{"id":274297,"date":"2025-11-10T13:55:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T13:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/274297\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T13:55:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T13:55:16","slug":"fifty-years-on-edmund-fitzgerald-remembered-through-song-and-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/274297\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifty years on, Edmund Fitzgerald remembered through song and mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 5 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been 50 years since the storied Edmund Fitzgerald and all 29 of its crew members perished during one of the worst recorded storms on Lake Superior.<\/p>\n

While much time has passed since Nov. 10, 1975, the sinking of the large freighter about 60 km from Sault Ste. Marie still sits atop the most famous events to have ever taken place on the Great Lakes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bruce Lynn, the executive director of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, said it\u2019s no secret why.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs much as we like to think we do a great job of keeping the memory alive, we really can\u2019t hold a candle to Gordon Lightfoot,\u201d Lynn said. \u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for him, it would be a fraction of the people now who know about this story and this ship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Edmund Fitzgerald rests at the bottom of Lake Superior roughly 17 miles northwest of Whitefish Point (Photo provided by the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society)<\/p>\n

Lightfoot\u2019s 1976 song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald retells the story of the ship\u2019s fateful end through a folk-rock lens. It\u2019s considered by many to be the Canadian singer-songwriter\u2019s greatest hit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Officials with the shipwreck museum at the Whitefish Point Light Station in Michigan \u2014 roughly an hour from Sault Ste. Marie \u2014 will honour Lightfoot, the boat and its crew members Monday in what\u2019s projected to be among the biggest ceremonies they\u2019ve ever hosted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Later that evening, a private ceremony will be held for family members of the Edmund Fitzgerald\u2019s crew.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been getting calls from people for more than three months,\u201d Lynn said. \u201cPeople have been asking how soon they can be there or how early to get a parking spot. They\u2019re utterly fascinated by this story and by the shipwreck.\u201d<\/p>\n

To this day, Lynn said Lake Superior still hasn\u2019t experienced as violent and turbulent a storm like the one that occurred half a century ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been some pretty bad storms, but we haven\u2019t had anything quite as dramatic,\u201d he said. \u201cIn 1998, working at the museum I remember sideways rain and 25-30 miles per hour winds. When the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, it was 90-mile per hour winds in Sault Ste. Marie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using marine sonic technology, the museum operates a research vessel that goes out to look for downed ships on the Great Lakes. Since 2021, the museum has found 15 shipwrecks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, none of these are the Edmund Fitzgerald, but they all have their own stories,\u201d Lynn explained. \u201cVery much like the Fitzgerald in a lot of cases, quite a few people perished when their ships sank. We try to keep the memory alive of the sailors and the stories of those ships.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CrewCrew from the 1995 expedition of the Edmund Fitzgerald that recovered the ship’s bell. (Photo provided by The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society)<\/p>\n

An expedition to the Edmund Fitzgerald site hasn\u2019t happened since July 1995. That year, a team recovered the ship\u2019s bell \u2014 which is now rung 30 times every anniversary for each of the crew members and other sailors who have been lost on the Great Lakes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Protected by the Ontario Heritage Act, the site is off limits to expeditions. A trip down would only be approved today if there was some sort of scientific value in going, or if there were new details that emerged into exactly how the ship sank, Lynn said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t advocate for [going back down],\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a pretty close understanding with the surviving family members. I\u2019m not sure what else can be gained.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe bell recovered from the Edmund Fitzgerald is displayed at the museum in Whitefish Point. (Photo provided by the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society)<\/p>\n

Few people are more appreciative of Gordon Lightfoot\u2019s legacy through the Edmund Fitzgerald than Jerry Popiel \u2014 a singer-songwriter from Cleveland, Ohio.<\/p>\n

A search and rescue specialist with the U.S. coast guard by day, Popiel has worked on all five Great Lakes and has experienced some nasty storms himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI got a very big appreciation for the size of the waves and how intense they can be on the Great Lakes,\u201d he said. \u201cThe feeling I get with the ship with its bow under water, shuttering and shaking \u2014 it\u2019s a feeling I\u2019ve never had before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Singer-songwriterSinger-songwriter Jerry Popiel was five years old when the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in Lake Superior. (Supplied photo)<\/p>\n

Having recorded a cover of Lightfoot\u2019s iconic song, Popiel recently released a music video to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the ship\u2019s sinking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The video contains rarely seen footage of actual case files from the search and rescue operation, which includes search plots, message traffic and other related articles from 1975.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it would be a good thing to show on this 50th anniversary \u2014 a little behind the scenes on the search part of it,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

WATCH | Search and rescue specialist pays tribute to the Edmund Fitzgerald:<\/p>\n

Living near Lake Erie at the time of the sinking, Popiel is just old enough to remember when the Edmund Fitzgerald went down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was about five years old, and I remember my dad coming out the day after saying a big freighter just sank in Lake Superior,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI was both interested in shipping and Gordon Lightfoot, which led to me becoming a singer-songwriter and working in the Maritime business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Popiel believes the 50th anniversary is a great opportunity to review what\u2019s known about the ship while acknowledging the competing theories about what ultimately caused the large freighter to meet its end.<\/p>\n

He also encourages people to take a few minutes out of their day and listen to Lightfoot\u2019s nostalgic hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an eternal song,” Popiel said. \u201cIt says the message and carries the pathos of the event. There have been other ship sinkings since then, and none of them are known as well as the Edmund Fitzgerald.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-274297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}