WHITEFISH POINT, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – The freighter Edmund Fitzgerald sank 50 years ago today in Lake Superior, claiming the lives of the 29 crewmen aboard.
Their family members gathered at Mariners’ Church in Detroit yesterday to commemorate the shipwreck, with the bell ringing 29 times to honor the men who died and once more to honor all lives lost on the Great Lakes.
The Edmund Fitzgerald was loaded with taconite and headed for Zug Island when it sank near Whitefish Point, and the U.S. Coast Guard has determined the sinking was caused by hatches not being closed properly that let in too much water.
The shipwreck was immortalized in the Gordon Lightfoot song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
The incident left a deep memory in a 12-year-old boy at the time, Jim Dreyer.
The ultra-marathon swimmer conducted a long-distance relay swim this past August to commemorate the incident, having teams go the route that the ill-fated freighter couldn’t complete due to the sinking, to raise funds for the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society. Dreyer will be at that non-profit’s headquarters in the Upper Peninsula village of Paradise for a pair of memorial ceremonies today.
-Gary Stevens of WHTC-AM/FM in Holland contributed to this story.
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