As of Monday, November 10, it has been fifty years since the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank during a sudden, violent storm on Lake Superior, claiming the lives of all 29 crew members.
Far too often we’re amnesiacs when it comes to history, but the men who were lost that terrible night in 1975 are remembered. For this we have a song to thank, and a beer to drink.
The Edmund Fitzgerald’s back story is divine-right-inland-empire Americana writ large. The freighter was built in 1958 for the express purpose of carrying iron ore from the Mesabi Range in Minnesota, via Duluth and neighboring Superior in Wisconsin, to steel mills in places like Indiana Harbor and Toledo, as supplying factories in Detroit, Cleveland and elsewhere (the Rust Belt, or so we’re told).
The Edmund Fitzgerald was considered a workhorse, and only middle-aged as far as such vessels are concerned. There are specific and interrelated reasons why the ship sank, a disaster that led to enhanced safety measures on the Great Lakes, but arguably the most important takeaway for casual observers is that Lake Superior, while freshwater, is in every respect an inland sea, one capable of generating adverse weather rivaling any to be experienced on the planet’s vast oceans.
There have been more than 550 shipwrecks recorded on Lake Superior, with many of them ― probably most ― being weather-related. Approximately 549 of them are forgotten, but the Edmund Fitzgerald’s memory lives on because the Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot (1938 – 2023) read newspaper coverage of the sinking and decided to retell the story in his own words.
In August, 1976 Lightfoot released “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” It was a huge hit, albeit completely unexpected, and quickly became a career-defining performance. Nothing could have been less likely to hit the top of the charts at the dawning of disco. The song was too long, dirge-like, and absent hooks or even a chorus. It pertained to work, not play; it was serious, not frivolous.
That “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” captivated millions owes to its sheer, unadulterated authenticity. Lightfoot was obsessed by a nagging fear that his song would be viewed as exploitative, not the memorial he intended, and he devoted long hours to verifying the details. Incredibly, the original version we hear today not only was Take...Read more
