I’d certainly never heard of the Edmund Fitzgerald sinking until the song came out.
Upthread QTM mentions the sinking of the Carl D. Bradley. Which I’d never heard of until that post.
Admittedly the Bradley was lost 20-ish years before the Fitzgerald. But I bet that, absent the song, both ships’ fates would be equally prominent in current American culture. Which is to say: Unknown to everyone without some kind of connection to Great Lakes shipping.
We can toast the crew every November 10th.*
*along with a song by Fountains of Wayne:
I wanna sink to the bottom with you
I wanna sink to the bottom with you
(Lake Superior’s) big and blue
I wanna sink to the bottom with you
Cars on the highway, planes in the air
Everyone else is going somewhere
But I’m going nowhere, getting there soon
I might as well just sink down with you
One thing I read today is that because of safety regulations instituted after the Edmund Fitzgerald sinking, no commercial ship has sunk in the Great Lakes since then.
It’s amazing to think that this gigantic ore-carrying freighter was sunk by a lake, not an ocean. But those lakes are just huge! At around 563 km in length and 257 km wide, Superior is the biggest of them, but even the smaller ones are gigantic, easily taking you out of sight of land. I’ve sailed both Lake Huron and Lake Ontario, and cruising is serious business. This is not some pond beside a country cottage. Knowing what you’re doing, having the right equipment, and paying attention to weather forecasts are all crucial.
It alway shocks me to be reminded of how RECENT this was.
The song got a lot of airplay when I was in high school. I had no clue that it was such recent history at the time.
I’m not partial to the song. It song was overplayed when it came out. But I hear that Gordon did a fair amount of charitable stuff for the surviving families, so there is that.
Ever get to Vermilion? My wife and I tried to visit there 2 years ago, driving over those sandy roads towards it, and made it as far as the bridge just before the park which we found to be underwater. 
No LARGE commercial ship has sunk since then. Locally we lost the Linda E back in 1998. It was a 3 man commercial fishing boat, not unlike the ones my uncle and other family members worked on, back in the day. It was apparently run over over by a barge while the crew was belowdecks dealing with the day’s catch.
Hope @Qadgop_the_Mercotan doesn’t mind linking to this harrowing drama, since these lakes can be dangerous even when you least suspect them:
I don’t mind. I still think about Sofia and wish I’d found her.
OMG, what a story! Thanks for linking to it. I had not seen that as it was a few years before I joined. My greatest respect to @Qadgop_the_Mercotan for what he did.
And according to the guest on Morning Edition this morning, a shocking number of them sank in the century before then:
“From 1875 to 1975, there were at least 6,000 commercial shipwrecks on the bottom of the Great Lakes,” Bacon told NPR. “So that is one shipwreck a week every week for a century. That is one casualty every day for a century.”
https://www.npr.org/2025/11/06/nx-s1-5518215/edmund-fitzgerald-shipwreck
We call it a “lake”, but really Superior is more like an inland sea.
I just recently finished reading The Gales of November, a recently published book on the ship, its sinking and the aftermath; as well as some historical background on Great Lakes shipping (as well as the song). Sounds like the author was the one interviewed on NPR this morning.
I enjoyed it quite a bit and learned a lot.
The author John U. Bacon’s book on the Halifax Explosion is also a good read.
Live lighting of Split Rock beacon lighting:
Brian
Live stream of ceremony at shipwreck museum:
Brian
A solemn anniversary,to be sure.
A masters salute to the EF from the Arthur M Anderson coming in at midnight 11/10/2020.
I was on Vermillion road yesterday and this morning. One potential campsite would have been the Widewaters further down Vermillion road, but I didn’t want to risk a bigger snow storm that far back on an unmaintained road.
This past Summer my wife and I took the SS Badger ferry across Lake Michigan for a Wisconsin road trip. Four hours from shore to shore. Probably a good two middle hours with no sight of land whatsoever. During the voyage we hit some bad weather-- a lot of rain and wind. Big waves. The boat was rocking so bad it was difficult to walk on deck. Everybody who tried were staggering around like a bunch of drunks. I wasn’t scared, but I won’t lie and say that thoughts of the Edmund Fitzgerald did not cross my mind 
When I used to report into the London office, I had (and still have) a lot of British friends. I took great joy in this bit of trivia that truly made their heads explode (messy business, that): The Great Lakes are, collectively, almost exactly the same area as the UK
Oh, and that song is great. I’m not particularly a Lightfoot fan, but that’s well done. I love the bit about the chef saying “it’s too rough to feed you” and later “It’s sure been nice to know you”