“The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead when the skies of November turn gloomy.”
50 years ago today marks the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which is infamous for its mystery and notoriety from the Gordon Lightfoot ballad that so many know today. These past few weeks, memes about the treacherous Gales of November have flooded Instagram and TikTok’s For You Pages. So naturally for “This Week in History,” I thought I would contribute to the conversation. Though all the memes and jokes have kept the memory alive, I can’t help but feel that we’ve “lost the plot” so to speak. 29 men lost their lives that night, joining the 6,000 ships lost to the depths of Lake Superior. Ultimately, the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald heralded a new era of maritime safety and regulation. Since 1975, no commercial ships have sunk in Lake Superior, showing that perhaps the tragedy was not in vain.
The Edmund Fitzgerald was a mighty ship at 729 feet long. It was known as the greatest ship on the Great Lakes during its launch in 1958. The ship was named after the CEO of Northwestern Mutual Insurance, who had commissioned the ship, and during its christening Fitzgerald’s wife Elizabeth had attempted to break the bottle of champagne two times before it finally gave way. Shortly after, they had some difficulty releasing the ship; it ended up sliding into the water sideways, sending a giant wave toward the crowd of 10,000 spectators. One man had a heart attack from the shock and passed away. Superstition and maritime culture go hand in hand. When I visited Croatia just last summer, I spoke to some local sea sponge divers who believed it was bad luck for women to be on ships. Some say that this inauspicious christening may have paved the way for the ship’s untimely end 17 years later.
The Great Lakes were known for their October and November storms. When the Fitzgerald went out that night, however, they weren’t expecting the conditions they faced. The storm was said to travel south, causing rough conditions, though not impassable, but that ended up not being the case. As the barometer dropped and the winds picked up speed, the Fitzgerald and the other freight ship nearby, the Anderson, headed to a northern course in Lake Superior so they could be protected by the Canadian Shore. Weather conditions continued to deteriorate accompanied by 12-to-16-foot waves. The Anderson watched as the Fitzgerald approached too close to a shallow area near Caribou Island, where the waves would be even stronger. Throughout the night the Fitzgerald kept in contact with the Anderson, informing them that they had been taking on water and were facing problems and asking them to remain close by during the storm.
In a 1993 interview, Captain Jesse Cooper of the Anderson recalls his last interactions over the radio with Captain Ernest McSorley of the Fitzgerald. The last he heard from McSorley was that “they were holding their own.” After that, silence, no mayday or call of distress. The snow continued to block visibility, and the lights from the ship went out.
After losing sight of the Fitzgerald, Cooper began communicating with the Coast Guard. Concerned for the ship and the crew, the Anderson crew even risked their own lives to help aid in the search. The Fitzgerald’s lifeboats had not been deployed, and they were unable to find any of the crew amidst the wreckage. To this day exactly how the ship sank is still a mystery. Perhaps that’s why the legend continues on.
Gordon Lightfoot, as a Great Lakes sailor himself, felt a connection to the tragedy. He sought to write the ballad to honor these men and their families and was surprised when the song reached the top of the charts in 1976. Each year, the Great Lakes Maritime Academy rings the Fitzgerald bell 30 times to commemorate those lost to the lake; the year Lightfoot passed, they rang it a 31st time.
Today, the Fitzgerald lives on in our hearts, perhaps in a way that was not expected. I simply ask that, within all the memes of “Edmund Fitzgerald November,” we remember the 29 men who lost their lives and eventually put a stop to the deaths occurring on commercial shipping routes in the Great Lakes.
“The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake, they call Gitche Gumee. Superior, they said, never gives up her dead when the gales of November come early.”