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Posted on 11/14/2025 4:47:56 PM PST by nickcarraway
For those that live or have lived around the American Great Lakes region, the story of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald is likely familiar. It was, to date, the largest ship to ever sink in those waters, claiming the lives of 29 crew members whose bodies were never recovered.
On the afternoon of Nov. 9, 1975, the boat set sail from Superior, Wisconsin, carrying a full load of iron ore pellets, bound for a steel plant on Zug Island near Detroit, Michigan. But by the next day, a severe storm had hit the lake and the ship sunk in Canadian waters at approximately 7 p.m. on Nov. 10.
Despite multiple investigations, it is still not known exactly what caused the sinking, apart from the storm. There are theories that improperly latched hatches may have contributed to the accident, as well as preexisting structural damage to the boat. One thing is certain: boats the size of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald do not often sink as swiftly as this one did.
As serious as the event was, it likely would not have been remembered by as many were it not for Gordon Lightfoot, who learned of the incident via a newspaper article and decided to write a song about what happened. Recorded in December of 1975, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" was released in August of 1976.
"The story of the sinking of the Fitzgerald stayed with me in a funny kind of a way, all by itself," Ligtfoot later recalled to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2015. "I wasn't forgetting about it. I knew everyone had forgotten about it, but I knew I hadn't forgotten it."
Lightfoot set out to recount the story of the sinking ship in song form, trying to be "as accurate as possible." There are a few details Lightfoot changed — the ship, as noted, was not bound for Cleveland, for example — but for the most part, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" correctly portrays what happened on that blustery November day.
The Success of 'Edmund Fitzgerald'
One might not think that a nearly six-minute folk ballad with no chorus, only verses, about a sunken boat would be a chart success. But it was. "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" went to No. 1 in Lightfoot's native Canada and No. 2 in the U.S.
But making a hit wasn't Lightfoot's intention – even as the song's success grew, his priority was honoring the lives lost. In 1976, Lightfoot established a scholarship for cadets at the Great Lakes Maritime Academy. At one point, Lightfoot was offered a starring role in a movie based on the sinking, which he firmly declined.
In the original song, Lightfoot sang that "a main hatchway caved in," but the implication that crew members were directly at fault for the accident was not something Lightfoot, who got to know many of the affected families over the years, could continue to sing at his concerts.
"'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,' that's one I always treat with respect," Lightfoot recalled to Broadview in 2013. "There is a ladies' committee in Madison, Wisconsin, that I've stayed in touch with for years and years. [It includes] the captain's wife and daughter, the daughter of a deckhand, the mother of a 21-year-old boy who was the youngest person in the crew to go down with the boat.
"The part in the song about the hatch covers giving way as one of the possibilities [for the shipwreck], well, that was the job of Cheryl's father and Ruth's son who were deckhands. They were supposed to be the guys who were looking after the hatch covers. I felt a cringe, I felt something in my soul, because they knew that wasn’t what happened and I had no business assuming what happened. In concert, I change the line of the song to say, 'At 7 p.m. it grew dark, it was then he said, 'Fellas, it’s been good to know you.'' No more hatch covers."
The Legacy of Lightfoot's Song
"At 17, I couldn't listen to it, to be honest," Debbie Champeau, the daughter of Oliver "Buck" Champeau said to Fox 11 News in November of 2025, 50 years since the boat's sinking. Her father was a third assistant engineer on the ship. "And it took me a while. In fact, I was in a grocery store when they played it and I'm like, 'I think I'm out of here."
But she later met Lightfoot in person: "And I asked him, 'Why did you write the song? What was the reason? The words? Because it's kind of eerie? And he said, 'I did it to bring noticeability to the fact that ships are going out un-seaworthy.' And the ship was unseaworthy. It wasn't up to code. There were violations."
Lightfoot's song brought a tremendous amount of attention to the accident, and in the years that followed, changes were made in Great Lakes shipping practices, including mandatory survival suits on board, new positioning systems and navigational charts.
"It is a very good piece of work, I do believe," Lightfoot said in 2015. "It's just one of those songs that just stands the test of time and it's about something that, of course, would be forgotten very shortly thereafter, which is one of the reasons I wrote the song in the first place. I didn't want it to be forgotten. There is a responsibility."
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That being said, if you want to clear out a party fast, put on that depressing song. Works every time!
The lake, it is said ...
,,, in August 1992 I was staying with friends in Grosse Pointe . During my stay the anchor from the Edmund Fitzgerald had been recovered and had just been placed on a grassed area on Belle Isle. I always loved Lightfoot’s song and was really happy to get a photo of myself next to the anchor. My friends also took me to the cathedral [mentioned in the song] near the tunnel that goes under the Detroit River. The anchor made the front page of the Detroit Free Press - or maybe another daily. It was a long time ago.
That song isn't about a ship, it's a self-pleasuring homage by Gordon Lightfoot to himself. Nothing galls me as much as the moans of rich self-pitying hippies.
I cant stand the song, I wish it never sunk.
Yeah not a fan of him either.
I remember laughing at “Lake Gitchy goo me” as a kid.
I was on a USN Ballistic Missile Submarine in the Mediterranean. We got word much later the ship was missing. Underway, under water gives you time to think, until Ivan comes by. God Bless the families of those men on the ship and RIP to all who go down to the sea in ships. Godspeed.
Hahahahaha. Spot on!
👍
Super storms are something that have happened from time to time. The Armistice Day storm in 1940 was similar. On that day, friends of my father had been duck hunting on an island on Lake Winnebago in east central Wisconsin. Temps were near 70 and dropped 50 degrees rapidly. At the same time, winds picked up and were so strong (gusts of more than 60 mph), his friends could not row against the wind back to shore. They were forced to stay on the island overnight. Poorly prepared, they survived by overturning their boat and huddling under it overnight. In 1975, brother-in-law was duck hunting on a lake (Winneconne) near Oshkosh, Wi. Temperatures that day, November 9, reached close to 70. He said the hunting was terrible at first, then ducks began flying in from every direction as the temperature dropped quickly and the winds picked up. Late in the day, he got scared, not properly dressed, waves were getting bad and he worried he couldn’t make it back to the boat launch. By the time he picked up his decoys and rowed back to shore, he claimed the temperature had dropped 40-50 degrees and shell ice was beginning to form. He thought he would die on the lake. Winds on Lake Superior early morning November 10 reached 70mph and waves were near 20 feet. When storms like this hit in 1940, nobody predicted it and even in 1975, the forecasters were unable to predict the ferocity of the winds and the rapid temperature drop.
I too wish it never sank.
Listening is not mandatory.
The winds November were the equivalent of a category 2 hurricane. Captain McSorley was right when he said it was the worst storm in his life.
It is a great song.
Of course, those in favor of unintelligible, bouncy, stupid lyrics think otherwise.
Not newsworthy?
It was, to date, the largest ship to ever sink in those waters, claiming the lives of 29 crew members whose bodies were never recovered.
What’s your threshold?
They had gone 22 years without a shipwreck on the Great Lakes and people believed such an event couldn't happen with modern technologies such as radios, weather forecasting and radar.
The sinking was a haunting reminder that they hadn't put that deadly history in the past. Gordon Lightfoot's song and the public response arguably forced the industry and politicians to not allow such a tragedy to be repeated.
As for one historian's claim that the number of ships is 25,000; that's not likely. Records of ship and cargo lost point to roughly 6,000. And of those 6,000 shipwrecks, many of those ran aground versus being lost in storms.
,,, I'd say that about the number of Michelle Obama threads on this site.
I am a big fan of Lightfoot, and that is my second favorite of his songs, the first being “Canadian Railroad Trilogy”.
The families of the crew, not to mention Great Lakes shipping buffs, have a great appreciation for the song. At the memorial service on the November 10 after Lightfoot died, they rang the bell 30 times.
I would say that the SS Eastland which sank in Chicago in
1915 and killed 824 passengers and crew would be my threshold.
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