Mariners’ Church To Remember The S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald

DERTOIT — The Mariners’ Church in downtown Detroit's annual observance of the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck will be held in-person and live-streamed Sunday at 3:00 p.m.

The service will be broadcast on YouTube for those who cannot attend in-person. Last year, organizers say it attracted more than 1,200 viewers.

The freighter sank in Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975 during a storm 17 miles north-northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan. The entire crew of 29 men died in the shipwreck.

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The freighter was scheduled to transport cargo to Zug Island on the Detroit River. When it departed on Nov. 9, 1975 it was carrying 26,116 tons of taconite pellets.

The freighter was about 20 miles south of Isle Royale in the early morning hours on Nov. 10, 1975, when it reported strong winds with waves as high as ten feet tall. Radio transmission was lost shorty after.

The legend of the Edmund Fitzgerald remains one of the most studied shipwrecks to have ever occurred in the Great Lakes.

The tale told by Canadian folksinger Gordon Lightfoot examines the sinking of the freighter and the might of Lake Superior.

The memorial service will also remember the lives lost in the roughly 6,000 shipwrecks on record in lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario.