44 Years Later: Remembering the Edmund Fitzgerald

Today marks the 44th anniversary of the tragedy on Lake Superior that took the freighter and its 29 crew members to their icy graves.  If you grew up going to school in Michigan the story of the ill-fated voyage was a staple in history classes across the state.

As the story is told it was the early morning hours of November 10, 1975, that the crew battled through 70-knot winds and 30-foot waves, according to the National Weather Service Gaylord. The Edmund Fitzgerald had met it's match and went down near Whitefish Bay in Lake Superior and all 29 men on board perished.

A month after the ship went down Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot recorded the song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". The song was released the following year. Lightfoot drew his inspiration from Newsweek magazine's article on the event, "The Cruelest Month", which is published in its November 24, 1975 issue. He said he was so touched by what he had read that he put the story into a song. Lightfoot felt it was his finest work. The haunting song became almost a history lesson in itself.

Today many organizations took to social media to remember the anniversary.  Although the remains of the crew were never recovered, the bell from the ship was recovered from the wreckage and is on display at the Whitefish Point Museum in Paradise, Michigan.