#mighty fitz

[admiralbroom]

Guys it’s almost Edmund Fitzgerald day! Make sure you put Lake Superior under your pillow so that Gordon LightfootClause can leave the gales of November early this year!

[blogofperseus]

I reinstalled this app and logged into my Tumblr for the first time in years to post this

[clove-pinks]

I finished Michael Schumacher's Mighty Fitz: The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and it was a solid overview of the famous tragedy. Schumacher presents the theories of the ship's last hours without favoring one explanation over others, and like many disasters, it seems that a number of misfortunes combined on the fateful night of November 10, 1975. A sense of mystery remains, despite multiple dives to the wreck (which is now a protected gravesite, 530 feet below the waves of Lake Superior).

I came away from it with a renewed appreciation of the National Museum of the Great Lakes collection, and I was particularly struck by the story of one Fitzgerald crew member's son, who was a college student when police knocked on his door, insisting that he call his mother. The young man then had to find a phone, because he didn't have a phone in his apartment. In 1975 a working class teenager could afford college tuition, but not a phone line (those were the days of leasing phones and the Bell monopoly).

[paperstarzz]

Edmund Fitzgerald day yesterday

[thewreckofthessedmundfitzgerald]

Remembering the Edmund Fitzgerald which sank November 10, 1975.

The beacon at Split Rock Lighthouse is lit on this anniversary each year.

[clove-pinks]

WAIT HOLD ON:

Mighty Fitz: The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Michael Schumacher.

I need to know more about the book (it's probably not written by THE Michael Schumacher) ramble please, would you recommend it?

The author is Michael J. Schumacher, an American writer and journalist—not to be confused with yet another Michael J. Schumacher who is a musician. He wrote a series of books on Great Lakes shipwrecks, and recently passed away in 2025. I'm no wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald expert, but Mighty Fitz is an entertaining read and well-regarded.

I was slightly annoyed with Schumacher for using it/its pronouns for ships, but Lake Freighters above all seem to have very masculine names: Daniel J. Morrell, Edward Y. Townsend, Arthur M. Anderson, Carl D. Bradley, and of course Edmund Fitzgerald. As ore and fuel carriers, they were frequently named after industry magnates.

Early in the book he makes the claim that the Fitzgerald was "supposedly unsinkable," which is not what I heard from locals, but this is tempered by some contrary evidence later on. I'm not quite half-way through the book, the ship sank in chapter three. You can find Mighty Fitz on Internet Archive, if you're curious! I recommend it.

[thewreckofthessedmundfitzgerald]

SS Edmund Fitzgerald

[thewreckofthessedmundfitzgerald]

Never Forget the SS Edmund Fitzgerald