Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Remembering the Edmund Fitzgerald 50 years after it sunk in Lake Superior November 10, 2025

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 12:05 PM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
PBS did a documentary on the Edmund Fitzgerald. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2014)

SHORTLY BEFORE 8 THIS MORNING, I listened to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot pulse from my radio. It was an auditory reminder that today marks the 50th anniversary of the sinking of that freightliner on November 10, 1975, in Lake Superior some 17 miles from Whitefish Point, Michigan.

Some 26,000 tons of taconite pellets, like these, filled the cargo holds of The Edmund Fitzgerald as it journeyed across Lake Superior on November 9 and 10, 1975. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2014)

This shipwreck holds great interest in Minnesota as the Edmund typically left loaded with taconite from Silver Bay, on the Minnesota side of Lake Superior, headed for the steel mills of Detroit and Toledo. But on this last fateful trip, the Edmund departed from Superior, Wisconsin, aiming for Detroit.

My husband’s copy of Gordon Lightfoot’s greatest hits, which includes “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)

The ship sank in the gale force raging winds and waves of a November storm claiming the lives of all twenty-nine aboard. That tragedy has been forever immortalized in Lightfoot’s 1976 ballad.

Today, in ceremonies both in Minnesota and Michigan, those who perished in this disaster on an inland “sea” will be honored. At 2 pm, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Whitefish Point, Michigan, holds a public remembrance service. At 7 pm, a memorial service is set, but for Fitzgerald family members only with the museum closing at 5 pm in preparation for that event.

Here in Minnesota, the 50th anniversary focus today happens at the Split Rock Lighthouse Historic Site located along the shore of Lake Superior southwest of Silver Bay, which is north of Duluth and Superior. The Annual Memorial Beacon Lighting ceremony, beginning at 4 pm, is sold out.

For those able to secure tickets, the Minnesota ceremony is sure to be emotional as the names of the twenty-nine crew members are read aloud to the tolling of a ship’s bell. Lighting of the lighthouse beacon follows with the light shining for two hours.

Many years have passed since I’ve visited the lighthouse. Decades have passed since I first heard Gordon Lightfoot’s ode to the Edmund Fitzgerald as a young adult. Despite the passage of time, this tragic story remains imprinted on my mind, as it does the collective memories of Minnesotans old enough to remember this November 10, 1975, tragedy on Lake Superior.

FYI: I’ve previously written about the Edmund Fitzgerald. That includes a 2014 blog post about a presentation at the Rice County Historical Society by a diver who explored the wreck of the freightliner. Click here to read that story. The presentation coincided with the opening of the play, “Ten November,” at the Paradise Center for the Arts in Faribault. Click here to read an introspective piece I also wrote.

© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A tribute to Simon & Garfunkel coming to Faribault

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:00 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
(Image courtesy of the Cathedral Concert Series)

WHEN I WRITE about music, it’s not with any expertise. I can’t read a single musical note. I can’t carry a tune. But I do know when I like a song. And most of my “likes” hearken to my youth, when music boomed from the radio. Or, in the case of Simon & Garfunkel, flowed.

Fast forward more than 50 years to a 7 pm Friday, November 14, concert at the historic Cathedral of Our Merciful Saviour, 515 Second Avenue Northwest in Faribault. Vocalists Barb Piper and Pauline Jennings will present “Feeling Groovy: A Simon & Garfunkel Tribute with a Twist.” The “twist” is that the vocalists are women, not men. But four men, Craig Wasner, Mike Legvold, Mike Graebner and Steve Jennings, back the pair.

From my favorites “The Sound of Silence” and “Bridge over Troubled Water” to many more, this group performs a lengthy list of Simon & Garfunkel songs in addition to some Paul Simon favorites. I’ve never heard this tribute band, but I’ve been told, and read, that they are outstanding. Or, in 1960s and early 1970s lingo, I might say they are cool, groovy, far out.

The Cathedral of Our Merciful Saviour. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo 2024)

The Feeling Groovy tribute to Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel is part of the Cathedral Concert Series. While the concerts are free, donations are welcomed for the Cathedral Preservation Fund. The massive stone cathedral, built between 1862 and 1869, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Bishop Henry Whipple, prominent in local and state history for his outreach to Indigenous Peoples, led the church at the time.

It’s a beautiful structure. And the acoustics inside the massive sanctuary are perfect for a concert that also features audience participation. I expect when Barb Piper and Pauline Jennings step up to sing, the audience will feel immersed in the lyrics and in the groovy sound of music, not of silence.

© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling