3,801 words
In 1975, America was in transition. The cultural revolution which exploded in the 1960s seemed to have calmed down, but its proponents were still working relentlessly to undermine the USA. They were getting jobs in schools, colleges, private foundations, political parties, government agencies, churches, and of course the media. Some old edifices of culture hadn’t yet completely crumbled, though, and old-fashioned Americans didn’t seem to be as much under threat as in the violent days of 1968. America had recently pulled out of the Vietnam War, the drawn-out political mess of Watergate was over, Gerald Ford was a steady hand in the White House, and we were celebrating the bicentennial of the nation. Each day on TV, a “Bicentennial Minute” featured a story of events that had occurred 200 years before, told by actors, politicians, and other prominent figures. White people weren’t yet considered to be the root of all evil, except by a small number of ideologues and their followers.
I was in my early teens, living in a small city that is part of today’s “Rust Belt”. Back then, many of my schoolmates had fathers who worked in factories, and mothers who were housewives. Crime was still pretty low there, but most of us knew enough to stay out of the “black part of town,” since going to school with the black kids had taught us what was what. Downtown businesses were dying, but a “strip” along the main road on the edge of the city was getting developed, and there were gleaming new shopping malls in bigger cities, not too far away. The kids who had cars—most of us didn’t—would cruise along one of the main streets on weekend nights. It wasn’t paradise, but it was better than now.
In popular music, disco was in full force, along with hard rock, soft rock, prog rock, pop music, rhythm and blues, and what was still called country/western. I was listening to Jethro Tull and the group America, while other boys liked harder stuff: Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, and Rush. Those who preferred country/western could hear some of the real thing, with performers such as George Jones still kicking around. But some of it was sounding a lot less country/western, and a lot more slickified, schlockified, and submerged with elements of disco and other alien sounds.
You could see signs, if you were paying attention, that today’s cultural and political madness was in the making. Liberal/left messaging had infiltrated movies, TV and popular music for many years at that point, and it was picking up steam. Magic Negroes and Strong Women dispensed their wisdom and displayed their gravitas on TV and in movies. Sexualization of the culture was growing, divorce was on the rise, and illegal drugs were easily available.
But normal life also continued. Most men still went to the factory or office or store on workdays. Lots of nuclear families still went to church together. On weekends we would sometimes go on little day trips to historical sites or parks near home. When my dad had a vacation, we typically travelled a few hours away to spend time on his parents’ farm. When we were there it seemed to me as if we had gone back at least a century in time. And Dad and I spent a lot of time throwing a baseball, when there wasn’t homework or chores to do.
***
The ship was the pride of the American side, coming back from some mill in Wisconsin. As the big freighters go it was bigger than most, with a crew and good captain well-seasoned.
The S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald was a freighter on the Great Lakes. When she was completed in 1958, she was the largest ship on the lakes, 729 feet long and with a width of 75 feet. “The Fitz” regularly traveled between the iron region at the west end of Lake Superior and some industrial sites to the east. Her christening ceremony wasn’t auspicious. When she was allowed to slide into the water, she stirred up an unusually large wave, and then she went crashing into a nearby dock. One observer suffered a fatal heart attack. Other witnesses described the ship as if it was “trying to climb right out of the water.”[1] But the Fitz settled in the harbor, and she went on to be a great workhorse, setting and then breaking her own records for the amount of freight that she carried.
Ernest McSorley was the Fitz’s captain in 1975. He had worked his way up from being a young deckhand, and had been on the water for 44 years. He was a respected ship’s master with a professional manner, and was skilled at handling a ship in bad weather. Although reserved in nature, he often had a good rapport with the other men in the pilothouse of his ship. He was thinking of retiring soon, to spend more time with his ailing wife. His crew ranged from several very experienced men in their fifties and early sixties to some young deckhands in their early twenties. The first mate, John McCarthy, was a friendly Ohioan, also well-respected. The younger men who showed a special aptitude and a willingness to learn and work hard were given opportunities to learn the ropes of becoming ship’s officers. When they were ashore, most of the crew lived in towns in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Ohio.
On November 9, 1975 the weather in Superior, Wisconsin was mild and sunny. The crew of the Fitz and the dockworkers on shore loaded a cargo of iron ore pellets into the ship, and the Fitz sailed eastward that afternoon, bound for a port near Detroit. Weather forecasts warned of stormy weather the next day, but the men of the Fitz hoped to be at their destination by the evening of the 10th.
The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound, and a wave broke over the railing. And every man knew, as the captain did too, ‘twas the Witch of November come stealing.
The Arthur M. Anderson was another freighter that was travelling eastward on Lake Superior on November 9. For a while it was a short distance ahead of the Fitz, and the two ships’ officers maintained radio communication with each other. Gales were in the forecast, and the storms struck that night. Rain was heavy, wind gusts were up to 60 miles per hour, and by 1:00 AM the waves were up to 10 feet high. Stronger winds were predicted, which would mean larger waves. Captain Bernie Cooper of the Anderson and Captain McSorley of the Fitz decided to sail northeastwards towards Canada, where the land would hopefully act as a shield against the northeast winds. The Fitz was a more powerful ship, and it passed the Anderson that night, although both ships maintained contact and could see each other’s lights.
Through the morning of the 10th, the waves remained high. In the early afternoon, the Fitz entered the eye of the storm, which meant calmer weather. By around 2:00 PM, though, the winds had gotten stronger and were blowing heavy snow, cutting visibility. Men on the Anderson were no longer able to see the Fitz. Waves were now 25 to 35 feet high. As the Anderson approached Caribou Island and some adjacent shoals, McSorley reported, “I’ve got problems. I’ve got a fence rail down, some vents torn off, and I got a bad list.” A list meant that the ship was tipping to one side. The Fitz was now listing to starboard—to the right as one faced ahead. McSorley had two pumps operating to remove water from the ship. He decided to slow down so that the Anderson could follow more closely. Winds were blowing at over 80 miles per hour.
Captain Cooper speculated later that the Fitz might have scraped its bottom on shoals near Caribou Island, but at the time, McSorley did not seem aware that this might have happened. It turned out that the charts which were in use during this voyage were inaccurate in where they indicated some shoals.
The two ships turned southeast towards Whitefish Bay, where they would find a haven. But the storm continued to pound, with winds getting up to 100 miles per hour. McSorley reported to the Anderson at 4:10 PM that his radar system was no longer operating, and he asked if the Anderson could help him with navigation. The men of the Anderson agreed, and did what they could using their radar, and continuing to communicate with the Fitz by radio.
You can buy Greg Johnson’s The Year America Died here.
Later in the evening, the men on the Anderson were still unable to see the Fitz. A little after 7:10 PM, the Anderson inquired how she was doing. McSorley replied, “We are holding our own.” It was the last message anyone heard from the captain, or anyone else in the ship. Soon after, the crew of the Anderson were unable to locate the Fitz on radar. She had not sent any distress signal, but she had vanished with all 29 of her crew.
Does anyone know where the love of God goes, when the waves turn the minutes to hours. The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay if they’d put 15 more miles behind her.
As the snow lessened, Cooper tried unsuccessfully to see the lights of the Fitz, and to contact her. She was still off the radar. He then contacted the Coast Guard. “I am very concerned with the welfare of the steamer Edmund Fitzgerald,” he reported. “I can see no lights as before, and I don’t have him on radar. I just hope he didn’t take a nosedive.” A little before 9:00 PM the Anderson reached safety at Whitefish Bay.
The storm was still substantial, and there was little the Coast Guard could do at the time, having only a few small boats nearby. They did send an airplane out to look for the ship or survivors, but the men in the plane saw no trace of the Fitz or her crew.
The Coast Guard contacted larger civilian ships in the area of Whitefish Bay, hoping that they could help in the search. Three ships, including the Anderson, set out and tried desperately to find the Fitz and her men. It was a heroic deed for the captains and crews of these ships to go back out—they had already reached safe harbor, and were turning back into the fierce storm, knowing it had probably already claimed one ship.
Early in the morning of November 11, Father Richard Ingalls heard the news from a friend about the Fitzgerald being lost. Father Ingalls was an Anglican priest at the Mariner’s Church in Detroit, a church that was founded as “a free place of worship for sailors.”[2] By the time Father Ingalls heard the news, it was unlikely that there would be any survivors due to the weather and rough conditions on the water. He soon drove to the church, rang its bell 29 times for each man on the crew, and stayed to pray for them.
A little after 8:00 AM, the men of the Anderson, still searching, found part of a severely damaged lifeboat from the Fitz. There were still no signs of any of its crew.
Ships and planes, some from the Canadian Coast Guard, continued to search during the next few days, and more small items from the Fitz were found. On November 14, a U.S. Navy airplane with special sensory equipment located the actual shipwreck deep underwater, 17 miles from Whitefish Bay. Subsequent searching found that the ship was on the bottom in two large pieces, 530 feet below the surface. None of the crew had survived.
The exact cause of the sinking is still unknown. Coast Guard investigators suggested that some hatches which covered the cargo bays might have been faulty or improperly secured, allowing too much water from the waves and the storm into the ship. Another possibility was that the hull collapsed due to long-term stress from many years of sailing, combined with the battering from the November 10 storm. And some researchers, along with Captain Cooper of the Anderson, were convinced that the Fitz unknowingly struck bottom on shoals near Caribou Island, which weakened the ship as she traveled through the storm. Cooper also reported seeing two especially large “rogue waves” which were headed towards the Fitz, soon before her disappearance. Since the Fitz was already listing and taking on water, such a wave might have been fatal if it struck from a certain direction.
The ship might have broken in two as she plunged downwards, or when she struck bottom. Men familiar with shipping on the Great Lakes believed that she went down very suddenly. In their final moments on the surface, the crew in the front of the ship were probably confronted with an overwhelming force of water rushing in. Then confusion, destruction, and cold. Men in the back of the ship might have lived a bit longer.
And all that remains is the faces and the names of the wives, and the sons, and the daughters.
The loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald made an impression on me, as I saw the news reports that November. The lost captain looked like a serious man in his photo. The reason why the ship sank was a mystery. And there were 29 lives lost in a fearful event. My city wasn’t right on the Great Lakes, but we were close enough to visit them occasionally to sightsee and swim. The steel mills in my town might have used material that was brought part of the way by those great freighters, and then by railroad. In school we sometimes watched short educational films made in the 50s or early 60s about shipping and industry in the region. As we got into our teen years, it seemed funny to be subjected to films that seemed to be propaganda from the shipping or steel industries. But later, I understood a little more why the men in those films were proud of what they did.
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings, in the rooms of her ice-water mansion.
Gordon Lightfoot was also intrigued by the news. He had been interested in ships since boyhood. Within a few weeks of the sinking, he was writing a song about it. “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” was recorded in one take, and released on an album in May 1976. It has a memorable folkish tune, filled with mournful, echoing effects. Lightfoot’s strong and steady voice weaves in and out along with a synthesizer, guitars, bass guitar, and some subdued drums. More than one person has reported that the song gives them chills. When I first heard it on one of the mainstream rock/pop radio stations, it sounded very distinctive, with its haunting music and its real story of regular men, told poetically. It wasn’t about “relationships” or sex or drugs or hedonism or revolution, like so much else that was heavily promoted. It was about men like those whom my dad and I knew, and it was about tragedy, and deep loss. I had heard some of Lightfoot’s songs before, which I liked, but I didn’t have any of his records. This was a song which I wanted to keep around, so that I wouldn’t have to wait until the radio played it again. Where I lived, if you heard a song on the radio like that, you had to hope that the nearby discount department store had stocked it in their small record department as a “single 45,” or, if you had enough money, on an album with eight or ten songs. If they didn’t have it you could order it, but that would take several days for it to come into the store. At my age that seemed like an awfully long time. I had enough money scrounged up for the 45, and when I walked to the discount store, it was there. I played that record to death, when my sisters would let me use their little box player, or on my parents’ big Magnavox console stereo, when it wouldn’t disturb anyone.
Gordon Lightfoot was a Canadian, born in Orillia, Ontario in 1938. Biographer Nicholas Jennings noted that Lightfoot’s family had “a strong Protestant work ethic.”[3] As a boy Gordon sang in a church choir, learned piano, and won some national singing contests. As a young man he studied musical theory and composition, and he developed an affinity for folk and country music. He moved to Toronto when he was 21, and worked steadily at finding opportunities there to perform and record music. From the early-1960s until very near his death in 2023, he wrote, recorded and performed songs that blended elements of folk, country and rock music. Lightfoot crafted several fine melodies, and his words went well beyond “I love you baby, I need you baby.” With a shy, reclusive personality, he still managed to become a popular performer. As music manager John Court said, “The truth behind any successful singer is that people must trust the voice, be able to relax with it and go on the singer’s journey. And Gord had one of those wonderful voices.”[4]
Some of Lightfoot’s songs are wistful and nostalgic, and some reflect upon the Canadian past. “Summer Side of Life” is one that I like with such qualities. For his history songs, Lightfoot did a fair amount of serious research. “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” tells about the building of the Canadian transcontinental railroad, and Lightfoot gives the railroad visionaries their due:
And when the young man’s fancy was turning to the spring.
The railroad men grew restless for to hear the hammers ring.
Their minds were overflowing with the visions of their day.
And many a fortune lost and won and many a debt to pay.
For they looked in the future and what did they see?
They saw an iron road running from the sea to the sea.
He also gives the perspective of the men who did the hard, physical labor:
We are the Navvies, who work upon the railway,
Swingin’ our hammers in the bright blazin’ sun,
Livin’ on stew, and drinkin’ bad whiskey,
Bendin’ our backs ’til the long days are done.
Lightfoot enjoyed traveling the wide stretches of Canadian countryside, and he captured glimpses of nature in his songs. He wrote about farm fields, woods, and wetlands like the ones that I loved to wander through on my grandpa’s farm. Jennings, who knew Lightfoot, described him as “a small-town conservative,” and his songs as “robust.”[5]
Another journalist called Lightfoot “the quintessential Canadian—kind, self-effacing, attached to the landscape and incredibly hard-working…. [And] also notoriously private.”[6] Lightfoot also had his problems. As one might guess from his early hit song, “Early Morning Rain,” he struggled with alcoholism. He also got caught up in celebrity party life during the 70s, and did a lot of womanizing. But he gave up drinking in 1982, and seemed to find some contentment. He remained a Canadian citizen and resident and, while patriotic, he didn’t seem to resent the USA, unlike some Canadians who have a bit of an inferiority complex or a chip on their shoulder. He probably made a lot of money from American fans, but he didn’t turn up his nose at performing in smaller, out-of-the-way cities there. On one concert tour in America, Lightfoot made a point of seeing Mount Rushmore.[7]
The church bell chimed, and it rang twenty-nine times, for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Lightfoot developed a special feeling for the people involved in the story of the Fitz. He met and corresponded with relatives of the crew, and visited the Mariners’ Church in Detroit three times. According to a trustee of the church, “He was a remarkable man. He has had such an impact on all of the families of the lost crew and on our church. He is so loved here.”[8] Lightfoot also helped provide a scholarship for students at the Great Lakes Maritime Academy. He said that helping to remember the men of the Fitz was “my way of showing my worth.”[9]
The men on the Edmund Fitzgerald were all white Americans, with varying personalities and interests. Some liked to hunt and fish. Some enjoyed reading. Many were devoted family men. We should remember them, and the millions of men like them whose lives were unsung. Their stories help remind us why we’re here at Counter-Currents—because of love, not hate.
In 1995, the Fitz’s bell was salvaged by a diver, to serve as a memorial above the water. Jack Champeau, whose older brother Buck was among the Fitz’s crew, was present. He remarked: “On the night before I left for Vietnam, Buck came to see me in my room. He told me not to worry. He said even if something happened to me, if I was missing, he would come to Vietnam and find me and take me back. I know that I cannot find Buck down there and take him back with me, as much as I would like.” So Jack Champeau participated in the salvaging of the bell, as a way to do something.[10]
Four years later, there was a memorial ceremony on board a ship, above the site of the wreck. In attendance were relatives of the lost crew, friends, and men who had searched for the Fitz soon after it was lost. Father Ingalls was there—the priest who had rung the bell for each man on the night they were lost. Towards the end of the ceremony, attorney Robert Dunn referred to a poem “Gone From Your Sight” which is sometimes recited at funerals, and added his own words:
And so, let us remember the love and the strength of the men of the Edmund Fitzgerald when we say: ‘They are gone.’ Gone where? Gone from your sight is all. They are just as large in your hearts and prayers as when you last saw them. And just at the moment when you are saying, ‘They are gone,’ there are old friends and loved ones saying, ‘They are here, safe and happy with us!’ And when your ship sails over the horizon toward that other shore, the sun will shine brightly on you, and you will hear their glad shouts saying, ‘Here they come!’[11]
Notes
[1] “Shipwreck: The Mystery of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” The Discovery Channel, 1995, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yftOmLZMhFM
[2] “Our History in Detroit,” Mariners’ Church of Detroit, https://marinerschurchofdetroit.org/about/ (accessed Aug. 27, 2025)
[3] Jennings, Nicholas, “Gordon Lightfoot: The Canadian Bard Wrote the Tunes for a Nation’s Identity,” May 15, 2023, https://www.nicholasjennings.com/gordon-lightfoot-the-canadian-bard-wrote-the-tunes-for-a-nation-s-identity
[4] Jennings, Nicholas, Lightfoot ([Toronto:] Viking, 2017), 48.
[5] Jennings, 2023.
[6] Braun, Liz, “Gordon Lightfoot Bio Reveals the Music and the Man,” Toronto Sun, Oct. 2, 2017, https://torontosun.com/2017/10/02/gordon-lightfoot-bio-reveals-the-music-and-the-man
[7] Stevenson, Jane, “Gordon Lightfoot on Life on the Road, Jimmy Fallon and More,” Toronto Sun, April 24, 2014,
https://torontosun.com/2014/04/24/gordon-lightfoot-on-life-on-the-road-jimmy-fallon-and-more
[8] Warmington, Joe, “Warmington: Bell Tolls for Lightfoot, as Crew of Edmund Fitzgerald Honoured,” Toronto Sun, May 4, 2023,
[9] Jennings, 2017, 249.
[10] Schumacher, Michael, Mighty Fitz: The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald (New York: Bloomsbury, 2005), 170.
[11] Ibid., 179-80.
59 comments
This is an appropriate piece for Labor Day. Thank you.
My dad bought this record when I was a little kid. It goes well with “The Highwayman”.
We also were from a rust belt city in the USA, mining and manufacturing. That city is now known for pill mills.
Writer Alan Villiers, around a hundred years ago, wrote about shipping in Tasmania at the time of change from sail to steam. His Vanished Fleets is a good place to start.
Thank you, Doug. I enjoyed some writings by Alan Villiers in National Geographic long ago, but I didn’t know about Vanished Fleets. I’ll have to take a look! I also want to check out “The Highwayman.”
Speaking of pill mills, I’ve noticed in my recent exploring around the Great Lakes that marijuana shops have spread like, uhhhhh, weeds, in many small towns. I also learned that the Chinese have been very active in this kind of thing.
Please check out Stan Rogers. Start with “White Squall”. He is all about Great Lakes nautical songs. If you like Gordon Lightfoot I guarantee you will love Stan Rogers.
I’ll look for “White Squall” today, Dave, thank you. I’m pretty sure that I liked a couple of songs by Stan Rogers on a Pandora folk music station that I set up, but I can’t remember the names of them. I’m glad you reminded me about him!
I saw Gordon Lightfoot in concert in Arizona, 1974. He was visibly drunk, led onto the stage with his head down and one hand resting on the shoulder of a backup musician. And then he played all of his songs flawlessly.
I have always been in awe of this guy who came from a middle class background and could tap into so many themes and still sound authentic.
Since we’re in that era, it’s worth mentioning the film Lakeboat, about sailors on a Great Lakes freighter. Adapted from a play by David Mamet, it draws on the author’s own time working on such a ship. True to Mamet’s style, it’s essentially a Jewish playwright doing a character study of his shipmates—but at least he does it with affection and respect.
Of course, that’s a far cry from the men of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Still, you have to imagine a few quirky individuals among them, especially in the support roles. Shipping out on a freighter has long carried a kind of romantic allure for certain artistic types. Yet you rarely see realistic depictions of the day-to-day life in that industry.
I enjoyed this article and its perspective.
Michael Schumacher, in his book Mighty Fitz, describes how some of the Great Lakes seamen were drawn to the sense of freedom on the water and in the wide open spaces. He goes into some detail about some of the crew on the Fitz. All very sad stories, of course, but there was one crew member who stood out for me, because he was a young guy who seemed to show a lot of promise and was very responsible, and he would probably have become a ship’s master eventually. If I remember correctly, he had a rushed, sad, tearful goodbye with his mother right before the Fitz went on her last trip (hopefully I’m not mixing up stories of the crew).
There seem to have been multiple occasions when Lightfoot was a little worse for wear on days when he was going to perform, but he came through like you described. For all his success and faults, he seems to have stayed reasonably humble.
Thank you, Al.
This was a beautiful article; a wonderful remembrance of the men who died on The Fitz and a tribute to all religious, hard working, family oriented middle class White men, and the clerics who once served to honor and serve them.
Great topic, great sentiments expressed here. The best is of course, that we are all here out of love for Our folk. Thank you for the touching article.
It means a lot to me, AM, that you and the others here got something from this essay. I’ve especially appreciated what you’ve written in your comments about Alfred the Great and his men.
Researching the Fitz was a moving experience for me. And what you said about being “here out of love for our folk” hits the nail right on the head. It’s what keeps moving me forward. I believe that we have a supernatural connection with our ancestors. And Edmund Burke said something about how society should be….
“a contract between the dead, the living and those yet to be born”
I made a query in the Brave browser’s AI program about Burke, and I thought it described this very well….
“Burke emphasized that society is not merely a temporary arrangement for the benefit of the present but a sacred trust that links past achievements with future responsibilities.”
You mentioned the clerics who served and honored regular White men. I knew a pastor in my own life like that. Sadly he’s retired now, but hopefully we’ll have more like him soon, who fight back against anti-Whiteness.
Thank you, AM.
Beautiful piece, thank you. A friend of mine once told me that the swells on the lake that day were so large and chaotic that the bow and stern of the ship each sat on a swell, with void in between, breaking the vessel in two.
Lightfoot sounds almost like an Indian name.
Another of his many great songs is Sundown.
Thank you, CC Reader. Schumacher’s book goes into some detail about how the Fitz might have met its end, and that exact way that you described was a possibility. Some of the men around the Lakes at the time described this particular storm as one of the worst that they could remember. And some years before, there was another Great Lakes freighter that broke apart in the middle like you described, with the fore and aft lifted on two waves. Another sad story, and I don’t think many of its crew survived.
Based on my readings, Gordon Lightfoot had Scottish and English ancestry. And yes, “Sundown” is the first song of his that I remember hearing on the radio. It was written about a woman he was involved with, who later gave John Belushi his fatal overdose. So I guess Gord dodged a bullet there!
One of my favorite songs by Lightfoot is “Seven Island Suite.” Jennings calls it “a six-minute paean to the healing power of nature,” and I think that says it well…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vse35mk2VsA
Thank you for the reply, Traddles. Interesting story about Sundown, Gord was wise to keep away!
Yeah, at least he managed to turn that experience into a good song, like you said.
I recall a friend’s father coming to our third grade class to teach us about ballads and we all learned the lyrics to this song. I still play it today.
I’m glad you’re keeping the song alive. There’s such a wealth of ballads and other old folk songs to tap into.
I read recently how Cecil Sharp rode around England on his bicycle, collecting old folk songs. One of them was played on the old children’s TV show “Captain Kangaroo” when I was little, and it has stayed in my mind ever since (from many years ago).
Great article and tribute to both the men of the Fitz and to Gord. My only quibble is would it not have been better to wait seven more weeks to the day and post this fine piece on Monday, Nov 10 – the 50th anniversary of her sinking? I’m sure there will be many other tributes coming out that day. Then again, as the author mentions these were working class white guys, so maybe not so many tributes forthcoming. Again, fine piece.
Thank you, Boris. It’s funny, when I started researching for this essay, it didn’t occur to me until I was in the midst of it that this year is the 50th anniversary. Kathryn S from here at C-C inspired me to tackle the subject, and I’m glad I did.
Time flies, and I can still vividly remember seeing the news about the Fitz in 1975. I was glad this appeared on Labor Day, but November 10 would have been appropriate too.
Sorry – ten weeks to the day.
Downtown businesses were dying, but a “strip” along the main road on the edge of the city was getting developed,…
When I read this, my first thought was that you were going to say the name of my hometown. I also remember fire hydrants, and trash cans painted red, white, and blue. I was born in 1961, so this decade has become sacred to me; the last time I was truly happy was back in the 70s. 🙃
Hi Peter. I’m close to your age. And yes, I had a very happy childhood too, back in the 60’s and early 70’s. That lasted until adolescence kicked in, and until I encountered Diversity in my middle school. Then I learned some lessons that stood the test of time. But we survived, didn’t we?
And yeah, so many of those towns are limping along today. Here’s to a new life for them someday.
Crime was still pretty low there, but most of us knew enough to stay out of the “black part of town,” since going to school with the black kids had taught us what was what.
Agreed, but white people were not afraid to call a “nigger” a “nigger” back then, and if a white kid got into a fight with a “nigger,” it wasn’t unusual for other white kids to help out, but that was before blacks became magical, sacred creatures. 🙃
Blacks are approximately 13% of the US population, but are vastly overrepresented in media, entertainment, advertisements, educational and cultural institutions, American history, as government employees, you name it. Negro Worship has been the gaslighting game of the US power elite since the late 1940s. They know the majority of Whites just want to live in peace among their own kind, so the elite see to it that you can’t escape seeing blacks everywhere you look. Inserting black/White couples into every ad you see (black male/White female being the most common combination) has been the latest mind game they carry out on the public. Blacks are the sacred darlings and tools of the ruling class in America.
When I was in school in the 70’s, newer “history” textbooks were already focusing on black and other minority figures, at the expense of actually significant men in history who were white. And we were forced to watch propaganda such as “Roots.”
I hope that more and more parents will homeschool their children. I know that it’s hard for some families, so it needs to be supported.
Back then, many of my schoolmates had fathers who worked in factories, and mothers who were housewives.
Same here, one-income families were still common then, and most people raised a big garden, then the 80s came, and slowly the old factories closed, or were off-shored. 🙃
In popular music, disco was in full force, along with hard rock, soft rock, prog rock, pop music, rhythm and blues, and what was still called country/western.
Pop music was dominated by great white singers, before the jews relentless push to replace them with black singers. There were still movie theaters back in those days, not the big mega-plex that was installed in the malls. Every year, there was a blockbuster movie that dominated. 🙃
What a remarkable article, TT.
A seventies kid myself, I still remember a brown-cover Gordon Lightfoot album in my mother’s collection, played often.
Lightfoot’s commemorative lyrics (and music, of course) are extraordinairy. As for the priest’s remarks, in the words of the late Shane MacGowan: “I suppose I must have cried.”
Thank you, JK. Speaking of tears, that documentary which I cited is very moving–“Shipwreck: The Mystery of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” It’s filled with facts, and tells the story in a very dramatic way. Highly recommended.
Regarding Lightfoot’s lyrics, a historian of the Canadian railroads told Lightfoot, “You did more good with your damn song than I did with my entire book on the same subject.” I also like how there are sections of that song which are akin to a locomotive picking up steam (“Canadian Railroad Trilogy”).
Funny you mentioned Shane MacGowan. Although I delved into a lot of music in the 80’s, I never got familiar with him and the Pogues. Something to add to my list!
And I’ve appreciated your commentary here at C-C.
Likewise! (I hadn’t immediately made the connection: the Traddles).
I’ll have to check out that documentary; and that’s hilarious, the historian/author.
Checking out MacGowan/Pogues is worth the time, IMO. Here’s a great TV performance they did, of “The Irish Rover”, with the Dubliners.
Thank you for this.
Thank you, AdamMil! I thoroughly enjoyed working on this.
“In 1995, the Fitz’s bell was salvaged by a diver, to serve as a memorial above the water.”
It should be noted that another bell (with all the names of the Fritz’s crew engraved on it) was brought down to replace the original bell when it was retrieved. (IIRC) This, so as to not desecrate the gravesite. I’m also fairly certain that even though some remains have been found by official divers, none of them have been brought up so as to not disturb their resting place. This was the wishes of the families, and I also believe that the only dives that have been permitted were for research purposes. Shipwreck diving tourism isn’t permitted at the Fitzgerald site so as to not desecrate it.
Thank you for writing this accurate account of the Big Fitz’s tragic fate.
Gordon Lightfoot was one of my favorite folk singers. “Sundown” is another great song of his by the way. Though it’s a little more pop oriented. He died just a few short years ago. He became a friend and advocate to a great number of the families of the lost sailors. A man of good character.
The story of the Fitz is one of my historical obsessions. A few months never go by without me reading something or watching “Shipwreck: The Mystery of the Edmund Fitzgerald” https://youtu.be/n_sn-kTJAYg?si=z9xMhOyFhGkeJOvK
Yes, that documentary is outstanding. It’s very factual and moving. Chokes a person up, from the beginning of it to the ringing of the bell and the pictures of some of the crew at the end.
You’re right about the bell with the crewmen’s names that was placed on the wreck. And yes, the site of the wreck was officially designated a cemetery, to protect the men’s remains and to keep the place dignified. After one diver found a body on the lake floor amidst the wreckage, the surviving families and some allies worked hard to keep the wreckage site restricted.
Thank you, Connor.
I’d like to contribute another comment related to the documentary I linked to above.
I think it was produced in 1995. This was a very famous, newsworthy historical event, and 20 years on, a wonderful documentary was produced to commemorate it. Yet in 2025, I doubt anyone would produce such a documentary (I say this with a caveat). The caveat being, nobody would produce such a documentary unless it included a racist, feminist, or antiwhite angle.
I can’t say this definitively, but I don’t think there was a black crew member aboard the Fitzgerald. I’m 99.9% certain there wasn’t, because if there had been, he would have been mentioned somewhere, somehow, in some kind of context, even in that 1995 production. Even in ‘95, I have no doubt that members of the production team asked, or dig into that possibility. I’d wager they even dredged through the newspaper articles (with no luck) to find out if an Arthur M Anderson crew member was black in order to get an interview. Yet, in ‘95 it wasn’t a dealbreaker for the production of the documentary.
If someone were to make an updated “present year” documentary about that fateful voyage today, there would be at least ten minutes devoted to the lack of female crew members, racist hiring practices by the Fitzgerald’s owners, or mention of some anecdote in regards to McSorley having a reputation as a racist or ties to white supremacy.
I’ve written a few things for C-C in the past, if I can ever get some strong inspiration, I have a notion to write about the demise of the historical documentary.
There’s a video version of Lightfoot’s rendition of Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald which includes documentary footage of the big ship as it takes on the Great Lakes. The video inserts radio transmissions from that fateful incident of 10 November 1975 giving some immediacy to an era of the last stand of the American industrial heartland. The finale rolls photos and names of the captain and crew, determined men who once upon a time tamed a continent and its waterways. All chilling and a true message from the past…and what can inspire a future on the American continent.
“determined men who once upon a time tamed a continent and its waterways”
Yes, it’s vital to preserve the stories of those men. History is a major battleground for us. When David Betz was told how, in Britain, beloved figures such as Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie and the artist John Constable are condemned nowadays, he said “Iconic destruction is a perfectly well-known and understood strategy of insurgency.” In this case he means anti-white insurgency, of course.
Libraries have been “weeding out” books and other items in their collections that date from before the age of Obama. So we need to make sure we preserve old histories and newer ones that aren’t Woke, and then make sure we pass them on to people who will take care of them. With the way things are going, I’m not confident that AI will be a good resource for history in the future. It already often presents the “Social Justice”/Wikipedia versions.
There’s a film called 13 Lakes that consists of 10-minute segments of a static camera filming a lake, and the lakes are from around the world, from the Arctic to the subtropics. One of the segments was filmed in Duluth, and the only thing you see moving is an ore carrier similar to the Fitzgerald proceeding out of the harbor. This movie was not for everyone. When I saw it in 2004 at a festival, more than half the audience left before the end. My favorite was Okeechobee, because you hear a train passing close behind the camera but don’t see it, just the lake.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LAdii2YXZno
Yeah, I sometimes enjoyed sitting back along the edge of my grandpa’s pond for a while, soaking in the scenery and the peace and sounds of ducks, frogs and crickets.
Excellent essay.
I lived in Minnesota for a time in my youth. For a field trip we once went to the Edmund Fitzgerald Museum in Duluth.
The Lightfoot song is a staple that is played live at many local events where I’m from. It’s been in the background for a good chunk of my life. I read somewhere that Lightfoot made it a point to get permission from all of the families before releasing the song.
Yes, Lightfoot always acted with a sense of responsibility towards the families of the lost crewmen. He went through a really bad time in the 70’s with his alcoholism, and sometimes he was hard to be around in those days, but from what I read he always looked out for the families of the Fitz. When he died, the people of the Mariner’s Church rang the bell there 30 times, to include him along with the crewmen.
Thank you, Gaddius. I hope that life is good in GM-Land!
No doubt that the people of the Mariners Church sang the hymn that includes:
Oh Trinity of love and power
Thy children shield in danger’s hour
And hear us when we pray to thee
For those in peril on the sea
Yes, that’s a moving hymn. I think I remember that it was a favorite of Ronald Reagan.
What a great article on a compelling event and a timeless, evocative song.
I’ve always been a big fan of Gordon Lightfoot and especially his song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. And like many others, his song caused to research the tragic event. I didn’t know, however, that Lightfoot was actively involved with families of the men of the Fitz. But it’s certainly not surprising. The person who wrote such a masterpiece was no doubt drawn deeply to this sad event.
Thank you, Tommy.
Thank you, Roland. I’m glad you liked the article! Yes, and Lightfoot worried about how his song would effect the families of the crewmen, and about its accuracy. In concerts, he later changed some words in The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, because there was uncertainty over whether the ship sank due to the hatch covers not being closed correctly, which was originally thought to be the cause. Instead of singing
At seven PM a main hatchway caved in, he said “Fellas, it’s been good to know ya,”
Lightfoot instead sang:
A seven PM it grew dark. It was then he said “Fellas, it’s been good to know ya.”
So it shows that Lightfoot was very concerned about the truth, and about making sure that he was fair to the people of the Fitz. The exact cause of the sinking is still unknown, but Lightfoot at least wanted to make sure he didn’t unfairly suggest that it was due to something that the crew did wrong.
Yeah, great essay, Mr. Traddles.
On the evening when the Edmund Fitzgerald went down it was the day of my 14th birthday and I was busy playing with my present, a chemistry set or a Geiger counter or whatever it was that year. I do not remember hearing about it in the news, nor on the next day.
But I do vividly remember the Gordon Lightfoot song that came out the next year.
“That Good Ship & True Was a Bone to Be Chewed”
Except that I remember the above lyric as being:
“That Good Ship & Crew Was a Bone to Be Chewed”
I thought it was especially poignant that the merciless elements chewed up the poor crew when they were sent to the cold deep.
I thought rough seas were sometimes referred to by sailors as chew, meaning synonymous with “choppy.” But I’m not a Navy guy.
Anyway, with respect to Historiography, I know a little bit about that, although I refrained from becoming a teacher on purpose. I don’t recall the public school system with very much fondness.
I found that textbooks beginning in the 1970s started turning into what we would now call “Woke” nonsense. The Alt-Right, or whatever term was in vogue at the time, interpretation that the Civil Rights Act of 1964-65 effectively impeached the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is not wrong.
Certainly this was true by 1983, when President Reagan signed into law the vile Martin Luther King canonization bill ─ little more than a week after after hundreds of U.S. Marines were bombed and killed in Beirut, effectively a White House photo op for the Israel Lobby.
My Dad was a self-described “sucker for books” and had lots of reading materials on his shelves including his old High School History textbook from 1956, which I dutifully studied in the 1970s when I was the same age. The textbook was written in a manner for High Schoolers, and I read it cover to cover on my own.
Prof. Thomas A. Bailey (Stanford University),
The American Pageant: A History of the Republic
(Boston, 1956).
Before the 1970s, History textbooks were not updated very frequently. They tended to end with the Korean War. Prof. Bailey’s specialty was Diplomatic History, Foreign Policy, and the American Presidents rather than domestic events. However, his essays written near his retirement in 1968 tended to drift a little more into sketchy territory as he was being severely criticized for giving short shrift to Civil Rights. But even so, his outlook remained restrained and rooted in a sober civic nationalism.
In Prof. Bailey’s aforementioned 1956 U.S. History textbook, World War II was handled briefly and fairly conventionally, but with minimalistic jingoism.
The Camps were mentioned but only in a minor manner or in a footnote, and there was little or no obsession about Hitler. There was not too much demonization of the former enemies in what is now branded as the Good War ─ nor of the stubborn Isolationists who believed in putting America First and resisting the warmongering of Messrs. Churchill and Roosevelt.
In fact, the U.S. Senator who served Nevada in that capacity from 1933 until 1954, Patrick A. McCarran (1876-1954) was a Democrat who had formerly been on the Nevada Supreme Court, and he had supported General Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
Senator McCarran was a strong enemy of Communism and critic of the so-called Second New Deal, wherein many new New Deal laws were later ruled Unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.
According to Wikipedia, Senator McCarran’s criticisms of the Soviet Union were marred by anti-Semitism. Pat McCarran was vehemently opposed to sending American aid to Britain and the Soviet Union who were fighting Germany, and he said that although he disliked dictator Hitler, Communism was an intrinsic evil.
In 1948, Sen. McCarran had the Las Vegas, Nevada airport named after him for his contnributions to aviation ─ and this lasted until (((for some strange reason))) they renamed the airport in late 2021, just after former Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) died.
A lot of Zoomers think that all of our woes were invented by the beliefs and actions of their elders, whom they typically call Boomers. But this betrays mostly an incomplete knowledge of what went on before with our people which has been conveniently forgotten.
This is deliberate in that our overlords do not want us to remember the past truthfully.
This is why Real History is so important, and it underscores that we should remember our past heroes ─ from General Lee to the latest outrages of renaming military posts and international airports.
Folksinger Gordon Lightfoot mentioning in a popular song from the 1970s that the Chippewa called Lake Superior “Gitche Gumee” is cultural appropriation ─ and it shows definitively that in remembering some dead White men, that popular music is a tool for colonial oppression and First Nations Genocide.
🙂
It seems like that true understanding of how the 60’s civil rights acts undermined the Constitution is gradually getting more widely appreciated. Christopher Caldwell, who has written for some CivNat publications, came out with a book that argues that. I haven’t read it, but it seems to have made a big splash. And it’ll be interesting if the Return to the Land project can help bring back more freedom of association for us.
And yeah, I read some stuff about WWII when I was a boy, and I remember how lots of histories back then weren’t so determined to paint the Germans as the most evil people in history, unlike in recent times. You could also easily find books in the library–northern libraries at that–which presented Confederates as heroes. I’m sure a lot of books like that have been “weeded out” in many places recently
I’ve collected some pre-World War II history textbooks which are great antidotes to what has been pushed on kids since the 70’s.
And thank you, Mr. Scott. We’re around the same age.
To be fair, mccaran represented the worst of calvanism, anti intellectual induced libertarian conspiracy theories, predestination informed anti worker policies.
the mccaran act 1948, opened the way for the corrupt knuckleheads in the labor movement to purge all the old leftists who made the unions and turn them into corporate stooges, the reason why unions are a joke today.
You’re not wrong.
When I worked as a Broadcasting Engineer I was an IBEW Union Steward and not a fan of Right-to-Work laws, which crashed the wages and benefits in the 28 states that had them and disincentivized manufacturing ─ courtesy of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act (in spite of my admiration for Senator Robert A. Taft).
Since the Reagan era we were promised great things from the post-industrial Service Economy that would replace the factories and the Union wages and benefits, but that seems to have been taken over by big box stores like Walmart filled with Chinese junk, and entrepreneurship destroyed by the real estate bubble-crashes and Covid lockdowns.
I almost went into Labor Law, but Firms soon discovered during the Clinton Administration’s “giant sucking sound” that all they had to do to bust a Union shop was to outsource the whole industry overseas, or even worse, import cheap foreign labor. Clinton promised to repeal Taft-Hartley and to prioritize healthcare reform.
President Clinton and his shrewish co-President, Hillary did neither, working on stuff like gun control and “ending welfare as we know it” by having Attorney General Janet Reno prosecute “deadbeat Dad’s” (oops, unless they are Nïggers).
Clinton’s crime crackdown was good until the Democrats reeled back in horror that the explosion of the U.S. prison population was overwhelmingly by Africans.
President Clinton and Sen. John Kerry also did their level best to kill nuclear power such as the Integral Fast Breeder Reactor (IFR), which breeds much of its own fuel from otherwise inert Uranium isotopes, burns up most of the nuclear waste, and does the fuel reprocessing locally without Karen Silkwoods or other disasters nor “proliferation” concerns ─ and the IFR passively shuts itself down in the case of a coolant loss. (The Three Mile Island plant would have actively shut itself down if the Homer Simpsons had just walked away and not gotten confused and manually defeated the automatic shutdown system.)
Now the Democrats are clutching their pearls about greenhouse gases and commuter vehicles that don’t require pedals.
Anyway, yes, Sen. Pat McCarran was indeed a kind of a pull-yourself-up-by the bootstrap Conservative Democrat that opposed a lot of New Deal reforms such Healthcare and Unionization ─ although he also opposed Jewish Supreme Court nominations like Felix Frankfurter.
McCarran was quite a wheeler-dealer and power broker, and much of these conflicts involved patronage. McCarran’s Judiciary Commitee had to approve 40 percent of all Senate bills so he had enormous power to sideline Roosevelt and Truman and their “lunatic fringe.” He considered Jewish refugees to be “indigestible” immigrants ─ and Communists, Labor and Civil Rights activists to be security threats. (What’s not to love?)
The 1950 McCarran Internal Security Act, which was passed by overriding President Truman’s veto, actually setup six concentration camps (dismantled in 1957) to incarcerate radicals in the event the President declared a national emergency.
Calvinists are often considered “AnCaps” or anacho-Capitalists with an extreme “protestant-bourgeois work ethic” ideology.
However, Pat McCarran was actually an Irish Catholic of immigrant parents. Two of his daughters became Dominican Sisters.
I have always been a Nationalist and I used to call myself Progressive, but that latter word has become too tainted. The Democratic Party is now unsalvageable, but there remains a strong Libertarian threat within the GOP that must be mitigated somehow if anything is ever going to get done.
“Charlie Kirk” Christianity is part of the problem too. Charlie Kirk did alarm the Left and AntiFa ─ they were hysterically calling him White Nationalist ─ but it isn’t going to save us, and I don’t have a lot of confidence in the future leadership of Erika Kirk either.
🙂
To simply echo what many commented above, thank you for this beautifully written article. It has given me a renewed and greater appreciation of that now lost world; the era of 1970s blue collar industrial towns (and my formative years) that is now forever gone.
Thank you, Madam HB. I’m glad to see you maintaining standards, as your namesake would want you to do. 🙂
You mentioned that lost world. I feel badly for people today who never got to experience the positives of it. Eva Vlaardingerbroek, born in 1996, recently made a very powerful X post about how Europeans her age or younger never got to enjoy the Europe of her great-grandparents, grandparents and parents.
Mr. Traddles, you are truly a gentleman of distinction; and as I most certainly am a lady of the highest of standards, I am quite confident that you would never pronounce my last name in that unfortunate manner that rhymes with “Nantucket”!
Some of the poetry that Lightfoot invoked in the song even has a basis in science. Indeed, Lake Superior has a reputation for not “giving up her dead”, meaning, rarely are remains found floating on the surface. This is because the water temperatures are so cold at depth that decomposition does not occur, so the byproduct gasses that would normally make a cadaver float do not occur and the dead remain submerged in their graves.
I really enjoyed reading this well written article, a very engaging narrative of the disaster and of Lightfoot’s memorable ballad. Your point about its haunting depth standing in contrast to the superficial slop of mainstream pop is well made.
Thank you, Ultrarightist. I don’t see how anyone can stand listening to what passes for mainstream pop today. It was bad enough in the 70’s, and it’s so much worse today. And it’s unavoidable now, with it blaring in stores, dentist’s offices, even gas stations. I hear that there’s some good stuff also being made, but it’s hard to find.
I read an article in the Saturday Evening Post magazine from 1963, in which a “music industry” executive admitted that much of what they were churning out was intended for teenaged girls. He also said, “The Negro influence, in fact, has become the dominant one in contemporary pop music…” And that was 1963.
Some things haven’t changed much, have they?
No, they haven’t, changing by degrees rather than essence. Interesting quote from the 1963 article. We got the shallowness from teenage girls and the (eventual) vulgarity from the negroe influence.
The song has haunted me since it was a hit in ‘76/‘77, when I was seven and eight years old, especially because we vacationed near and on Lake Superior every summer. To this day, I will play The Wreck when my wife and I pull up to the shore of Superior. Great article. My sentiments are exactly those of Mr. Traddles.
Thank you, Eric. Yes, “haunted” is a good word for it.
Very good article. I was in high school when the ship sank. I lived in Buffalo as a kid, with family near Cleveland and in Michigan. Best friend’s dad was an oiler (mechanic) on an ore boat that sailed the great Lakes–the dad knew some of the crew that went down. An extended family member of mine was a crew member on another ore boat who knew guys on the EF as well. They worked like a teacher in reverse–out from spring to late fall, and home all winter.
I’ve spent time in Cleveland myself. One of my favorite bars there, the West End Tavern, located in the suburb of Lakewood, right on Lake Erie, has held, for the past 40 years or so, a remembrance service and toast for the Fitzgerald and her crew, open to all, on Nov. 10th every year. The Fitzgerald’s first mate, John “Jack” McCarthy (mentioned in your article) lived in Cleveland, and his son John was a regular at the West End. Great bar. If you’re nearby, it would be a good place to go this Nov. 10th.
Here’s an old (2014) article about the tradition:
https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/2014/11/lost_lives_from_the_edmund_fit.html
I’d like to try the West End Tavern and be there for that remembrance! I didn’t know about that. And it was interesting to read the comments about Jack McCarthy by his son in that article, along with your other info.
Thank you, AceDeuce.
I am a merchant seaman, with the sailors union of the pacific.
We’re glad you’re here! What has your experience been like as a merchant seaman?
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