Editor's note: this story first appeared April 11, 2020.

With nothing much more than time on our hands, everyone seems to be looking for a new hobby or learning about a new subject. I am no different.

After the recent deaths of two of my favorite songwriters, John Prine and Bill Withers, I had been streaming playlists of their songs and similar artists. Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” came on. I’ve heard it a hundred times; the song is so simple, yet beautiful and powerful. 

So, I decided to go back and read a bit more on the Lake Superior sinking from just over 45 years ago. It’s not the first time I spent an hour looking up information, stories and photos of the wreck, the ship and her crew; and I don’t think this will be the last, either.

For those unaware, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, AKA “The Fitz,” “Big Fitz,” “Pride of the American Side” among others, was a huge freighter that hauled iron ore from the Duluth/Superior shoreline, through Sault Ste. Marie and then down into the lower Great Lakes of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario to places like Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit and Buffalo.

The Fitz launched in 1958 and could hold over 25,000 tons of cargo. It was 729 feet long.

On Nov. 10, 1975, she and her crew were lost during a monster storm with hurricane force winds and waves more than 35 feet high. She sits 530 feet below the surface right on the territorial boundaries of the United States and Canada, just 15 miles from Whitefish Bay near Sault Ste. Marie.

During travel, The Fitz steered in a path near another iron ore-hauler, the Arthur M. Anderson. By 3:30 p.m. that afternoon, Fitz’s Captain, Ernest M. McSorley, reported taking on water, among other troubles on the lake. Less than four hours later, “Big Fitz” was no longer in radio contact or appeared by radar on the Anderson.

A variety of surveys and investigations have not led to many answers revealing what caused the ship to go down, taking her 29 crew members with. There are a variety of hypotheses on the sinking, with the storm and its large waves all being a common factor.

Could the ship have been brought down by one rogue wave, or even the “three sisters,” in which three monster rogue waves pound the ship one after another, putting too much water on the deck for the ship to hold? The Anderson reported being hit by two of these waves, but not a third. Could the Fitz, not far away, have caught the third wave that just missed the Anderson?

There is also belief that the cargo hold flooded. It’s possible the hatches and clamps weren’t all down and latched, as visible from underwater dives in the years since. 

Shoaling, or a grounding, is another hypothesis. There is an ancient underwater mountain near the crash site, and it’s possible the jagged tops of the reef from the mountain made contact with the freighter. 

The ship is split into two halves at the bottom, much like the Titanic in the Atlantic Ocean. Does this mean a potential structural failure caused it to split and sink, or did it simply split during descent?

As Lightfoot writes in his song, “And all that remains is the faces and the names/Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.”

The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is not the deadliest in the history of the Great Lakes. There have been over 6,000 shipwrecks logged in the five lakes, taking over 30,000 lives.

I first went to college at UW-Milwaukee, and my favorite beach in the entire state is at the end of Capitol Drive, just north of campus, called Atwater Park. From the top of the bluff you can look out at Lake Michigan, a variety of blues and greens in the water makes the beach and shoreline look more like the Caribbean than the upper Midwest in July. 

From the top of the stairs is an information plaque that talks about the wreck of the Appomattox in 1905. Just 150 yards from the shoreline in 10-15 feet of water sits the hull and some remnants of the largest wood vessel to sail the Great Lakes, the vessel is marked by a buoy and can be seen from the bluff.

Full of coal on Nov. 2, 1905, the Appomattox was headed south alongside the Santiago. Thick fog blanketed the horizon and both ships ran aground, as did the Iowa nearby. Both the Santiago and Iowa were freed, but the Appomattox had sustained such severe damage, it could not be refloated and was abandoned.

The site at Atwater Park is a very popular scuba attraction for the area; in fact, UWM offered a scuba diving class when I was in school and a “class trip” was to visit the Appomattox.

As I was reading history on these two wrecks I already knew about, I came across several more, like the SS Phoenix, which caught fire in November 1845 just off the shore of Sheboygan — it really seems that November is not be the best time to be out on the waters of the Great Lakes. 

It’s estimated that between 190 and 250 people died in the wreck — mostly Dutch immigrants. Only two lifeboats, which could hold 20 passengers each, were on the ship. By the time those on the lifeboats reached shore from rowing, those on the lifeboats were too tired to turn around and look for more survivors.

The justice of the peace of Sheboygan, Judge Morris, awoke during the night and spotted the flames. The crew of the steam vessel the Delaware went out to look for survivors, finding just three in the frigid waters.

This was not the only shipwreck the crew of the Delaware had to help with. Not five years later, the G.P. Griffith burned on Lake Erie, killing about 241 of 300 people on board. Five years later, on Nov. 3, 1855, the Delaware itself sank, killing 11 crew members as it voyaged from Chicago to Buffalo carrying hides, beef and flour. It sank in 15 feet of water off the shores of Sheboygan.

Thankfully, as the years went on, everything in the shipping world of the Great Lakes region improved. Ships are built better, structurally and with metal rather than wood; better mapping has led to more efficient and safer routes; regulations have been put in place to help save the ships and their crew members.

The waters are still dangerous, with 91 shipwrecks since 1950 — but none since the Linda E fishing collision in December 1998 in Lake Michigan. The Linda E was a tugboat built in 1937 in Manitowoc. In its final voyage, it went missing off the coast of Port Washington while fishing, taking all three crew members with it. It was found 18 months later by the USS Defender seven miles off shore under 260 feet of water.

Because there have been more than 6,000 documented shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, I’ve got a lot more reading to do. One thing is for certain, the lakes never give up their dead, as Lightfoot once sang. 

“Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings

In the rooms of her ice-water mansion

Old Michigan steams like a young man’s dreams

The islands and bays are for sportsmen

And farther below Lake Ontario

Takes in what Lake Erie can send her

And the iron boats go as the mariners all know

With the gales of November remembered.”

— Gordon Lightfoot, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, 1976

— Adam Krebs is a reporter for the Times and his column appears regularly. He can be reached at editor@themonroetimes.com.