50 Years Later, the Edmund Fitzgerald Still Haunts

Reflections from a Michigan transplant and a novice sailor.

As a kid, the story of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was lore, a tragic marker of November 10, 1975, and a solemn reminder of Lake Superior’s unforgiving power. But now, as a sailing-obsessed adult, that legend carries a different weight.

When my family moved to Michigan in 1976, I was eight years old and starting third grade in a new state. I quickly picked up the accent, and grew curious about the Native American place names and the layered history of the Great Lakes. That’s when I first heard about the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, the enormous freighter that had vanished in Lake Superior just months earlier. 

By Greenmars, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

At the time, it felt like a story you couldn’t escape. Now, its loss is part of the Great Lake’s cultural DNA, immortalized in Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting ballad, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The Fear and the Lure

I understand why some people find sailing scary. The water can be unpredictable and the weather relentless. And honestly, a part of me still holds that fear. I’m a weak swimmer, and drowning is one of my worst nightmares. Yet it’s hard to resist the draw of the water.

It’s a passion that puts me in a small, slightly irrational club of people, I know. But that shared passion is what connects those who choose a life on the water. And while I would never compare the modest risks we take as novice sailors to the peril faced by the Fitzgerald’s crew,  I think I understand, in some small way, what draws mariners to leave the safety of land behind.

As the 50th anniversary of that night approaches, I find myself trying to understand not only what happened, but what it means to be called by something as vast and forboding as Lake Superior.

The Unknowable Truth

For nearly five decades, the question “What sank the Fitz?” has haunted divers, historians, and sailors alike. Despite investigations and official reports, the truth remains hidden beneath Lake Superior’s icy depths.

What we do know is that her loss wasn’t due to a single failure, but rather a chilling convergence of forces, a perfect storm in every sense. Experts generally agree the Fitzgerald’s dangerously heavy load left her with barely 11 feet of freeboard (the distance between the waterline and main deck) on that final voyage.

By NTSB – Marine accident report SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinking in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975 (PDF) 34. National Transportation Safety Board (1978-05-04). Retrieved on 2010-11-19., Public Domain, Link

The convergence of forces:

• The Power of the Storm: The sheer, sustained intensity of that November storm, compounded by frigid temperatures causing dangerous ice formation, was a merciless force.
  
• Hatch Integrity and Waves: With such low freeboard, huge waves constantly washed over the deck. If the hatch covers were compromised, thousands of gallons of water could have poured into the holds.
  
• The Six Fathom Shoal Scrape: The Arthur M. Anderson, the Fitzgerald’s escort that night, saw her sail dangerously close to a shallow ridge north of Caribou Island known as the Six Fathom Shoal. At only 36 feet deep (and possibly as shallow as 11 feet), the Mighty Fitz, drawing a heavy draft, could have scraped the shoal. This “bottoming out” may have caused a slow, fatal wound below the waterline.
  
• Cargo Failure: A truly horrifying possibility stems from the cargo itself. The taconite pellets contained clay. If the hull was damaged and water was seeping into the cargo holds, instead of sloshing and triggering the ballast pumps, the clay would have absorbed the water, becoming increasingly heavy. This would have allowed the ship to take on thousands of gallons of water undetected by the crew, silently dragging the ship lower and lower in the water until it was overwhelmed.
  
• Structural Failure: Under massive wave stress, the Fitzgerald may have suffered hogging and sagging, her hull bending violently over and between waves until the ship finally broke apart.

The Fitzgerald disappeared so suddenly that her crew never had time to radio a distress call or launch lifeboats. Whatever happened, it was swift, decisive, and complete.

The Mariner’s Code

While the mechanics of the disaster can be studied endlessly, it goes without saying that the heart of the story lies with the people, the 29 men who had no chance to call for help.

Recently, Kent and I listened to the audiobook The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon, a beautifully told, deeply human retelling. We were transfixed for hours. And when the story reached its climax, that old chill returned.

The moment that undid me was when Captain Bernie Cooper of the Arthur M. Anderson, the very ship that had last seen the Fitzgerald on radar, after having navigated his own ship through the maelstrom and made it to the relative safety of Whitefish Bay, was asked to turn back into the storm to search for survivors. 

The Anderson’s crew had just escaped the same fury that swallowed the Fitzgerald. The vessel was battered, the crew exhausted, the winds still howling, and without hesitation, Captain Cooper turned the ship around.

Driven by the knowledge that the fate of the Fitzgerald could have easily been their own, they risked everything to search for their lost colleagues. That very act defines the Mariner’s Code, an unwritten covenant: fellow sailors help, because they know if they were in trouble, they’d need help too, like a debt pre-paid.

That courage—and the empathy behind it—is why this maritime tragedy holds such a fierce grip on my imagination. Of course, the story of the Edmund Fitzgerald is a classic tragedy of hubris meeting nature: proof that even the most advanced human engineering can be utterly defeated by the raw, untamable power of the natural world, particularly on Lake Superior, which hides its dangers behind such breathtaking beauty.

But more than that, the story is about the 29 men who risked everything to work on the water, turning the Great Lakes into both an economic engine and a watery grave. The story is about the courage of the mariners who perished, and the mariners who survived and dared to turn back into the storm to find them.

Audiobook Recommendation

If you’re drawn to stories of courage, mystery, and the Great Lakes, I can’t recommend The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John Bacon enough. The audiobook brings the human side of the Edmund Fitzgerald tragedy vividly to life. Immersive, emotional, and meticulously researched, it’s a must-listen for anyone fascinated by maritime history or moved by tales of resilience on the water.