It's a somber day under a bright blue sky as record crowds marked the 50th anniversary of the tragic sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in the icy waters of Lake Superior on Monday.
On Nov. 10, 1975, the iron ore freighter Edmund Fitzgerald sank, taking 29 lives down with it off the coast of northern Michigan after leaving the port of Duluth-Superior.
50 years to the day, people from across the country gathered at Split Rock Lighthouse along Minnesota's North Shore to honor the lives lost.
One man and his family came all the way from Alexandria to the sold out event.
"I'm 59-years old, so I was about 9-years old when it when it happened, and it kind of intrigued me way back then," he told WCCO's Taylor Rivera.
The anniversary has drawn a sold-out crowd for a solemn bell tolling ceremony on Monday afternoon, proving the tragedy remains a powerful, emotional touchstone in the history of the Great Lakes.
The annual Split Rock Lighthouse memorial, which began in 1985, drew its enduring relevance directly from Gordon Lightfoot's iconic song “ The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” according to event founder and former site manager Lee Radzak.
"I knew it was the 10th anniversary, it was a Sunday afternoon, November 10th of (1985), and I was coming back from Silver Bay," says Radzak. "Heard Gordon Lightfoot's song on the radio, which kind of prompted me to think a little bit more about it, you know. I've got the keys to this lighthouse."
During the event, a mariner's bell will toll 29 times for the lost crew, who sailed by the lighthouse the night before the tragedy.
Over 2,000 people are expected to turn out to the and site Manager Hayes Scriven says there will be more people in attendance than ever before.
"We were gonna have a lot of interest and last year we had 1,700 people here on the site for the event, and we figured we could handle that," says Scriven. "We could probably handle a few more. I think the highest attendance until this year had actually been in 2018."
An unthinkable sinking and a mystery to this day
The Edmund Fitzgerald was the largest ship on the Great Lakes when it launched in 1958 and kept that title until 1971. On its final voyage, the Fitzgerald departed Duluth-Superior on Nov. 9, 1975, carrying 26,000 tons of iron ore along a familiar route to Zug Island in Detroit.
The next day, it was lost to the notoriously unpredictable largest freshwater lake in the world. The captain, 63-year-old Ernest M. McSorley, intended to retire after the 1975 season. He was known for his ability to navigate storms on the Great Lakes, but the one that hit on Nov. 10 was unlike any he had encountered.
Most of the crew members were born and lived in states that border the Great Lakes — Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Minnesota.
To this day, there have been no major commercial shipwrecks on the Great Lakes since the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975.
McSorley chose a northerly route across Lake Superior to be protected by highlands along the Canadian shore. Gale warnings were issued the night of Nov. 9. Those worsened to storm warnings in the early morning of Nov. 10.
The crew of the nearby Arthur Anderson, which was trailing the Fitz, reported waves as high as 25 feet. The first mate radioed McSorley, who reported that the Fitz had been damaged by the storm.
“We are holding our own," McSorley said. That was the last message received from anyone aboard.
There are many theories as to what caused the Fitzgerald to sink so rapidly without a distress call, but the exact reason remains unknown.
Even without an answer, the wreck spurred many “incredible” safety improvements, said Frederick Stonehouse, whose 1977 book “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” was the first of dozens written about the tragedy.
Whereas a similar-sized ship would be lost on the lakes every six or seven years before the Fitzgerald, none has gone down since then, he said.
“Every sailor on the Great Lakes that’s sailing today owes a great deal of debt of gratitude to the Fitzgerald,” said Stonehouse, who taught Great Lakes maritime history at Northern Michigan University, located on the shores of Lake Superior.
The Fitzgerald still sits at the bottom of Lake Superior, submerged in 535 feet of water, about 17 miles north-northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan. No bodies have been recovered.
The wreck is protected as a grave site under Canadian law, a status that family members lobbied for. Unauthorized dives or artifact retrieval are barred.
'The legend lives on'
Events around the Great Lakes each year remember the men killed and reunite their family members, and organizers say the 50th anniversary has driven public interest to a new peak.
The Great Lakes Historical Museum in Whitefish Point plans a public event on Nov. 10. A separate ceremony only for the crew’s families will be livestreamed. The Edmund Fitzgerald’s bell, retrieved in 1995 at the request of crew family members, is housed there as a permanent memorial.
Bruce Lynn, executive director of the Great Lake Shipwreck Historical Society, said the museum is on track to see its busiest year ever on the 50th anniversary.
“When we remember the Fitzgerald, I like to think that at the same time we’re remembering all those other shipwrecks,” he said.
The wreck is also remembered in Detroit at the Mariners’ Church, where Rector Richard Ingalls rang its bell 29 times in honor of the crew after receiving word in the predawn hours of Nov. 11, 1975, that the Fitzgerald had sunk.
The Edmund Fitzgerald is the most famous of the estimated 6,500 ships that have gone down in the Great Lakes. But the Fitzgerald is remembered while the others are forgotten, thanks in large part to Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting 1976 folk ballad that became a surprise hit.
The tolling bell helped spread the word of what had happened and was memorialized by Lightfoot when he sang “the church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times."
In 2023, after Gordon Lightfoot died, they rang the bell a 30th time. The bell will also be rung 30 times this year on the anniversary, with the final toll representing all sailors lost on the Great Lakes.
Programming Note: Re-live the historic and horrific event with a live radio play tonight on 830 WCCO Monday at 9:00 p.m. Listen on your smart speaker, phone, desktop, TuneIn, iHeart or Audacy app.