Edmund Fitzgerald sinking still leads Great Lakes lore

Edmund Fitzgerald sinking still leads Great Lakes lore

Maybe it’s because no one knows for sure exactly what happened. Maybe it’s because so many lives were lost in an instant. Or maybe it’s because of the song.

It was 35 years ago tonight when the Great Lakes freighter Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior. A generation has passed. Memories fade. But interest in the “Fitz” still is keen.

“It’s not our biggest exhibit, but it’s the one we absolutely have to keep up,” said Thom Holden, director of the Lake Superior Maritime Museum in Duluth’s Canal Park. “We can’t touch the Fitz exhibit without people getting upset about it. We still get a lot of questions about it.”

But most of the people asking the questions are older now.

“When I first got here in 1977, it was the young school children who knew the most, who were most interested, because it was recent history for them. … Now, even the parents of the children who come through weren’t born when it happened,” Holden said. “For the kids now, it’s like the Titanic. It’s ancient history. But it’s still one of our most asked-about ships or events.”

[link to www.duluthnewstribune.com]