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40 years later, ship's legend lives on in a Gordon Lightfoot song and two museums
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald lies along a teacherous stretch of Lake Superior. But in all its tragedy is a chain of fascinating history.
Jay JonesTribune Newspapers
40 years later, the Edmund Fitzgerald's legend lives on.
From the sandy shore strewn with bleached driftwood and smoothed stones, a former Coast Guard station looms, capped by the oldest lighthouse on Lake Superior.
Just 100 or so yards away, its red-roofed buildings now form the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, which details 13 of the thousands of wrecks scattered across the five lakes.
There's the Carl D. Bradley, which sank in Lake Michigan in 1958 with the loss of 33 lives. Another 28 died when the Daniel J. Morrell went down in Lake Huron in 1966.
Few remember those wrecks. As Bruce Lynn, the museum's executive director, observed, "Nobody wrote a song about them."
The name that sticks out is the Edmund Fitzgerald, cast in the minds of a generation by Gordon Lightfoot's haunting ballad.
That good ship and crew was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early.
All 29 sailors remain at the bottom of Lake Superior, more than 500 feet below the surface, after the freighter foundered during a vicious storm 40 years ago this month.
Scores of ships have sunk along the notorious shoreline between Whitefish Point and Munising, 80 miles to the west in Michigan's remote and rugged Upper Peninsula. In addition to visiting the museum, people can see wrecks firsthand along the lakeshore, both from land and sea.
Website features 3-D views of shipwrecks along Indiana shoreline
Website features 3-D views of shipwrecks along Indiana shoreline
Every half-hour or so, Lightfoot's song sets a somber mood as guests move through the part of the museum devoted to the lakes' most famous disaster.
At the exhibit's core is the ship's 200-pound bronze bell, raised 20 years ago with the blessing of the families of those who perished. Nearby are a large model of the Fitzgerald and flotsam such as oars and a rocket flare from lifeboats that were never launched.
"(Visitors) want to know more about this wreck," Lynn said. 'What is your theory? What do you think happened?' People ask us that all the time."
There is no definitive answer. What is known is that a massive storm with 35-foot waves and winds of nearly 100 miles an hour battered the ship. It began taking on water and listing to one side.
At around 7 p.m. Nov. 10, 1975, Capt. Ernest McSorley radioed a nearby ship, the Arthur M. Anderson.
"We are holding our own," the veteran sailor reported.
At that moment, the Anderson had the Fitzgerald on its radar. Then, a blizzard obscured the signal.
Dive team discovers 116-year-old shipwreck in Lake Michigan
Dive team discovers 116-year-old shipwreck in Lake Michigan
"When the snow squall lifted, there was no longer a Fitzgerald. There was no blip," said Terry Begnoche, the museum's former manager. "They disappeared in an instant. There was no distress call — nothing — from the crew."
That lack of a "mayday" means only one thing to Begnoche: The already stricken vessel had succumbed to a mammoth wave that crashed over its bow.
"We believe the ship never recovered," he continued. "It kept on going straight down."
The "Fitz," as it's often called, is just one of an estimated 300 to 600 ships lying at the bottom of Lake Superior along the infamous stretch of shoreline. Veteran sailor Joe Lindquist takes passengers to a couple of them during the shipwreck tours he operates out of Munising.
Peering into the chilly, clear water through the Miss Munising's glass hull, guests see both the Bermuda, a wooden schooner that sank in 1870, and the Herman H. Hettler, a steam barge that went down in 1926.
"They were trying to escape a violent snowstorm," Lindquist explained of the Hettler. "They were in zero visibility. And as they entered the channel … ran hard aground on a rock reef."
Torn in two, the Hettler sank in about 35 feet of water. From Lindquist's boat, both the boat and a 2,500-pound anchor are clearly visible.
So is the Bermuda, one of only a few intact wrecks.
"The ship was overloaded and had been leaking at the seams," Lindquist said. "They decided to run it ashore in Munising Bay to keep it from sinking."
But the often-capricious lake had other ideas.
"Somehow the lake grabbed the Bermuda and pulled her from shore," he recalled. While some of its crew members were safely on shore seeking help, three others drowned.
Between Munising and Whitefish Point, waves crash against the sandstone cliffs of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Along a 42-mile stretch of the lake, which is bigger in size than each of 10 U.S. states, stunning vistas abound.
The remains of a few shipwrecks cling to the miles of sandy beaches. The beam from the Au Sable lighthouse, opened in 1874, can be seen 18 miles away.
The Whitefish Point light tower is even older; it went into operation in 1849. On the night the Fitz sank, the beacon was plunged into darkness by a power failure. Guests can climb to the top on guided tours.
Each Nov. 10 at the museum, the ship's bell is removed from its glass case and rung 30 times, once for each of the 29 men on the Edmund Fitzgerald with a final clang to remember all the others lost on the lakes.
Begnoche was on Lake Superior, above the Fitz, when that bell was cut from the bow and brought to the surface in July 1995.
"I saw it come up out of the water," he recalled. "It was pretty emotional. It actually started to ring."
If you go
The Fitzgerald sank as Lake Superior was heading into its most inhospitable time of year. For that same reason, the museums and tours chronicling its tragic last voyage won't reopen till winter releases its grasp. But for fans of shipwreck history, these places are a must.
The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum (888-492-3747,
www.shipwreckmuseum.com) is open daily May to October. The former Coast Guard crew quarters have been turned into a five-room bed-and-breakfast.
Shipwreck Tours (906-387-4477,
www.shipwrecktours.com) resumes its season Memorial Day weekend.
The Museum Ship Valley Camp in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., has the two lifeboats that broke free as the Edmund Fitzgerald sank on display mid-May to mid-October (
http://www.saulthistoricsites.com/mu...ip-valley-camp).
Copyright © 2015, Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune: 40 years later, ship's legend lives on in a Gordon Lightfoot song a
