What Really Happened to the Freighter Edmund Fitzgerald?
“The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee Superior, it’s said, never gives up her dead When the gales of November come early.” Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot wrote possibly the most accurate and heart-wrenching memorial to the twenty-nine men lost on 10 November 1975, when the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald disappeared into the gale-wracked waters of Lake Superior.
When the gales of November come early.” Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot wrote possibly the most accurate and heart-wrenching memorial to the twenty-nine men lost on 10 November 1975, when the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald disappeared into the gale-wracked waters of Lake Superior. The ship went down without sending a distress signal in 530 feet of water, only 17 miles from safety in Whitefish Bay, Michigan. The puzzling loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald is one of the most infamous marine disasters in the history of shipping on the Great Lakes. The big freighter departed from Superior, Wisconsin on the afternoon of 9 November 1975. She was fully loaded with taconite, an iron ore, bound for a steel mill in Cleveland, Ohio. The Fitzgerald initially crossed Superior at 13 knots (15 mph/24 km/h) until she encountered a massive, unexpected winter storm with winds in excess of 50 knots and waves nearly 16 feet high. “The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound As the waves broke over t
