The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

I grew up in the 1970s—a time so long ago. Back then, we listened to the radio all the time. Not streaming, not podcasts, just good old AM/FM radio. We listened to the radio in the car. We had transistor radios, so we could listen outside as we rode our bikes or jumped on the trampoline. My sister and I also had a radio in our bedroom. We’d sit on our beds and wait to hear our favorite songs and artists, staying perfectly still when something good came on so we wouldn’t miss a single note or line.

In 1976, when I was 11 years old, I sat cross-legged on my bed and heard a memorable ballad by singersongwriter Gordon Lightfoot. The song told the haunting story of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and it was one of the first times I realized that music could be more than dance music and entertainment. It could act as a memorial—a way to keep history alive. You probably know those first lines: The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Of the big lake, they called Gitche Gumee The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead When the skies of November turn gloomy November 10 marks the 50th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in the waters of Lake Superior (Gitche Gumee, as ancient indigenous people referred to it), and it feels important to pause and remember the tragedy.

Captain Ernest McSorley and his crew were fighting for their lives against what sailors call the “Witch of November” when his final words crackled over the radio: “We are holding our own.” Less than 15 minutes later, 35-foot waves and a blinding snowstorm on the great lake overcame the mighty Edmund Fitzgerald and its 29-person crew.

There was no distress signal. No goodbye. Just silence.

The crew still rests 500 feet at the bottom of the Canadian waters near Whitefish Bay, but their memory lives on in legend and song, thanks to Gordon Lightfoot, AM/ FM radios all over the world, and a generation that sang along. When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck, sayin’ “Fellas, it’s too rough to feed ya” At seven p.m., a main hatchway caved in, he said “Fellas, it’s been good to know ya” The 729-foot-long SS Edmund Fitzgerald had been launched on June 7, 1958, and at the time, it was the largest ship on the Great Lakes— so goliath that crowds often gathered to watch it haul iron ore across the vast waters. Like the Titanic, it seemed unsinkable. On its final voy- continued from page

age, it carried a full crew of sons, brothers, fathers, husbands, and friends. When that ship sank, like so many others across the Great Lakes, the impact rippled through entire communities. The disaster left fatherless children, widows, and lives turned upside down in an instant.

Despite extensive investigations, authorities still aren’t sure what happened after McSorley’s last transmission. Theories range from the ship striking a shallow causing damage to the bottom of the vessel, to flooding through ineffective hatch covers, to rogue waves, to structural flaws that succumbed to the 1975 storm. And because its true story is buried deep in the lakebed, we probably will never know exactly what happened.

What we do know is that Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting folk ballad etched this tragedy into pop culture forever. The song spent 21 weeks on the Billboard charts in 1976. On paper, it should never have been a hit at all. At six minutes, most found it too slow and too long to be a hit. The somber subject matter also made it a long shot, as most music of the time was upbeat and happy, such as “Silly Love Songs” by Wings and “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” by Elton John and Kiki Dee. Still, it became one of the defining singles of the 1970s.

Gordon Lightfoot, who died in 2023, called it his finest work.

This is how historic events have been chronicled through the centuries— with poems and songs being written and sung to generation after generation, keeping the facts of events alive. That radio in my childhood bedroom didn’t just play music; it told stories, preserved history, and taught me that some tragedies deserve to be remembered.

Fifty years later, I still remember.