Case file · Folklore / legend
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
On 10 November 1975 the ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald sank in a storm on Lake Superior about 17 miles from Whitefish Bay, with all 29 crew; there was no distress call.
1975 CE · 47.00, -85.11 · status: disputed
The account
Gordon Lightfoot's 1976 song turned it into Great Lakes legend, with its line about the lake that 'never gives up her dead'.
The sceptical view
The cause is debated (shoal damage, hatch failure or rogue waves), but nothing points beyond a natural disaster.