The SS Edmund Fitzgerald

I never knew anything about the SS Edmund Fitzgerald until I visited the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, Michigan.  It was only then when we started to watch a video about the shipwreck that we were told the song written and sang by Gordon Lightfoot was a tribute to those that had died during that horrible day in November.  I've attached a link to the song below with the lyrics.  As we sat and watched the short documentary with the song playing softly in the background, there wasn't a dry eye in the museum after hearing the story.  The documentary included the family members of those that had perished and the story of the raising of the ship's brass bell. 

Prior to visiting, I couldn't imagine how a ship could sink or wreck in a lake.  My small-town country-girl brain was thinking of lakes we have around this area, a body of water that just sits there for recreational purposes!!  When you drive up the coast of Lake Michigan, the first lake you encounter, one might forget it's just a lake.  When you look out, one might possibly think they're viewing an ocean because the body of water is so huge.  Once we got further north in the U.P., we drove along the southern coast of Lake Superior and learned that Lake Superior is the largest lake of the "Greats" and the deepest and its southern shore of Lake Superior is known as the "Graveyard of the Great Lakes" where more ships have been lost around the Whitefish Point area than any other part of Lake Superior.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in a storm on the 10th of November, 1975, on Lake Superior.  All 29 crew members perished when the ship sank, and no bodies were ever recovered. Edmund Fitzgerald was swallowed up so intensely by Lake Superior that the 729-foot ship split in half; similar to the Titanic, and her two pieces sit approximately 170 feet apart at a depth of 1,333 feet in the "graveyard" of Lake Superior.  I had to purchase a book in the gift shop so I could read and learn more about the mighty "Big Fitz" as it was often called.

While at Whitefish Point, we stayed in the US Coast Guard's Captain's Quarters that has been turned into a Bed and Breakfast.  There is a beautiful lighthouse there, walking trails, a protected area for an endangered bird to lay its egg, and the round rocks creating the beach rather than sand were fun to pick up as if they were seashells.  We walked the beaches of Lake Superior, sat on a large piece of driftwood, and watched a ship cruise along the point and give a tug at its horn.  I could have sat there all day and night watching ships pass, but that tug of the horn left me entranced and wanting more.  I can't wait to go back!

"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"