Wreck of the «Edmund Fitzgerald»: The Legendary Great Lakes Disaster

Gordon Turner is the author of Empress of Britain: Canadian Pacific’s
Greatest Ship and the editor of SeaFare, a quarterly newsletter on sea
travel.

The sinking of the American cargo ship Edmund Fitzgerald in Canadian
waters on Lake Superior in November 1975 is a tale oft told in books,
magazines, television documentaries, and song. Although thousands of
ships have gone down in the Great Lakes over the centuries, the
Fitzgerald was the largest, and there were no survivors among her 29
officers and crew. Andra-Warner has provided a short but readable
account of the ship, her history, the events that led to her demise on
that stormy night, and the searches that followed. Theories as to the
cause of her sinking abounded at the time she was lost; they have not
yet subsided. The author describes several of the most likely, and
summarizes the results of the official investigation. Unfortunately, the
book is far from error-free. Names of ships are spelled incorrectly,
statistical details are inaccurate. A map of Lake Superior shows the
ship’s track for several hours prior to her sinking, but most
locations named in the text are omitted from the map.