This Year is the 47th Anniversary of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Friday, November 11th, 2022 -- 9:00 AM

(AP/CBS) It has been 47 years since the Edmund Fitzgerald sank to the bottom of Lake Superior during storm-force winds.

On Nov. 10, 1975, the 29-person crew perished in the wreck just 15 miles off the shores of Whitefish Point, Mich. Their bodies are entombed inside the wreck. The Great Lakes have claimed thousands of ships since European explorers began navigating the waters in the 1600s, but few have captured the public’s imagination as has the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Much of that attention is owed to Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting ballad, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” which memorialized the ship and its crew members. The 729-foot vessel vanished from radar screens as winds of hurricane force, of 75 miles per hour, raised waves to 25 feet in 42-degree weather.

The vessel was carrying a load of iron ore pellets to a Detroit steel mill when it plunged to the bottom 17 miles from Whitefish Point in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. At the time of the wreck, the Coast Guard said the Fitzgerald may have broken up and sunk before a distress call could be made.

A nearby vessel, the Arthur M. Anderson, reported it received a call from the Fitzgerald. The call indicated the Fitzgerald was taking on water but its pumps were working and the vessel was not in immediate danger. Nothing so tragic has occurred on the Great Lakes since.

(Photo By Greenmars, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=106988525)

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