MICHIGAN — 2025 marks 50 years since the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald and volunteers took to the Great Lakes for a memorial swim from the wreck site all the way to Detroit.

That swim started July 26th and wrapped up August 28th.

“I had some training to do. So I’ve been swimming since probably the wintertime and trying to get ready for it,” says stage 10 swimmer John Vandersloot.

“I feel like right above that wreckage is a sacred place,” says stage 1 swimmer Tammy Lenarz-Carruth. “It’s their cemetery. So I feel it’ll be very surreal to be at that spot and just to honor them in that way.”

The 411 mile trek began above the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald on July 26th, with 17 stages and 68 open water swimmers making their way towards Detroit.

“Sometimes you just kind of got to jump in

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