Blue Star Chronicles

The Edmund Fitzgerald was launched 50 years ago earlier this month. There are photos and a video of the freighter below.

Edmund Fitzgerald

I just realized that earlier this month was the 50th anniversary of the launching of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Yes, I know I’m a day late and a dollar short, but I still thought I’d write a few thoughts about the ships of the Great Lakes.

I never had any sort of appreciation for those grand ships and freighters until I lived on the shore of the St. Lawrence Seaway for about six years. Until then, the most I knew about the Great Lakes and the ships and freighters that make their way through those great waters was Gordon Lightfoot’s song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. In my time living in Michigan and seeing those ships and freighters go past the front of our house every day, I learned how to identify where the ships were based, whether they were riding light or heavy, estimate their size and more. There were several that I had seen so often that I recognized them by name from a distance.

When the Edmund Fitzgerald was launched on June 6, 1958 she was the largest freighter in use at the time. At 729 feet, she was called the Queen of the Lakes. By the time I lived in that enchanting land, there were 1,000-footers passing each other day and night along the way. But at the time, The Edmund Fitzgerald was a magnificent sight to see, so for those who knew much more than me about the ships of the Great Lakes, she was famous long before the song by Gordon Lightfoot.

All in all, like with most things, people who don’t live in the area don’t necessarily appreciate the history and the significance of the things around them. For the people who saw the Edmund Fitzgerald travel the St. Lawrence Seaway for years and whose own lives were touched daily by the Lakes and the lifestyle of Lakes, the wreck had a much deeper meaning than a legend made famous by a popular song.

As an aside, our neighbor up there was a Captain of one of the smaller freighters on the Lakes. I rarely saw him because he was usually at sea, but I got to know his wife fairly well. He was fairly typical of the rough men who spend their lives navigating the dangers and uncertainty mother nature tossed at them. One night, in the dead of winter, a storm came up. There is nothing unusual about that for that area. What was usual was that our neighbor apparently happened to be passing by in his freighter as the ice in the river was thickening from the storm to the point that it was difficult to cut through. He parked his freighter in front of his house, and in so doing, he took out about a dozen docks lining the river in front of the houses of his neighbors. Everyone was outraged and furious that he had docked a freighter in a place that destroyed all the docks they used for their pleasure boats. He seemed unmoved. His contempt for their soft lives and concern for pleasure boats was barely contained. His only reply to his stomping an snorting neighbors was, ‘Any port in a storm’. And that is my most interesting story of the time I lived on the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Edmund Fitzgerald - Photos