Edmund Fitzgerald keeps Superior hold on the imagination

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WHITEFISH POINT, Mich. - 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.

-- Gordon Lightfoot, "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

Thirty-five years ago this November, the gales came early to the "Graveyard of Ships," a treacherous 80-mile stretch of Lake Superior that lies between Whitefish Bay and Munising, Mich.

On Nov. 10, 1975, with its own guiding radar system and the Coast Guard radio beacon at Whitefish Point both knocked out by a raging storm, the mighty Edmund Fitzgerald -- in many ways the Titanic of the Great Lakes' iron-ore freighter fleet -- vanished into the snow and wind without warning or a distress call.

The 729-foot ship and its cargo of 26,116 tons of taconite pellets shot to the bottom of the lake, unseen and unheard, 17 miles northwest of Whitefish Point. All 29 crew members died.

Immortalized by folk singer Gordon Lightfoot's 1976 ballad, it is one of the most famous of the more than 6,000 shipwrecks in the region -- and also one of the most mysterious.

"It was certainly the most investigated wreck of its time, and still the mystery lingers today," said Tom Farnquist, executive director of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, "especially as to what could have happened so suddenly, and sent it down so fast, that there was no cry for help."

Three separate investigations -- by the Coast Guard, the National Transportation Safety Board and the Lake Carriers' Association -- failed to find a conclusive cause for the wreck. Farnquist, a former high-school biology teacher and founding member of the museum and Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, participated in four manned dives to the wreck site that never found "smoking-gun evidence" either.

No one disputes that the ship sank quickly to the bottom. Wreckage was found later that month in 535 feet of water, and in May 1976, a sonar scan showed ship remains with the words "Edmund Fitzgerald" on the stern, upside down. In 1995, as a memorial to the lost crew, the ship's bell was raised and placed on display in the Shipwreck Museum, and a replica bell, inscribed with the names of the crew, was lowered to the wreck to serve as a permanent tombstone.

The Coast Guard's official report, released in 1977, suggested that "ineffective hatch closures" allowed flooding of the cargo hold. The Lake Carriers' Association disagreed, preferring the theory that the ship was damaged when it passed over an area called the Six Fathom Shoal.

Bernie Cooper, captain of the freighter Arthur M. Anderson, which was following 17 miles behind the Edmund Fitzgerald during the storm and had the last contact with it, later said he and his crew thought the Edmund Fitzgerald had passed far too close to the shoals. He also reported being hit by two massive waves that he saw heading in the doomed ship's direction. Earlier in the day, the Edmund Fitzgerald's captain, Ernest M. McSorley, had radioed the Anderson that he had damage, and had his pumps running, and requested that the Anderson stay close. But the ship's final message, received only a few minutes before it disappeared, was that it was "holding its own."

Today, the mystery of the Edmund Fitzgerald is one of the prime draws for the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum and surrounding area, but not the only one by a long shot.

The Whitefish Point Light was commissioned by President Abraham Lincoln and is the oldest operating lighthouse on Lake Superior, though it was automated by the Coast Guard in 1970. The restored 1923 Coast Guard Lifeboat Station Crews Quarters is a hotel, offering five different themed rooms for rent.

Roughly 65,000 paying visitors come to the museum each year, but many more -- from lighthouse buffs, to rock hounds searching for agates, to birders following the North American flyway migrations -- explore the nearby boardwalk and beach, Farnquist said.

The Whitefish Point Bird Observatory monitors and documents annual migrations, and has logged more than 330 species of birds as they pass through. Miles of hiking, cross-country skiing and snowmobiling trails crisscross the region, and the million-acre Hiawatha National Forest looms to the south and west. Nearby Paradise, Mich., hosts a wild-blueberry festival each August for summer visitors and winter festivals and dogsled races in January and February for winter vacations.

The Great Lakes Historical Society has also teamed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Michigan Audubon Society to expand the Whitefish Point visitors area and establish an educational link between its human and natural resources. It plans to add two new wings to the museum that will include a high-definition video theater and a changing exhibits area. In addition, the society plans to restore and open the second assistant keeper and family quarters.

"Our goal," Farnquist said, "is to keep giving people more reasons to come back."

(E-mail Karen Allen at kaoh53(at)aol.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)

With sidebar: EDMUNDSIDE