The Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

The Fitz was headed to Great Lakes Steel (Zug Island) on the day she went down.

If you ever get the chance, you should go to the Maritime Museum in Detroit on November 10 (if you haven't already). The Edmund Fitzgerald figures prominently in the museum anyway, but to go there on the anniversary of the sinking is a heart rendering experience. Very interesting place.

Friends of the family had a place on Whitefish Bay.
We happened to visit, a year or two after the sinking.
There was a life jacket there, if memory serves, which had washed up.
In their den?

I remember the sky, it was probably late August and looked like late October.
Lowering, striated, multiple hues of grey and blue horizontal bands.
Calm for now.

# 1494

originally posted by: DontTreadOnMe
a reply to: strongfp
Certainly a great song even without the history.
Lightfoot is immensely talented.

I hadn't heard about the Mississauga derailment.
A miracle no one died.

He really is, I have Alexa play Gordon on Saturdays when I put on the skirt and clean the house..

Interestingly, many historical accounts of the Edmund Fitzgerald have her destination as "Zug Island", but that's not entirely accurate. Her cargo was ultimately destined for "Zug Island", because that's where the blast furnaces were for Great Lakes Steel. However, there was no berth for ships on Zug. The berths for unloading the ore boats were further down the river.

Zug Island was a very strange place. It was just a small island on the Detroit river which was probably the closest thing to Hell on Earth imaginable. (I've written about Zug Island here on ATS several times). Once unloaded nearby, the iron ore from the ships would be hauled by rail to Zug. Fire and dense smoke shot into the sky from Zug on any given day. The ash and soot from the furnaces covered everything for miles around under a thick layer of acrid sulfur smelling dust. You could smell Zug Island from 10 miles away.

I used to have a T-shirt back in the 70's which said..."Happiness is - Zug Island" It was a joke put on by some guys at the steel mill. People used to ask me all the time about my shirt, all interested like 'Zug Island' was some exotic South Pacific destination they'd never heard of. It was the complete opposite. Evangelists used to sit on every nearby street corner around Zug evangelizing about the end of the world, pointing to Zug Island as proof. It was the perfect backdrop...until they were choked out by the smoke and fumes.

The Edmund Fitzgerald was the Queen of the Great Lakes in the 70's. She was a sight to see, a truly massive lake freighter and ore boat. Some even called her 'majestic' as she sailed by. She was longer and larger than any ore boat before her, and she displaced so much water she would literally beach boats along the river banks when she went by.

For all of her majesty, most never understood her real role. She had one purpose, and one purpose only; she was built to haul iron ore (taconite) to the steel mills of Detroit...the fire and smoke belching steel mills which put the City of Detroit on the world map as the "Motor City" and one of the industrial capitals of the eastern United States.

There is great irony in the loss of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. By 1975, when she was lost, the great steel era of Detroit was nearly at an end. Imported Japanese steel and the environmentalists had put an end to the great steel era in the region. It wasn't long after the loss of the Fitz that Great Lakes too fell to her own demise, a sinking of sorts.

In some ways the tragedy of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a bellwether of an entire industry and era.

May God rest the souls of those lost that fateful day.

Myself and my Family were headed up I-75 when this happened. My Dad was taking us "Up-North" to go snowmobiling (from Detroit to Grayling). We were traveling in a 26 foot motorhome(the kind built on a truck frame). Dad was all proud he got new all-season Michelin tires for it. They were this new-fangled thing called "Radial Tires". Lucky he did.
We were pulling a snowmobile trailer with two Yamaha Snowmobiles. It had a low axle and small tires.
My Sister was only 4 years old and loved to go to this cheesey campground themed on Yogi Bear Cartoons called "Jellystone Park Campground" in Grayling, so that was our destination.
When we got by St. Helens, MI., it instantly turned white-out snow like I have never seen before. Within Minutes there was a foot of snow on the Highway. I told my Dad to turn on his J.C. Whitney Fog-lights, which increased visibility enough to see about 25 feet in front of the Camper, and drive about 30MPH. I looked out the back window and saw a line of 1970's cars following behind us(terrible in snow)in our track. The one behind us was a Chevy Monte Carlo(Old Boat of a Car).
By this time there was two feet of Powder on the road in the left lanes. We were doing OK, but the Snowmobile trailer was acting like a giant snow-plow picking up all the snow, and then the incredible wind blew it off to the east. We were breaking a trail for the cars behind us, they would have been stuck otherwise. When we exited the Highway at Grayling, every car behind us, exited also. There was no other way to go once we got off. There was a super long line of cars coming down the exit ramp.
We got to Jellystone Park and got a camp-sight to hook into. We unloaded the Snowmobiles and fired them up, but we discovered the snow was just too deep for them!
We went to bed, and then the next Morning when my Dad turned on the Radio, there was no Music on the whole Dial. All Stations were reporting news on the Ore Carrier Edmund Fitzgerald being missing with all hands off White-Fish Point. The whole radio dial-the whole day.
That was the worst Snowstorm I have ever seen, and we were 100 Miles South of White-Fish Point. Even if you were in a House, on safe ground, it would have been scary. We were in shock it could take a Ship Down, and very happy we were all intact.
Michigan weather is nothing to ever ignore!
P.S; Yes Zug Island is still as bad as ever.

I have another story about "Zug", fearful place that it was. I knew Zug well. In some ways Zug defined my younger life. Zug was hardship and wealth at the same time; it was a fearful place back in the day. This story makes it all the more so...

You see, as I've noted, the ore boats couldn't dock at Zug, it was too small. To dock one of the big ore boats it took a pier over 1,000 feet long, with big cranes to unload the iron ore for steel production. And, as I've noted the taconite (iron ore) used to be loaded into rail cars and hauled over to Zug as needed.

Iron ore wasn't the only thing to go by rail to, and from, Zug. Molten steel used to be loaded into what were called "torpedo cars" to be hauled by rail over to the rolling mills of Great Lakes. The molten steel in the torpedo cars was dumped into these huge boxes called "ingots". The process would scare most humans to their core! It was fire and brimstone beyond anything a preacher could evangelize about. The huge ingots would then be "quenched" in salt water and lime to purify the steel (another Biblical process to watch). From there the huge steel cubes would be sent to the rolling mills where they would be rolled out to make steel for the auto industry. It was a legendary process, not for the timid.

One day, a torpedo car derailed going across the bridge from Zug to the rolling mills. All the debris and ash clogged up everything including the tracks for the railroad. The torpedo car not only derailed, but it fell over the bridge and fell into the Detroit river. Molten steel is several thousand degrees F. When the rail car fell into the water it went off like a nuclear explosion, and blew out the rail bridge between Zug and the steel mill. There was a massive explosion, and it went on for hours as the molten steel came in contact with the cold water. No one could even get close.

Hours and days went by, as production was severely curtailed due to the loss of the bridge. Engineers were called in to attempt a fix (remember, the old man was the VP of Engineering for Great Lakes). It took days, but a new bridge had to be built.

Honestly, it's an amazing story, one few could comprehend today. I remember it, and it wasn't long after that that the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was lost up in Lake Superior.

Sorry for the digression, just an interesting life story about the life and times.