Category: Article

In late November 1905, one of the worst storms still on record overtook Lake Superior in what became known as the “Mataafa Blow.” Just north of Split Rock, the steamer William Edenborn struggled along the North Shore on its way to Duluth, towing behind it the Madeira, a massive 436-foot schooner-barge. As the winds swelled to sixty miles an hour, the two ships were pounded closer and closer to the dangerous rocks along the coast. Hoping to save his own ship, A.J. Talbot, the Edenborn’s captain, decided to cut the Madeira free, leaving it to drop anchor and ride out the storm on its own. The tow line was cut, at 3:30 in the morning of November 28, but it was too late for the Madeira to cast its anchors. Within minutes the ship began to reel about in the thirty-foot waves until it was smashed into the steep cliff walls of Gold Rock, an outcropping a few miles north of Split Rock.

Immediately, the violent deluge began to tear the ship apart and threatened to engulf the ten men aboard. But one young crewman named Fred Benson leapt from the heaving ship onto a rocky ledge with a lifeline attached to his belt. In below-zero temperatures, and with towering waves smashing at his back, Benson somehow managed to climb the sixty-foot cliff. He secured his rope and cast it back to the three men trapped on the bow of the ship. Then Benson scrambled along the cliff edge to toss a second line to four sailors holding on at the stern. All seven were able to climb to safety. Only one man, the first mate, was drowned as the ship was dragged down into the icy depths.

In all, thirty-six seamen were lost in the Mataafa storm, with twenty-nine ships wrecked or damaged. Benson was hailed as a hero in the regional press. To avoid costly improvements to ship construction or the burden of insuring their vessels, the leaders of the Great Lakes shipping industry—-one third of the ships damaged were owned by U.S. Steel—clamored for the government to install more lighthouses along the North Shore. In 1907, Congress appropriated the funds to erect Minnesota’s landmark Split Rock Lighthouse. For years the Madeira remained largely forgotten, until a Duluth diving club, “The Frigid Frogs,” rediscovered it in 1955. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. Today, the Minnesota Historical Society estimates the Madeira to be one of Lake Superior’s most popular underwater sites, with about 1,000 divers visiting each year.

When the Edmund Fitzgerald was launched in 1958, it was the largest ship to sail the Great Lakes. At 729 feet and able to haul more than 25,000 tons of iron ore, the freighter was dubbed “The Pride of the American Flag.” Year after year, the Fitzgerald hauled iron ore and taconite out of the Twin Ports, breaking records for tonnage along the way. But by 1975, the Fitzgerald was showing signs of age. A rigorous Coast Guard inspection in the spring of her last shipping season netted a seaworthy certification, but another routine inspection on October 31 revealed cracks in four topside cargo hatches. She was allowed to keep sailing, but repairs were ordered to take place prior to the start of the 1976 season.

Capt. Ernest McSorley was also looking ahead to the next season. It would be his first year of retirement after forty-four years of sailing the Great Lakes and four seasons as master of the Fitzgerald. At sixty-two, he was a respected captain—both for his skill and for his will to keep to a tight schedule.

On November 9, the Edmund Fitzgerald was embarking on its fortieth voyage of the season, hauling 26,116 tons of taconite from Superior Harbor to Detroit. Twenty-nine crewmen were aboard.

The Fitz passed through the harbor channel at 2:20 p.m. in clear and relatively warm weather. Twenty minutes later, the National Weather Service posted a gale warning because of a storm system pushing up over Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

Two hours out of port, the Fitz sighted another freighter heading toward the east, the Arthur M. Anderson, a U.S. Steel ship mastered by Capt. Jesse Cooper. The Anderson was coming from Two Harbors. McSorley hailed the Anderson and the two captains agreed to travel together to the Soo Locks. The Fitzgerald, already fifteen miles ahead, would lead the way.

By seven o’clock that evening, the National Weather Service was predicting forty-five-mile-an-hour winds and dangerous waves. The weather was quickly deteriorating. The prediction called for east to northeasterly winds during the night, shifting to northwest by the afternoon of November 10. At approximately 10:40 p.m., the forecast was revised to easterly winds becoming southeasterly the morning of November 10. By 1:00 a.m., the Fitzgerald was about twenty miles south of Isle Royale, confronted by heavy winds and ten-foot waves. At 2:00 a.m., the National Weather Service upgraded the gale warning to a storm warning with shifting sixty-mile-an-hour winds and fifteen-foot waves expected.

About that time, the captains of the Anderson and Fitzgerald discussed the threatening weather and decided to change their route. Heading northward toward the coast of Canada would give them shelter from the expected eastern winds and heavy waves. The ships were already battling sixty-mile winds and torrential rain. Visibility was extremely poor.

With the arrival of dawn, around the time that officials on land were issuing emergency warnings and school closings, the Edmund Fitzgerald reported its route change and an expected delay in arrival at the Soo Locks to the home office. Through the morning, the storm was gaining intensity, knocking out power across the Upper Peninsula and the Canadian coast.

By 2:45 p.m., the winds had taken a significant turn. Now the storm was barreling out of the northwest, pushing up larger waves. The Anderson reported wind gusts over seventy miles an hour. The two ships had lost their land protection.

The Coast Guard was calling on all ships to seek safe harbor. The captains decided to run south toward Whitefish Bay, their only hope for shelter. The Arthur Anderson was trailing faithfully sixteen miles behind as they approached Caribou Island. At 3:15, the Fitz rounded the island heading into the Six Fathom Shoal, a dangerous stretch where only thirty-six feet of water covered the jagged rocky bottom. Cooper followed the Fitzgerald’s progress on radar while crew members watched from the deck. As the Fitz slugged on, Morgan Clark, Cooper’s first mate, called out, “He sure looks like he’s in the shoal area.” Cooper replied, “He sure does. He’s in too close. He’s closer than I’d want this ship to be.”

Around that time, McSorley radioed Cooper: “Anderson, this is the Fitzgerald. I have a fence rail down, two vents lost or damaged, and a list.” McSorley added that he was going to slow down so the Anderson could catch up. “Will you stay by me till I get to Whitefish?” Cooper replied, “Charlie on that, Fitzgerald. Do you have your pumps going?” McSorley replied, “Yes, both of them.”

But the storm was only growing worse. The sea was pitching thirty to thirty-five foot waves. McSorley radioed the Anderson that the raging winds had ripped off the Fitzgerald’s radar antenna. A heavy snow began falling, obliterating Cooper’s view of the Fitzgerald’s lights dead ahead. Winds were gusting to ninety. The Fitz was taking on water faster than it could pump it out.

At 4:30 p.m., the Fitz was seventeen miles from Whitefish Point. The lighthouse at the end of the rugged stretch of land would have been within view had the storm not knocked out both the radio beacon and light. Having already lost its radar and now with daylight fast slipping away, the Fitzgerald put a call out to any ship in the area for help in locating the Whitefish beacon.

The Avafors, a Swedish ocean freighter in the vicinity, radioed McSorley the news of the missing signals. Around 6:00 p.m. the Avafors called again:

Avafors: “Fitzgerald, this is the Avafors. I have the Whitefish light now but still am receiving no beacon. Over.”
Fitzgerald: “I’m very glad to hear it.”

Avafors: “The wind is really howling down here. What are the conditions where you are?”

Fitzgerald: [Unintelligible shouts heard by the Avafors.] “Don’t let nobody on deck!”

Avafors: “What’s that, Fitzgerald? Unclear. Over.”

Fitzgerald: “I have a bad list, lost both radars. And am taking heavy seas over the deck. One of the worst seas I’ve ever been in.”

Then at 7:10 p.m. the Anderson’s first mate, Clark, spoke to McSorley:

Anderson: “Fitzgerald, this is the Anderson. Have you checked down?”

Fitzgerald: “Yes, we have.”
Anderson: “Fitzgerald, we are about ten miles behind you, and gaining about one and a half miles per hour. Fitzgerald, there is a target nineteen miles ahead of us. So the target would be nine miles on ahead of you.”

Fitzgerald: “Well, am I going to clear?”

Anderson: “Yes. He is going to pass to the west of you.”

Fitzgerald: “Well, fine.”

Anderson: “By the way, Fitzgerald, how are you making out with your problem?”

Fitzgerald: “We are holding our own.”

Anderson: “Okay, fine. I’ll be talking to you later.”

But there would be no further conversations. Shortly after that, the Anderson was struck by two enormous waves in quick succession, plunging the ship’s bow into the water and hitting her hard enough to cause a heavy roll to the starboard side, damaging one of the lifeboats. Captain Cooper later reported, “I watched those two waves head down the lake toward the Fitzgerald, and I think those were the two that sent her under.”

Ten minutes later the Fitzgerald disappeared from the Anderson’s radar. No distress signal went out. No lifeboats were launched. No life vests were donned.

November is readily acknowledged as the stormiest month on the Great Lakes. Each year around the beginning of this steely month, over the largest bodies of fresh water in the world, two storm tracks converge. From the north bear down the Alberta Clippers, full of freezing polar air. From the lee slopes of the Rockies and across the prairie come the heavy, snow-laden fronts. When the storms hit the lakes, the cold air masses pass over waters that are still holding remnants of their summer warmth. The barometric pressure can plummet and the winds can whip up to hurricane force. Waves will build to over forty feet, and the sky is filled with rain, snow, and sleet.

The measure of November storms is still the “Big Blow” of 1913. For four days, it engulfed all five of the Great Lakes, blasting in from the northwest as both gale and blizzard. On Superior, the Henry B. Smith disappeared off Marquette with all twenty-five hands. That wreck has never been found. On Lake Huron, 178 seamen were lost in eight separate wrecks, all with no survivors. The winds at the southern end of the lake whipped 640,000 cubic feet of sand across Port Huron canal, completely blocking passage. The captain of the steamer Argo declared that the storm blew his cargo of lumber into the sea “like toothpicks.” Twenty-two inches of snow fell on Cleveland and the winds across Lake Erie were so steady and strong that the lake was literally pushed eastward, dropping the level along the western shore by six feet.

When the storm was over, twenty ships were lost and tens more were badly damaged. More than 250 men and women died. It was the deadliest storm on the Lakes.

The gales of November still rage with controversy and treachery, as shipwrecks and their grisly cargo become the hot new tourist attraction.

A beacon of light shines out from the tip of an eighty-mile stretch of shoreline known as Lake Superior’s Shipwreck Coast. It shines from the lighthouse at Whitefish Point, Michigan, over an area known as the Graveyard of Ships. It’s earned this moniker because more vessels have been lost there than in any other part of Lake Superior. In the graveyard, waves of biblical proportions are whipped up by roaring northwest winds carrying the power they’ve amassed over 160 miles of open water. Raging in from all directions, these murderous waves crash back from the shores with even greater ferocity. They are said to strike harder and more often than any saltwater wave. Brutal as hurricanes, but stealthier, these storms often catch sailors by surprise. Hundreds of ships, including the Edmund Fitzgerald, lie on the bottom of this bay and its vicinity. The Fitzgerald’s bell, recovered and restored, is now displayed at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point. And as the lore goes, the beacon at Whitefish Point has shone unfailingly for nearly a century and a half, except for the night when the Mighty Fitz went down.

When my son was very small, he was mesmerized by water and fire. Among his first words were “boat” and “candle.” By the age of four, he had developed a fierce interest in all manner of watercraft, disasters, and horrible combinations of the two—in particular, the sinking of the Titanic.

With my perhaps misguided support, my son’s fervor soon directed him to tragedies closer to home, and by the time he was five or six, he could do a crackerjack imitation of Fred Wolff, narrator of our worn-out copy of the cassette tape Stories of Lake Superior Shipwrecks, Volume I. Wolff, a professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, bears the sort of thick Minnesota accent you find only in the far north. On many a long drive during those sleep-deprived years, I relied on gas-station coffee to keep from being lulled blissfully to sleep at the wheel by the familiar drone of Wolff’s stories. My son, however, listened on the edge of his seat. What is it about shipwrecks that called so powerfully to this little boy? What is it about wrecks that pulls at him still, pulls at us all, in one way or another?

Outside, late autumn rain and wind are ripping wet leaves from the trees in great batches, plastering them against the windshields of parked cars and onto the blackened city streets. Rivers of water rush down the gutters toward the sewer drains, begging to be dammed and diverted by schoolchildren in yellow slickers whose mothers watch anxiously from picture windows as October shudders to an end. It’s a nearly perfect backdrop for an enduring sea tale about a terrible witch and her legacy of destruction: the Witch of November, the scourge of our inland seas, who swallows ships whole, steals lives, and strands mourners helpless on the shore.

From the SS Edmund Fitzgerald (whose November 10, 1975 sinking was made famous the world over by Gordon Lightfoot’s ballad), to the twenty ships and 250 lives lost in the “Big Blow” of November 1913, to the tragic wreck of the Daniel J. Morrell on November 29, 1966, which killed all but one man, left shivering in his shorts and pea coat, the Great Lakes have claimed as many as ten thousand ships and more than thirty thousand lives since the wreck of LaSalle’s Griffon in 1679. Encrypted in the sodden debris of these disasters is the story of our lives, literal and metaphorical, and for that we keep coming back to search.

Most of us respond to the alluring and tragic call of the depths by diving only about as deep as the latest news accounts of recent underwater archaeological discoveries, or by renting Titanic. But a brazen and growing subculture of hardy souls respond more daringly, by plunging into the murky waters to explore the treasure troves of history firsthand. The intrepid few who love to dive have a remarkable single-mindedness for exploration and adventure. Some are brave—or crazy—enough to take on the frigid waters of Lake Superior. A few have even gone 556 feet below the surface of Superior to visit the final resting ground of the twenty-nine crewmen who lost their lives on the Edmund Fitzgerald, also known as the Queen of the Great Lakes, the Pride of the American Flag, the Mighty Fitz, the Titanic of the Great Lakes, and, posthumously, the most famous Great Lakes shipwreck of all time.

Terrence Tysall is a Florida-based professional diver and instructor, and the founder of the Cambrian Foundation, which is dedicated to undersea research, preservation, and exploration. He’s been diving since the age of eight and has seen hundreds of wreck sites, including that of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The expedition to the Fitz was the brainchild of a Chicagoan named Mike Zee, who approached Tysall in the mid 1990s with the notion of conducting a scuba dive to the famous wreck. Although the site had been explored via submarine by a handful of others—including Jacques Cousteau’s son, Jean-Michel, in 1980—no one had ever attempted to take on the intense pressure and cold with just a dry suit and air tanks. “Too deep, too dark, too cold,” explained Tysall. But his dual love of history and the sea compelled him to pursue the proposal, and, in 1995, he and his companions became the first ever to scuba dive to the Edmund Fitzgerald. “It turned out to be my deepest dive,” Tysall said. “In fact, I think it’s still the deepest wreck dive by free-swimming scuba divers—but I’m not a big record guy. I think records cheapen things sometimes.” According to Sean Ley of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, Tysall’s ’95 dive to the Fitzgerald was the first and the last to date. “It seems that everyone is respecting the wishes of the families,” said Ley, alluding to the wreck’s status as an underwater gravesite.