"The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead

When the skies of November turn gloomy..."

-Gordon Lightfoot, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Fifty years ago this week, the iron ore freighter S.S, Edmund Fitzgerald sank beneath the icy waters of Lake Superior, claiming the lives of 29 sailors.

In this episode, we recount her harrowing final voyage, and examine why, out of the hundreds of shipwrecks that have occurred Lake Superior, the Edmund Fitzgerald maintains such an enduring hold on popular memory and imagination.

A little tip—if you are somehow not already familiar with Gordon Lightfoot's iconic 1976 ballad, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, go and gi ...