Above, see a 2000 file report on the 25th anniversary of the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.
(WOOD) — Nov. 10, 2020, is the 45th anniversary of one of the most famous Great Lakes shipwrecks: the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.
In 1958, it cost $8 million to build the freighter, which was the largest vessel on the Great Lakes until 1971. It was carrying 26,116 tons of taconite pellets when it went down Nov. 10, 1975, in Lake Superior, 17 miles from Whitefish Point. All 29 crewmen aboard were lost.
You might remember the song “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot.
Every year on this grim anniversary, the Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point holds a service to honor the lives lost on the Edmund Fitzgerald. A bell tolls 29 times for each life lost during the disaster.
Approximately 240 ships have sunk in the Whitefish Point area since the first recorded sinking in 1816.