The man who wrote the iconic Lake Superior song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, will be honored with a special lighting of the beacon at Minnesota’s Split Rock Lighthouse on Wednesday, May 3.
Gordon Lightfoot passed away Monday at the age of 84.
Lightfoot’s song about the legendary shipwreck that took the lives of 29 crew members still resonates with lighthouse visitors to this day. The staff at Split Rock, which is run the by Minnesota Historical Society, say the song can be heard almost daily being played on guests’ phones.
The lighthouse lights its beacon every November 10 in honor of the Edmund Fitzgerald’s crew who were lost at sea.
“Gordon Lightfoot was a storyteller,” said Split Rock Lighthouse Site Manager Hayes Scriven. “His song resonated with so many people and made them feel as if they were there for the tragedy. We felt compelled to honor his legacy with tonight’s lighting.”
The beacon will be lit from 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 3. The historic site and visitor center will be closed, but visitors can park at the state park to see the light with a state park sticker.
Lightfoot was of the most renowned voices to emerge from Toronto’s Yorkville folk club scene in the 1960s. He recorded 20 studio albums and penned hundreds of songs, including “Carefree Highway," “Early Morning Rain” and of course “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."
Lightfoot’s music had a style all its own. “It’s not country, not folk, not rock,” he said in a 2000 interview. Yet it has strains of all three.
“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” for instance, is a haunting tribute to the 29 men who died in the 1975 sinking of the ship in Lake Superior during a storm.
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