On the morning of Nov. 9, 1975, the U.S. Weather Service noted an area of low pressure developing over the Great Plains, centred in Kansas.

It would likely amount to a nothingburger; yet another fall storm was not uncommon in the Upper Midwest and along the Great Lakes.

At the far western end of Lake Superior, one of the largest ships on the lakes was taking on its load of taconite pellets, around 24,000 tonnes, at a dock in Superior, Wis. The Big Fitz’s destination was an iron ore facility on the aptly named Zug Island near Detroit.

For 17 years, the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald had been one of the biggest and grandest ships on the Great Lakes. By the 1975 shipping season, the ship had completed 748 round trips of the Great Lakes — a distance equivalent to 44 trips around the world.

At

See Full Page