This November 10 marks the 50th anniversary of the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, the lake freighter that claimed 29 lives as it slipped silently into the chilly abyss of Lake Superior. One of the Great Lakes’ most enduring mysteries, it was famously memorialized in Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” in 1976.
In an age of satellite storm tracking, enhanced GPS, and the emerging technologies of unmanned ships guided by “virtual captains,” it’s increasingly hard to envision the conditions aboard the Edmund Fitzgerald: a captain following his gut instinct, a flickering radar screen, a malfunctioning radio beacon. It’s the raw vulnerability that still grips us. It reminds us that when modern technology fails us—as it often does—we are still at the mercy of God and nature.
