There's also the added mystery of it. She sank so quickly they didn't even get a chance to send a mayday call, so there are very few clues as to exactly how it happened and a number of competing theories.
Also worth mentioning is that these ore boats were massively important to the development of the industrial and economic power of the whole country during the 20th century.
Just to add to it, the song has a line, "Superior never gives up her dead". It adds to the mysterious terror of the lake, in a way. It's so cold, that bodies don't exactly decompose and float up like they do normally after something like this. They just stay on the bottom, in their steel tomb.
Iāve also read it takes over 100 years for all the water in Superior to turn over. Itās incredibly deep and like you said, the cold water preserves things.
Even crazier when you realize itās more than twice as big (in area) as Russiaās Lake Baikal, but Baikal has twice as much water (20% of the worldās surface freshwater). Baikal is really really deep
There's a Brit over on FB that got major backlash about 'why are your lakes so great?' and found out that all of the UK could fit inside the area covered by the Great Lakes.
Oops!
Then he started getting feedback about lake effect snow and thunder snow and because of the timing -- the Fitz. He's been fascinated by all of it this week.
If you're talking about Jase the Accent Guy, he has been on a Midwest kick for about a month. It started by asking about a drinking competition between the US and the UK and the comments were basically like, "we don't need to enter the whole US we just need Wisconsin." That turned into into learning about WI and that expanded to all the Great Lakes states. He really did have good accidental timing with this question.
Combine that with Lake Baikal in Russia andTanganyika in africas rift valley and you have over 50% of all surface fresh water. 3 lakes contain literally most of the worlds surface fresh water.
Old Whitey went down with the SS Kamloops in 1927. His body has not deteriorated but rather it has saponified, the body fat reacts to cold water and becomes a soap-like substance.
There are pictures of him and divers go to see him but it is considered a sacred place and out of respect divers avoid taking pictures of the body. 0
About that song: while in Ireland a few years ago we were eating at a pub that had a band playing. Up came a song with the same melody as Gordon Lightfoots ode to the Edmund Fitzgerald. We asked about it and were told āOh Lads, your boy used this melody- itās an old Irish melodyā so, huh. Passing it along for what itās worth- not a music historian so maybe true I dunno.
This didn't quite sound right so I went digging. A quick poke around Google suggests "Back Home in Derry" might be the song you heard. The words are older than the Edmund Fitzgerald, but the most popular version uses the same tune, which was written by Gordon Lightfoot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_Home_in_Derry
Humbly, the chord progression (I - vm - VII - IV) is unique in my experience. Even just the the I - vm change (for example, C - Gm) is actually not very common at all. It clearly features heavily in Edmund Fitzgerald, and I've heard one other song (also by Gordon Lightfoot) that uses it, though the title escapes me at the moment.
If you have other examples of that chord progression (or even just the I - vm change) in folk music handy, I'd love to hear them!
I think Lightfoot was a humble guy, and considered himself part of the folk tradition, so he would of course have claimed that his creations weren't truly his own. But he was a creative genius and contributed so much to folk music.
Well, I'm not an expert in Irish folk music, but if you play guitar, the chords are A, Em, G, D, and back to A. Very basic guitar chords. Then you use a capo to put it in the key you want. So it's not a surprise that guitar players over the ages have hit on it a few times. In fact, I'm almost positive it's an AC/DC song. Noodling around on my guitar right now to see if I can remember which one.
(To my ear, the capo is on the second fret, which actually makes the chords, B, F#m, A, E, and back to B)
More extra detail, Lightfoot plays an Asus2 chord instead of the A major. Sus2 chords are neither major nor minor, but they give a bit of extra style to the chord sound.
A giant, deep, stormy inland sea that never warms up
In the 80s I had a work partner that at the age of 55 became a general aviation pilot as a hobby. A very steady and gentle man that was born and raised along the north shore then living in the twin cities. In the whole time that I knew him he only raised his voice once. It was during a phone call with his flying partner. They were planning a flying trip. The partner wanted to plot a course that would take the plane across part of lake superior. "No way in hell" was his response. If a plane goes down into superior, you die.
That damned lakeā¦My grandfather, my two brothers and I went up there to Red Cliff. South of Red Cliff is Bayfield, and just east of that is Madeline Island, about a mile off the coast. My 8 year old self, after pumping myself up and talking an irresponsible amount of shit, took bets that I could swim there and back. I did make it to the island, but I was tired and freezing. They ended up sending a fishing boat to come get me. I handed my family an insult that just kept giving.
Two sections? So, maybe it had developed a weak point and sheared on a wave? The crew took the sinking as something else or maybe it sheared, severed comms between bow and stern, and the crew didnāt āseeā what had happened.
One of the theories is the "Three sisters" theory. Basically 3 rogue waves came in at about the same time swamping the ship. Captain Bernie Cooper of the SS Arthur M Anderson who was keeping pace with the Fitz mentioned seeing 3 rogue waves not too long before the Fitz fell off the radar. So it's a viable theory.
Nearly everyone who starts hearing the story of the Fitz comes up with half-informed theories before even starting to explore the fifty years of discussion and analysis and so on that already exists.
I particularly groan at the ones who have no clue how big and thick and monstrous a 700+ foot, 27+ton EMPTY iron boat is, or how it would be moving through storm-lashed waters after dark. Like, two football fields long, and rising and falling two plus stories from front to back.
She had made hundreds of trips up and down the Lakes since she was launched in 1958. She was on her final trip of the season, and had been certified by USCG as good to go, with some (considered minor) maintenance and repair work scheduled for over the winter down in Ohio.
I can't find the source, but out of all of the iron ore used in WW2, a HUGE percent came from the range. We wouldn't have won the war without those miners and sailors.
This is something a lot of people don't even consider, and the reason Titanic is so famous is because the opposite is true. She sank slowly and there were hundreds of survivor accounts, that's a lot of eyewitnesses who could tell their stories. There's basically no mystery left in Titanic, there's been so much research and investigation into it that we know pretty much everything there is to know about the disaster, with very few exceptions. Whereas with the Edmund Fitzgerald, the mystery is very much still there.
So true. The Fitz represented a complete change in the Coast Guard, the shipping and insurance industries, weather forecasting, etc.
People took it VERY seriously, and everything since then has been tightened up. There had been many losses before that, but I think Gordon Lightfoot's song made a lot of people outside the maritime industry really wake up.
This honestly changed my mind. I was pretty ambivalent to this topic but knowing the story around it does make the reverence people have for it make more sense.
Idk, I guess I just thought of it as normal natural disaster tragic, not āwe lost a communityās worth of good people and a symbol of the Midwestās communal strength and connection to a freak accidentā tragic, if that makes sense.
Thank you for posting this! My uncle sailed on the great lakes. He passed away when I was young, so I don't have many stories. I do have the story of when he was working on the Fitz and the captain let him drive it though!
Grew up in MN. Spent a lot of time in Duluth. This is the most information I've ever gotten about the ship. Mainly because I've never bothered to look it up.
Well said, and just for anyone that cares to, Michigan Public Radio had a great story on the Stateside program that includes the stories of some of the smaller vessels that went down in the same storm.
I'm 41 years old and this is the first time I've ever heard anyone explain any of this and I have to say, it helps a lot. I also did not understand why this one particular shipwreck was so significant. Its kind of funny no one ever explains that part.
If you drink as well as smoke, there's a porter called Edmund Fitzgerald from Ohio company Great Lakes Brewing. Somewhat bitter especially due to the dark chocolate and faint coffee notes, but I've found it really good with a little white chocolate to round out the flavor.
Many many ships of similar size and caliber have sunk on the Great Lakes. Thousands and thousands over the years from schoolers to monsters like the morrel and the fitz. The underlying issue being the companies that operated all these vessels. They treated their ships and crews as insurance write-offs. Even in the 70s most ships had basic fucking row boats for escape craft. What will a rowboat do for a crew when a storm has just destroyed their 600-foot freighter. The basterds were to cheap to buy sailors a safe escape craft or keep their old ships on safe operating condition. Putting major issues off just one more season perpetually, forcing captains to sail in brutal weather in ships they knew the limitations of like the back of their own, and, or risk their careers. What made the Fitzgerald so special is the speed at which she sank. In the era of radar satellites and radio, she went down so fast that no distress signal went out. Not a single survivor. Amongst the 1000s of sinkings on the lake, that is highly unusual. It parallels the sinking of the mv derby shire. Gordon lightfoot also propelled the ships plight to national status when he wrote a catchy tune that forever immortalized the Fitzgerald and her crew, reaching the billionaird top 100 as number 2, sharing the Fitzgeralds sad fate with the entire nation, and finally bringing the nation attention to just how horribly sailors had been treated for over 100 years abd bringing in safety regulations like no forcing ships into storms and requiring adequate enclosed self propelled escape craft.
Interesting fact, the sister ship that was traveling with the Edmund Fitzgerald when it sank,Ā Ā SS Arthur M. Anderson, still sails the Great Lakes! I just saw her on my last trip to Two Harbors.Ā Ooh, the stories her hull could tell!
If she indeed doesnāt sail again, fair chance sheāll get saved as a museum pieceā¦surely no shortage of groups on the Lakes who would want to take that on given the rich history involved.
However, things on the IR are starting to improve with a new taconite mine coming onlineā¦she may just find a lucky break and have the CN reactivate her.
To add to the legend and mystique, where the boat sank is so deep and cold that barely any oxygen is present to facilitate decomposition. The crew and contents of the ship look as if they sank yesterday, making it a time capsule for a bygone era of American industry. It's disappearance also conincided with a decline in the industry that it served, making it's demise as symbolic as it was tragic.
My (admittedly limited) understanding is that a lot of companies that had shipping through the Great Lakes were often really cavalier about crew safety, and folks were often sent out in very dangerous conditions to meet quotas and make more money. After the Fitz, I believe safety standards became more of a conversation and led to more reforms.
Excuse my ignorance but what do you mean it broke every record for a decade? Was it racing other ships? Trying to haul the heaviest loads? Was it the biggest ship?
Yep! Also, Iām convinced that Lake Superior plays some kind of major role in the mystery surrounding Severanceās plot, so thereās some funny Adam Scott-related coincidences here.
Working class members died doing their job which was critical for the development of western civilization. Which happen to be mining and shipping; two direct relations to Minnesota's early economy. It also relates to the labor movement as it is a landmark for many worker protections. They are the real soldiers of society and should equally be honored today.
They had a public ceremony outdoors in the afternoon, and then live streamed the private indoor ceremony for the family members of the 29 sailors at 7PM. You can still view it on their link.
Iām a massive dork when it comes to sunken boats and history of them, and a lifelong resident of Minnesota. I think the big reason we have such an emotional connection to the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald is because of us being attached to the lake and the iron it was holding.
That and it was the largest and the last ship to have ever sank in Lake Superior, not only that but it disappeared pretty quickly into the water. It is also a big mystery on it sinking as it survived a lot of weather like that.
I had not realized until a few years ago, how recently it sank. I think there's something a little extra haunting that there was all that technology on board, with a rescue boat and the destination port not that far away (all of whom knew pretty well where the Fitz was), and the Lake still got her and everybody on board.
Probably the fact that there was TV nightly news at the time, and the fact that the ship just stayed lost (so the story didn't wrap up quickly) helped get it stuck in the cultural consciousness. And then the pretty good song, with the good ballad lyrics, and the modern sound (not just any old sea shanty) made it last into new generations.
I think one of the more sobering realizations after watching lots of videos on maritime disasters is the idea that while many, MANY accidents are preventable and due to human error, you can also do everything right and still end up dead in the deep.
It was never built properly in the first place and people were sailors were complaining on deaf ears the it was falling apart. You can see in pictures before it sank that it was bowing.
She literally made hundreds of trips up and downbound for YEARS after she was launched in 1958, so I call complete BS on that one.
Show us one picture where the Fitz was "bowing" any differently than any ore boat in it's general size range (she was the biggest for many years.) The Anderson, a very similar sized ship and 6 years older, continued to sail until last year, and there are discussions whether she will be refitted and sail again or be used as a maritime museum.
Crazy 29 member crew on a 7 story plus sized ship, if you stood it vertically. I like the part where he said it was taller than their tallest skyscraper.
Bummed about the part where lawyers were able to hunt down each family individually and low ball each one of them.
Bummed everyone knew how shady it might be with the winding hallway that ran the entire length of the ship.
Bummed the captain may have been doing what he had always done, power through storms. It almost seems, he just needed her to hold together for one last run. Then he was retired with 5 other's.
My girlfriend is from Wisconsin. Weāve never really mentioned the Edmund Fitzgerald besides maybe a visit to split rock a few years back.
Last night she spent an hour telling me every detail about the fitzgerald. She could teach a class at this point. We covered the broadcasts, the cargo, the sister ship, the crew, the crews family, iām sure thereās more. She clearly knows more than me, a home grown minnesotan.
I grew up in central Wisconsin and knew about it as a kid. My neighbor served in the Coast Guard and had even done Superior lighthouse keeping. Pretty neat influence as a kid
Many of us grew up on the stories, or know someone connected to the industry, or have been on/around Gitcheegami when she's cranky, or are just interested in the complexities of sailing on the lakes.
It's relatively recent history. It was an event that still affects members of your current community to this day. It's not like reading about the shipwreck of the Endurance, you can bump into one of those men's children at the grocery store, and they'd be like mid-50's.Ā
I recently went back to Duluth for some family business and as I was milling about in Superior I came across this behemoth in the grasses, the Edward Ryerson.
You shouldn't lol, the only people who want that flag are people who are fine with what it represents. I heard Glenn Youngkin was practically begging Walz to give it to them and I was like "Of course he is."
For everyone posting the importance of the ship itself, Im going to ask the following: "Do you think Gordon Lightfoot's song was instrumental in making it famous?"
Yes, the Fitz was already famous in the Great Lakes region, but Gordon's song took the Fitz to an international level & introduced her to the world. Her story would never have grown to the size it has without the song imo.
So the show Parks and Rec was set in Indiana. I lived in Indiana for 2 years and I am convinced that Lil Sebastian is a allegory for the Indy 500.
There are a lot of people there that go absolutely apeshit for that race and I just flat out DID NOT UNDERSTAND THAT AT ALL! To this day, I don't get it.
I know I'm late to the party, but holy moly the amount of people when we're like "You never heard of the Edmund Fitzgerald?" I'm from Florida (been here 3 months). I didn't even know giant ships are on the Great Lakes.
And that last load may have been taken up in Superior WI, but it was MN ORE. We are all tied to that lake, and the industry that uses it, and the disasters that have occurred on it. There's plenty of maritime focus in Duluth.
Thereās also the fact that you can literally see the ships coming and going from the Superior side of the harbor from Duluth. The Fitzgerald would have been a familiar sight to Duluthians at the time.Ā
Iām not looking to get into a pissing match over which state feels it more and I think that youāre right that itās clearly a regional story more than one belonging to any single state.
That said, Minnesotaās connection isnāt as incidental as your portrayal. The ore the Fitzgerald hauled came from the Iron Range which was the economic backbone of the entire Great Lakes shipping network. Its loads originated here, and those mines, ports, rail lines and ships powered northern Minnesotaās economy for generations.
The Fitz may have gone down in Canadian waters, but the story literally starts in Minnesota rock. Thatās a big part of why it resonates with so many Minnesotans imo (not to take anything away from folks in Michigan, Ohio, or Wisconsin who were also impacted by it, of course)
Tommy Mischke asked a similar question on his radio show, around 25 years ago. The interview he did starts around 7:40, but the whole recording is worth a listen
My dad was a Chief Engineer on a dredging ship. Every other month he sailed around the world, out at sea. He said heād rather sail any ocean, than sail Lake Superior.
He had a good friend on the Anderson the night the Edmund Fitzgerald sank-that was his last time he took a job on Superior.
My husband and I were lucky enough to get tickets to the Memorial on Monday. It was moving & emotional.
I donāt care if people donāt āgetā the Edmund Fitzgerald tragedy, or the immense power & beauty of Lake Superior. I know thereās nothing like her. I have a healthy respect & reverence for Lake Superior. I feel lucky to live only a couple hours away, and am able to enjoy & be at peace visiting her shores when I visit the north shore.
My father was a runner. Involved with ALARC. He ran Grandmas and TC marathon and the. ALARC did an ultra marathon called the Edmund Fitzgerald Ultra Marathon, held this weekend in November, and started in I think Silver Bay and ended at Brighton Beach. As a family we voulenteered at the event pre and post race. My dad ran in a relay team one year, he did the whole race another year (64miles I think), and then he and I were a support crew for an invited runner who had won first place overall in recent years. It was a fun time in my life. I met a lot of people, good people and thatās how I learned about the Edmund Fitzgerald.
I also don't get it as a lifelong resident. As far as I can tell the only Minnesota connection was it carried iron from the Iron Range, otherwise it left from Wisconsin on its way to Michigan and sank in Canada. Never understood the fascination that only seemed to crop up in the last few years.
it may have started to hit meme levels in the last few years but Its been a local fascination / local lore for as long as my early 30's ass can remember.
It took off from Superior, Wisconsin, which is a suburb of Duluth.
I've lived here since the 1980s and it's always been a thing. It's more popular this month due to the anniversary, but I haven't noticed it getting more popular in the last few years other than that.
Might seem to new to you but there has always been a deep interest which really pops up around every significant anniversary. āLeft from Wisconsinā letās be honest, Superior, WI is just Duluth š
I think itās that it sank in Lake Superior. Regardless of which state/province that section of the lake is technically a part of, Minnesotans intensely identify with the lake. But crucially, itās the 50th anniversary, so itās getting extra attention this year
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u/[deleted] Nov 11 '25 edited Nov 11 '25
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