Minnesota Prairie Roots

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 50^th anniversary of the sinking of that freightliner on November 10, 1975, in Lake Superior some 17 miles from Whitefish Point, Michigan.

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.

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 50^th 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