39 years ago tonight the brave men of the Edmund Fitzgerald lost their fight in one of the worst storms to hit Lake Superior. May their loss along with all the other brave sailors lost on the great lakes always be remembered...

The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald
Music and lyrics ©1976 by Gordon Lightfoot

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they called "Gitche Gumee."
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
when the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty,
that good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
when the "Gales of November" came early.

The ship was the pride of the American side
coming back from some mill in Wisconsin.
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
with a crew and good captain well seasoned,
concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
when they left fully loaded for Cleveland.
And later that night when the ship's bell rang,
could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
and a wave broke over the railing.
And every man knew, as the captain did too
'twas the witch of November come stealin'.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
when the Gales of November came slashin'.
When afternoon came it was freezin' rain
in the face of a hurricane west wind.

When suppertime came the old cook came on deck sayin'.
"Fellas, it's too rough t'feed ya."
At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in; he said,
"Fellas, it's bin good t'know ya!"
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
and the good ship and crew was in peril.
And later that night when 'is lights went outta sight
came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Does any one know where the love of God goes
when the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
if they'd put fifteen more miles behind 'er.
They might have split up or they might have capsized;
they may have broke deep and took water.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
in the rooms of her ice-water mansion.
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams;
the islands and bays are for sportsmen.
And farther below Lake Ontario
takes in what Lake Erie can send her,
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
with the Gales of November remembered.

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed,
in the "Maritime Sailors' Cathedral."
The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they call "Gitche Gumee."
"Superior," they said, "never gives up her dead
when the gales of November come early!"

Video to the song:

In 2010 Gordon Lightfoot changee the lyric "At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in" to " At 7 pm, it grew dark, it was then" as the cargo hatch failure theory was proven incorrect. The lyric change made several of the crew members family very happy as they felt the original lyric in the song made the crew look incompetent and put blame on them for the loss of their ship. He also changed the lyric "In a musty old hall" to "In a rustic old hall" after playing the Mariner's Church.

This is a video of Captain Bernie Cooper, who was in command of the Arthur M. Anderson, recalling that night.

And now, a personal story about the Fitz:
A few years ago, my father hired out as a deckhand on a ship called the Arthur M Anderson. He got permission to bring me along on one of the last ore runs of the season. We were heading past the location where the Fitzgerald went down. Like I said before, my distant uncle went down in her engine room, so I went out on deck to pay my respects. That day, it was extremely foggy. I looked out to where the Fitz rests, and saw the silhouette of an ore boat, not too dissimilar from the Anderson. The weird thing was, she had no running lights, and when our captain sounded our horn at her, she didn't respond, like most other ships did. Oh, and then there was the fact that there was no noise coming from the other direction. No bell, nothing. The other freighter then faded into the mist. Later, I was talking to one of the crew members who had been on watch in the wheelhouse, and he told me that there was nothing on our radar when the freighter appeared. To this day, I believe that I saw the ghost of the Mighty Fitz.