend, rogue waves like the Three Sisters have been confirmed by scientists over the years, including researchers from Wisconsin Sea Grant. UW-Madison researchers Chin Wu, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Josh Anderson, a scientist in the Hydroecology Lab, have studied rogue waves in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Lake Superior.
“They group together during certain wave conditions,” Anderson noted in a report from Wisconsin Sea Grant. “You might get three or four in an hour and then you won’t get one for the rest of the day.”
Around the time the Fitzgerald sank, the nearby Anderson had reported being hit by two waves of 30 feet or more, the Sea Grant report added. These waves, which could have been followed by a third, continued in the direction of the already vulnerable Fitzgerald.
The good ship and crew were in peril …
As for how the ship ultimately went down, that, too, is subject of discussion.
Some believe the Fitzgerald broke in half on the surface before sinking. The Coast Guard’s final report theorized the ship nose-dived into a large wave and was unable to recover because it had already lost so much buoyancy. The ship’s heavy cargo of round taconite pellets shifted forward quickly, dragging the freighter down.
The Fitzgerald almost immediately plunged into the depths of Lake Superior, the Coast Guard report concluded, reaching the bottom in seconds and hitting with such force that the vessel snapped in two.
These days, freighters larger than the Edmund Fitzgerald regularly sail the Great Lakes, Adkins noted, but improved weather forecasting helps keep them safer on the seas.
“Now, ships are 1,000-feet plus. If storms come, they’ll go to anchor,” he said, hanging closer to the shoreline or taking cover near Great Lakes islands.
“With better weather predicting, they’ll hide, hug the shore when they know a storm is coming.”
Strickland said the Great Lakes shipping industry reflects an important part of Wisconsin’s heritage.
“Great Lakes cities were founded as trading posts along a vast maritime highway that facilitated commerce long before railroads and highways,” he said.
“This relationship to the water enabled the region to thrive.”
Shipwrecks like the Edmund Fitzgerald are a part of that maritime legacy, he added.
“The shipwrecks that scatter the Great Lakes help tell the story of how our region was settled,” Strickland said. “These waters have been traversed by Indigenous peoples, explorers and settlers, and thousands of ships have been sunk while crossing these vast and, at times, treacherous waters.”
The ship was the pride of the American side …
Just as it was the largest ship ever to go down in the Great Lakes, the Edmund Fitzgerald was the largest to set sail on those waters when it was launched in June 1958 (not surpassed until 1971). According to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, 15,000 onlookers went to see off the “Mighty Fitz” on its maiden voyage at River Rouge, Michigan.
Built in River Rouge by Great Lakes Engineering Works, the Fitzgerald was commissioned by Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. and was named after the company’s president. The ship was registered in Milwaukee, headquarters of Northwestern Mutual, but its charter was held by the Oglebay Norton Co. of Cleveland.
Though officially homeported in Milwaukee, the Edmund Fitzgerald actually only visited the city once, said Tamara Thomsen, maritime archaeologist for the Wisconsin Historical Society.
“There was a downturn in the (shipping) market, and Oglebay Norton brought the beautiful ship in for a public relations tour,” Thomsen said of the Fitzgerald’s 1959 visit to the city. “Folks were allowed to walk the decks, and the ship’s namesake came aboard for a photo shoot.”
Thousands came to visit the ship during the three months it was docked in Milwaukee from July to October that year. Otherwise, the ship mostly traveled from Silver Bay, Minnesota, on Lake Superior, to Detroit and Toledo on the lower Great Lakes, transporting iron ore primarily for use in making automobiles.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters …
The approaching 50th anniversary of the shipwreck brings the Edmund Fitzgerald to the forefront for many.
“I think the interest extends beyond the Great Lakes region,” said Ackerman, who recalls the decades-old event. “I remember as a senior in undergrad school in New York, majoring in physics and meteorology, reading about the sinking the day after it occurred.
“I was amazed by it then and still am amazed.”
Over the years, several dive expeditions have explored the wreck. In 1995, divers recovered the Fitzgerald’s bronze bell, replacing it with a replica engraved with the names of the 29 crew, Adkins noted.
The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, among the organizers of that effort, now displays the original bell at its Whitefish Point museum, he added, ringing it each Nov. 10 to mark the anniversary of the sinking. The bell rings 30 times — once for every Fitzgerald crew member and an additional time for all others lost in Great Lakes shipwrecks.
With the Fitzgerald resting in Canadian waters and considered a “watery grave,” access is now closely regulated, Thomsen said.
“It’s not lost in Wisconsin waters and not even in U.S. waters,” she said, “but it’s in Canadian water and under strict control.”
Most likely, the mystery of exactly why the ship went down — with no distress signal or any other call for help before disappearing — will remain just that, a mystery.
In just a few weeks, “when the gales of November come slashin’,” it might bring to mind the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, especially for those most affected by the tragedy.
“The true loss of course,” Thomsen said, “is to the families that lost loved ones aboard.”
Added Adkins: “This is a memorial to them, it’s not a celebration. They still hurt from their dads, brothers, uncles going down with the ship.”
Learn More
Nov. 10 is the 50th anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck on Lake Superior, with memorial events planned to mark the occasion. Here are several good resources for information about the freighter and its sinking.
Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum (exhibit has ship’s bell and dive suit used to recover it), Whitefish Point, Michigan
Museum Ship Valley Camp (displays recovered Fitzgerald lifeboats), Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan
Wisconsin’s Great Lakes Shipwrecks (joint project of Wisconsin Sea Grant and the Wisconsin Historical Society)
