Edmund Fitzgerald was an ore -carrying freighter that sank on Lake Superior during a storm in 1975. The ship’s entire crew died. The freighter was the largest ship ever lost on the Great Lakes —the group of five large, freshwater lakes in the United States and Canada. The shipwreck is one of the most famous disasters in North American nautical history.
The ship.
The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was launched in June 1958. At the time, it was the largest ship in the Great Lakes. It was 729 feet (222 meters) long and 75 feet (23 meters) wide at its beam—that is, the widest part of the ship. The ship was named after the chairman of the board of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, which owned it. For many years, the Edmund Fitzgerald transported iron ore from mines in Minnesota and Wisconsin to steel mills and iron works in such places as Detroit, Michigan, and Toledo, Ohio.
The sinking.
On Nov. 10, 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald was carrying a full cargo of iron ore from Superior, Wisconsin, to a steel mill near Detroit when it was caught in a storm on Lake Superior. Shortly after 7 p.m., the ship sank in Canadian waters, about 17 miles (27 kilometers) from Whitefish Bay, Michigan. All 29 crew died.
Investigation.
Investigators never determined the precise reason for the sinking, but theories include rogue waves (unusually large and unexpected waves), badly fastened hatches, and structural failure. Some researchers have theorized that the ship sustained damage after grounding on a shoal (shallow-water mound or bank) earlier in the voyage.
In the spring of 1976, footage recorded by a U.S. Navy submersible (underwater research vehicle) showed the wreck broken almost exactly in half in about 530 feet (162 meters) of water. The ship’s bow (front section) was upright and the stern (rear section) was upside down, roughly 170 feet (52 meters) apart on the lake bed. Debris from the center section, where the ship broke apart, lay scattered nearby. The ship’s bell was recovered in 1995. It is exhibited at a memorial in Whitefish Point, Michigan.
Commemoration in song.
The Canadian singer Gordon Lightfoot wrote and recorded the haunting folk song “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” in the weeks after the ship’s sinking. Released in 1976, the song reached number one on the Canadian pop music charts and number two in the United States.
