We've spent 2026 running the MeatEater Time Machine, revisiting the people and moments that shaped American outdoor culture. We're nearing the end, but there's still more to uncover.

1958 - 1975: At 729 feet long, the Edmund Fitzgerald was the largest ship on the Great Lakes when it sank, carrying iron ore from Minnesota’s Iron Range to steel mills across the region. On November 9, 1975, the freighter set out across Lake Superior as an unusually warm autumn gave way to a powerful storm. The next evening, after reporting damage and a severe list, Captain Ernest McSorley told a nearby ship, “We are holding our own.” It was the last communication from the Edmund Fitzgerald. All 29 crew members were lost.

The Great Lakes have claimed thousands of commercial ships, but the Edmund Fitzgerald became their most famous wreck. Lake Superior’s enormous fetch allows waves to build across hundreds of miles of open water, and computer models suggest the storm produced waves as high as 60ft, exceeding the upper limits of what the the ship was designed to withstand. The wreck was discovered in two main sections on the lakebed, 530 feet below the surface. What caused the ship to go down so quickly remains uncertain, leaving the final voyage of the Edmund Fitzgerald one of the Great Lakes’ enduring maritime mysteries.

Explore more MeatEater content on the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Read Gordon Lightfoot: Sailor, Voyager, Legendary Songwriter, Gales of November: The Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes, 50 Years Later: How Complacency Sank the Edmund Fitzgerald, and listen to Ep. 790: The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. 

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