# SS Edmund Fitzgerald **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 10, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060 "2009-11-10T16:53:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/1 "2009-11-10T16:53:22Z")
Today is the anniversary of the sinking of the [SS Edmund Fitzgerald](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald). ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/2 "2009-11-10T16:58:00Z")
Thanks. Now that damn song’s going to be running through my head all day. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/3 "2009-11-10T17:01:43Z")
A similar Great Lakes freighter is now the [Steamship William G. Mather Maritime Museum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamship_William_G._Mather_Maritime_Museum) in Cleveland, which I visited earlier this year. Among the displays on board that ship/museum is some information about the Edmund Fitzgerald. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/4 "2009-11-10T17:30:09Z")
Thanks for the reminder. I’ll be ringing the bell set out on the beach by my place tonight. And I’ll be doing it again on the 18th for the [Carl D Bradley](http://www.carldbradley.org/), which sank on the other side of the lake from me, back when I was a young 'un. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/5 "2009-11-10T17:35:40Z")
True story. My brother and I had a small boat (20’) on Lake Erie and one day when we were on the lake just before sunset we spotted a large ship on the horizon. We gave chase to investigate and found it was an ore freighter, the **Arthur M Anderson** this was the ship who was with the Fitz the night she sank. After the Anderson reached a safe port she went back on to Lake Superior, still during the storm to help search for survivors. It was quite a treat to see a ship involved in a historical event and to know she was still in service. We circled around her a couple on times when went back home since by this time it was very dark. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/6 "2009-11-10T17:37:33Z")
> [@](#): > > Thanks. Now that damn song’s going to be running through my head all day. No offense to the folks aboard the sunken ship, but if you’re tired of the Gordon Lightfoor song, you can listen to WROR’s parody of it, _The Rectum of Edmund Fitzgerald_: > **[WROR-FM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WROR-FM)** > > WROR-FM (105.7 FM) – branded as 105.7 WROR – is a commercial classic hits radio station licensed to Framingham, Massachusetts. Owned by the Beasley Broadcast Group, the station serves Greater Boston and much of surrounding New England, including portions of the Portsmouth and Providence radio markets. The WROR studios are located in the Boston suburb of Waltham, while the station's transmitter is located at the Prudential Tower in Downtown Boston. > The station has an emphasis on 1980s music, ... ---
**Author:** ![otternell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecc23a/32.png) [@otternell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/otternell)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/7 "2009-11-10T17:59:20Z")
sorry but I love that song. other one he does is “Ghost of Cape Horn”, husband has tried to ruin it for me by singing “Ghost of Gay Porn”! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/8 "2009-11-11T03:08:48Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > No offense to the folks aboard the sunken ship, but if you’re tired of the Gordon Lightfoor song, you can listen to WROR’s parody of it, _The Rectum of Edmund Fitzgerald_: > > [WROR-FM - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WROR-FM) Oh, well, I actually think the original is a pretty atmospheric piece of music, but lord, it gets in one’s head. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/9 "2009-11-11T04:52:17Z")
For the benefit of a 34 year old West Coaster, how big a news story was the Edmund Fitzgerald’s sinking originally? Banner headlines, national TV, etc? What was the national response as opposed to the Midwestern response? ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/10 "2009-11-11T09:27:58Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > For the benefit of a 34 year old West Coaster, how big a news story was the Edmund Fitzgerald’s sinking originally? Banner headlines, national TV, etc? What was the national response as opposed to the Midwestern response? I remember hearing about it in the news the next day. Mainly because it was one of the biggest boats operating on Lake Superior, the largest one ever to sink, with one of the largest loss of crew lives. Historically, a boat sinks on the Great Lakes every 9 or 10 days. But most of them are small ones, and average only 5 lives lost. The _Edmund Fitzgerald_ was much more than average. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/11 "2009-11-11T11:20:40Z")
The museum up @ Whitefish Point in God’s Country UP is quite nice. Make a stop at Taquahmenon Falls and Paradise, MI after. Hi Athena! ---
**Author:** ![FallenAngel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@FallenAngel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FallenAngel)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/12 "2009-11-11T20:42:21Z")
I was 7 when it happened. I grew up in a dinky farm town in NW Ohio right on the Indiana border. I remember the evening news and the headline in the paper the next day. The next year my dad told me we were going to Detroit to see family and to go to the memorial at the Mariners Church. I asked why. I turns out one of the men killed on the Fitz, Eugene O’Brien, was a distant cousin. It was on the ride back to my aunt and uncle’s house in the suburbs that I learned every man on my dad’s side of the family had served either in the navy or as a merchant sailor going all the way back to France and Ireland. My dad was the first one anyone in the family could trace that hadn’t done water duty. He volunteered for the Army in WWII on the advice of _his_ father, who had hated the navy and commercial sailing so much he moved to Indiana and became a farmer. Before I moved to Arizona in 1994 I made the trek to Detroit for the memorial every year. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/13 "2009-11-11T20:58:44Z")
Since I have 12 bottles of [Edmund Fitzgerald Porter](http://thegazz.com/gblogs/beerstoyou/files/2008/01/edmungfitz_bottleglass.jpg) in my fridge, I’ll be sure and toast the memory of the crew tonight. It’s good to live in Ohio. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/14 "2009-11-11T21:19:36Z")
No wonder they played this the morning. Is it possible there are two versions? One a little bit longer with more detail? I didn’t think a load of steel going to Cleveland was mentioned in the regular radio version. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/15 "2009-11-11T21:26:46Z")
[32 Down on the Robert Mackenzie](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLEr-agYEdA) was, I understand, originally written to be about the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, but Paul Gross changed the name of the ship out of respect to the family. The song was written for an episode of Due South which featured the sinking of the ship as a plot point. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/16 "2009-11-11T23:26:51Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > For the benefit of a 34 year old West Coaster, how big a news story was the Edmund Fitzgerald’s sinking originally? Banner headlines, national TV, etc? What was the national response as opposed to the Midwestern response? I grew up in Port Arthur/Thunder Bay ON, at one time the largest freshwater port in the world. The Great Lakes shipping routes were a big part of life here, especially since one of my grandfathers (step-grandfather, actually) was an officer on the lake freighters. I was six when the Edmund Fitzgerald went down, and I was having a “sleep-over” at my Grandma’s that night. Although he wasn’t on that boat, nor anywhere near Whitefish bay, my grandmother was beside herself with fear and worry. I still remember that night and the obsession with listening for news on he radio, the tv, anything she could get her hands on. I had never made the connction until now that it sunk the day before Rememberance Day. If it had been the Bay St Paul instead of Mighty Fitz, my grandmother would have had terrible Novembers, considering her first marriage ended by being a WWII widow. (See my post in the Rememberance Day thread) ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/17 "2009-11-11T23:50:18Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Historically, a boat sinks on the Great Lakes every 9 or 10 days. But most of them are small ones, and average only 5 lives lost. That rate has decreased quite a bit in recent years. I find only two listings for sunken ships, with a total of 4 deaths, since the beginning of 2000. > **[Website Disabled](http://greatlakeshistory.homestead.com/Alpha.html)** Also, [http://www.boatnerd.com/](http://www.boatnerd.com/) is a great site for info about the great lakes shipping, past and present. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2009, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/18 "2009-11-12T01:33:35Z")
I’m trying to think of other events that are probably still remembered by the general public largely because of songs written about them. Most are minor battles, I guess. I doubt one American in a thousand would remember the bombardment of Ft. McHenry without the Star Spangled Banner, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2009, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/19 "2009-11-12T01:46:26Z")
> [@Shirley\_Ujest](#): > > The museum up @ Whitefish Point in God’s Country UP is quite nice. Make a stop at Taquahmenon Falls and Paradise, MI after. > > Hi Athena! Completely agree – and I’ve loved that song for years. However, I’m compelled to point out that, with normal temperatures on the shores of Lake Superior vs. those near Jackson on the LP, it’s usually true that Paradise is colder than Hell! ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2009, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060/20 "2009-11-12T02:49:36Z")
There was a History Channel Show, called Deep Sea Detectives, that re-investigated the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald using modern imaging and deep sea techniques. Very interesting!! (the episode is called “The Death of the Edmund Fitzgerald”) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-edmund-fitzgerald/517060.md?page=2)