The Gales Of November, Remembered

Today is the 50th Anniversary of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Immortalized in a ballad by Gordon Lightfoot, the legend of the wreck lives on.

On November 10, 1975, the 725-foot-long Great Lakes freighter, the biggest freighter on the lakes when she was built in 1958, suddenly sank in a storm in Lake Superior, taking all 29 crew members with her.

The ship rests on the lake bottom 530 feet down from the surface, with the bow section upright and the stern upside down.

The Arthur M. Andersen, the ship that was last to see and communicate with the Fitzgerald, is now in long-term layup in Toledo, Ohio, and may be retired from service soon, ending a long career and an operating connection to that fateful day 50 years ago.

A documentary showing the Edmund Fitzgerald in its condition as of the last expedition in 1994 gives a lot of interesting footage of the wreck:

 

There may never be another expedition to the wreck, as it is considered a grave and requires a permit to be visited.  That permit is not being issued by the Canadian government since the 1990s expedition. The presence of at least one visible body of a crew member found during the 94 expedition is one of the factors for the denial of permits for the wreck. 

The deep and cold fresh waters of Lake Superior preserves the wreck, and as the song says, Superior does not give up her dead, even 50 years after the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald.