The Coast Guard conducted an extensive and thorough search. Known for the best burgers in Fullerton, Islands also offers delicious tropical cocktails and fries that are fresh cut daily with the skins left on. Marie, Michigan, during ferocious northwest winds and seas that washed as high as eight to 12 feet over the ships main deck. This depiction shows the Edmund Fitzgerald touching bottom as she passes over the Six Fathom Shoal on the . But what caused the ship to take on water, enough to lose buoyancy and dive to the bottom so quickly, without a single cry for help, cannot be determined. The flooding of the cargo hold took place through ineffective hatch closures as boarding seas rolled along the spar deck.. At the time of the foundering, there was no requirement for depth-finding instruments on commercial vessels. Numerous authors have written books on the tragedy. At the time of her launch in 1958, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was the largest freighter on the Great Lakes. Aware of a building November storm entering the Great Lakes from the great plains, Captain McSorley and Captain Cooper agreed to take the northerly course across Lake Superior, where they would be protected by highlands on the Canadian shore. After enough persuasion, Cooper agreed to take theAndersonback out to sea followed by the LakerWilliam Clay Ford. The Arthur M. Anderson, an ore carrier in the U.S. Steel fleet, had been trailing and providing navigational information to the Fitzgerald because the Fitzs radars had malfunctioned about four hours earlier. It is rumored that the light house keepers poached caribou and beaver. Film, Art & Exhibitions Their only hope was the safety of White Fish Bay, where maybe they could be rescued off or near the ship. The Fitzgerald is about 16 miles ahead. Even before her demise, the Fitzgeraldwas a well known icon of the Great Lakes to those that lived along it.). 4:30 p.m. Fitzgerald passes 3 to 5 miles east of Caribou Island. Significantly, within a few minutes of passing the shoal, the Fitzs Captain Ernest McSorley reported a starboard list, missing vents and a fence rail down. Captain Cooper, too, had always maintained that Captain McSorley knew his ship was compromised on the shoal, but had faith that his ship would make it to Whitefish Bay. Burgner said a shipyard worker showed him evidence of old keel weld breaks during the 1972-73 winter lay-up that were brought to McSorley and dismissed. Sad story. For the island near Thunder Bay, see, Caribou Island (near Michipicoten Island), Caribou Island near the international border. Heavy snow begins to fall and the Fitzgerald is lost from. Seeing the violence of the wind, sky and water on the night of November 10, 1975 while in northern Michigan, I awoke the next morning, for the only time in my life with the certainty that something ominous had or was about to occur. The spring after the Edmund Fitzgerald was lost, the U.S. Coast Guard sent remote cameras more than 500 feet down to it. The grisliest discovery was of a giant oil slick floating atop the lake's surface. It lies entirely within the territorial waters of Canada although only about five kilometres from the international border between Canada and the United States. Eight minutes at the Fitz was all that he earned for his four-hour dive because of the necessary decompression. Winter 2023 NMU School of Art & Design Senior Exhibition Reception, Edmund Fitzgerald: Decades of Speculation, Fascination and Grieving. Forty-four years ago today on Nov. 10, 1975, 18 kilometres off Coppermine Point, and 60 kilometres north of Sault Ste Marie, Ont., the 222-metre iron ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald, with a crew of 29 aboard, sank. Also, a larger, more powerful tug, the Katmai Bay, is now stationed at Sault Ste. He could clearly see the ship and the beacon on Caribou on his radar set and could measure the distance between them. Caribou Island is an uninhabited island in the eastern end of Lake Superior, 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of Michipicoten Island. The "Big Fitz"as she was affectionately known by her crew, also boasted several private staterooms for corporate guests of Oglebay Norton and Northwestern Mutual. However, divers found no recent damage to the shoal after the wreck and the ship's exact course could only be estimated because the Fitzgerald radars were inoperable and the Anderson kept inexact course records during the journey. Beyond these improvements on board the ships, the marine weather reports have become more sophisticated and accessible, with detailed charts now printed out electronically in the pilothouse. She was already moving slow and was listing as well. By this point, McSorley knew his ship was in serious trouble and opted to head full steam towards the natural protection of Whitefish Bay to ride out the storm and protect his ship and crew from further damage.By 6:00 PM, the storm had worsened and its likely theFitzgeraldwas riding even lower in the water, due to much larger 35 foot high waves, heavier damage caused by the waves and an even larger amount of water in her hull the pumps seemed unable to cope with. The radar signal, or pip of the Fitzgerald kept getting obscured by sea return. The following May, 1976, Woodrush was again on the scene to conduct a third sidescan sonar survey. According to Captain Cooper, about 6:55 pm, he and the men in the Andersons pilothouse felt a bump, felt the ship lurch, and then turned to see a monstrous wave engulfing their entire vessel from astern. There have been about half a dozen dives to the site since the shipwreck in 1975. Lowell, who died in 2016, started out as a journalist in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, and had already covered politics, and civil rights events and disturbances, for the Detroit News, then Newsweek; including events like the 1967 Detroit Riot, the May 1970 Kent State shootings in Ohio, and the September 1971 Attica Prison riot, as well as covering organized crime, labour, and the auto industry, by the time the Edmund Fitzgerald sunk in November 1975. Both theHomerandFitzgeraldwere the largest iron ore carriers built on the Great Lakes. $45.00. He and his officers watched the Fitzgerald pass right over the dangerous area of shallow water. What is your present position?, Were down here, about two miles off Parisienne Island right nowthe wind is northwest forty to forty-five miles here in the bay., Is it calming down at all, do you think?, In the bay it is, but I heard a couple of the salties talking up there, and they wish they hadnt gone out., Do you think there is any possibility and you couldahcome about and go back there and do any searching?, AhGod, I dont knowahthatthat sea out there is tremendously large. Both ships crews could feel the effects.Around 3:00 in the afternoon, both ships had passed Caribou Island, Ontario, home of the notorious Six Fathom Shoal, a sharpy rocky outcropping more than capable of tearing into the hull of a deep draft vessel in stormy weather. TheFitzgeraldwould have extra steel plates installed between the hull bottom and her keel which would ensure the keel would no loner move freely from the hull and would stay fastened in place. The Anderson was struck by large waves which then travelled in the direction of the Edmond Fitzgerald. Soon after, McSorely on the Fitzgerald reported taking topside damage and a list. Bernie Cooper of the Anderson reported his concern for the Fitzgerald to the Coast Guard station in Sault Ste. While Northwestern Mutual owned both ships (which woud later prove ironic in theFitzgerald'scase), the freighters were leased out to dedicated shipping companies. The story is about Inuit hunting the toughest Caribou until only . In addition to taking on water after *potentially* hitting bottom near Six fathom Shoals earlier this afternoon, the. Proven by: Large holes, Anderson's captain's concern for how close the Fitzgerald was to the shoal, inaccurate charts. Again, Captain Cooper of the Anderson provides fuel for this theory, as he relates in Marshalls Shipwrecks of Lake Superior that slightly before 7 p.m. we took two of the largest seas of the trip. All rights reserved (About Us). Also, the Fitzgeralds officers had started two pumps to evacuate water, but those pumps would only remove water from the ballast tanks, not the cargo hold. As Fred Stonehouse points out, nothing completely removes hazard from life at sea, for nature still enforces its whim and ships are still expected to brave adverse weather to deliver their cargoes. I watched those two waves head down the lake towards the Fitzgerald, and I think those were the two that sent her under.. Almost none of the bodies including that of Captain McSorley were ever found. Not the same yard, but what if it was rebuilt, same cargo, same shape, same functionality, but a new keel? It shouldn't have. By the way, Fitzgerald, how are you making out with your problems? asked Clark. "6 wolves on Lake Superior island saved from starvation by Canadian-U.S. team | Globalnews.ca", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Caribou_Island_(near_Michipicoten_Island)&oldid=1136093001, This page was last edited on 28 January 2023, at 18:26. No. Sawyer AFB in the UP of Michigan, crew member on a rescue helo. But we were talking to him about seven and he said that everything was going fine. Quantity. Still remember it after all this time.. Crafts That would seem to indicate that their instruments convinced them that water was leaking into the tank area. Instead they consist of bedrock ridges and interfluves that lie between northerly trending bedrock valleys, which are known as tunnel valleys. It lies entirely within the territorial waters of Canada although only about five kilometres from the international border between Canada and the United States. Heavy snow begins to fall and the Fitzgerald is lost from. Theorists have sized upon the permanent lay-up of the Fitzgerald sister ship, the Arthur Homer, in 1980 as indicative of structural deficiency both vessels. A shallow reef 2.5 miles (4.0km) to the southwest of Caribou Island Lighthouse lies only 11 feet (3.4m) below the lake's surface. I myself and my classmates are without a doubt able to state that is not only a prime example of media misinformation. Do the math. On November 14, a U.S. Navy plane equipped with a magnetic anomaly detector located a strong contact 17 miles north-northwest of Whitefish Point. Antlers of males weigh an average of 17 pounds and can reach 29 pounds! At 3:30 PM, Captain McSorely reported to Captain Cooper aboard theAndersonthat theFitzgeraldwas taking on water and had a reported list of 20 degrees towards starboard. The interior is low scrub and bog with small lakes, Little Italy, Hambone, and Deer Lake among many unnamed ones. Its likely that they didnt latch a lot of the hatch cover clamps because the crew was on Sunday overtime pay and they were so late getting covered up - and the weather was very nice at that time., Such speculation fits easily into the puzzle of the Fitzgerald tragedy. I then called the William Clay Ford to ask him if my phone was putting out a good signal and also if perhaps the Fitzgerald had rounded the point and was in shelter, after a negative report I called the Soo Coast Guard because I was sure something had happened to the Fitzgerald. A dynamic population. While conditions were bad, with winds gusting to 50 knots and seas 12 to 16 feet, both captains had often piloted their vessels in similar conditions. By stretching more than 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the island Caribou north point, a dangerous reef is presently known as "Six Fathom Shoal." Caribou is located on the North Fork Feather River, 9.5 miles (15.3 km) south of Almanor. It is not known ifFitzgeraldhad struck bottom on the shoal or another nearby outcropping, but upon passing Caribou Island, the problems started. There is a very good chance that this is what helped lead to her demise. Six-Fathom Shoal Updates During a taped conversation with his office, which was made a part of the record, the ANDERSON's master stated that the FITZGERALD "passed right over that 6-fathom spot." The. (Edmund Fitzgeraldin her early years as a coal firedsteel hulled steamship. If the ship had "hogged" upon striking the shoal, it could have caused the topside damage reported by Fitzgerald captain Ernest McSorley in the hours before the sinking. Kids & Family, Search Events It was not long after thatFitzgeraldvanished from theAnderson'sradar. NARA microfilm publication M1931, Index to Selected City Streets and Enumeration Districts, 1930 Census (7 rolls) reproduces a 57-volume typescript index to selected city streets and enumeration districts of the Fifteenth Census of the United States taken in 1930. Another wave just like the first one or bigger hit us again. Minor incidents included groundings and collisions between 1969 and 1974. An unpopulated island at the eastern end of Lake Superior, 40 km south of Michipicoten Island, named Caribou Island. The Fitzgerald is about 16 miles ahead. In Canadian ships alone there are at least one hundred ships that haul iron ore to this day. The Fitzgerald was disappearing and reappearing on the Andersons radar the height of the waves was causing interference. For books, videos, and memorabilia about the Fitzgerald, her loss, and her legacy, visit theShipwreck Coast Museum Store . Regis, R.S., Patterson, C.J., Wattrus, N., and Rausch, D., 2003. This week, Minnesota tugboat captain Bob Hom, who sailed with McSorley before the man became captain of the Fitzgerald, claims McSorley once told him five years before the sinking he'd hate to be on the Fitzgerald in a big storm because 'They got it all worn out from years of overloading,'" Hom told the Duluth News-Tribune. The Naugatuck arrived at 12:45 pm on November 11, and the Woodrush arrived on November 14, having journeyed all the way from Duluth, Minnesota. Caribou (formerly Cariboo) is a census-designated place located in Plumas County, California, United States. It was originally discovered by sonar shortly after the sinking in 1975 and first documented by several expeditions in 1976 including one by Jean Michel Cousteau, son of famous oceanographer Jaques Cousteau. Although no findings concluded that the Fitz suffered grounding damage, the addition of depth finders on lake boats now gives officers information not previously required on their vessels. When the skies of November turn gloomy.. US WEATHER BUREAU BUILDING There is a lot of by Anonymous - They have persisted where all others have perished. By this point,McSorely was heard over the radio hollering at his crew to stay off the deck and remain inside the vessel. The supreme caribou myth ever told is about Santa and his sleigh, but having said that, this seems to be the most famous myth out of all the animal totems. Furthermore, she had few watertight compartments and was rumored to be overloaded beyondwhat her designers had meant for her to carry. My understanding of the dives was showed hatches were closed least belied to be so and was the low ship by full cargo in the water and the sea waves and cargo shift caused her go down- no matter what the cause it's all so tragic- I know not the ship nor any of the crew or families but i can certainly feel their loss- it is a very sad story - and the song very accurate to what is known about the ship wreak- many lost at seas' and many more will- it's just sad. Captain Cooper observed the Fitzgerald passing very close to the dangerous Six Fathom Shoal near Caribou Island on the east side of the lake at around 1520 on November 10. In a similar vein, Paul Hainault, a retired Michigan Tech University professor, postulated a seiche caused the ship to scrape the bottom of Superior Shoal early that morning and the weakened hull eventually gave out. ZIP Code by City and State. 'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); A Great Lakes Information Network partner, 2020 Lake Superior Publishing LLC. I hear they found the crewmen's bodies and than I heard they never did that this was a rumor. The cause of the sinking is still a matter of much historic debate, both Ley and Sproule note. [1][3] In addition, exposures of gently dipping, friable Jacobsville Sandstone, have been reported from Caribou Island. Tweets by @lakesuperiormag !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)? "I've often wondered whether these two particular seas might have been the ones that finally did the Fitzgerald in, because they were really huge," he said. The search turned up no results for the first hour. Because of a long fetch on Superior that night, the Fitzgerald and the Anderson were in an area of the lake where huge waves were indeed occurring. It is approximately 5.6 kilometres (3.5mi) long and 2.4 kilometres (1.5mi) wide, and 1,600 acres (647ha) in area. Were going to try to contact those saltwater vessels and see if they cant possibly come about and possibly come back alsothings look pretty bad right now; it looks like she may have split apart at the seams like the Morrell did a few years back., Well, thats what I been thinking. Caribou Island and Southwest Bank Protection Area means the area enclosed by rhumb lines connecting the following coordinates, beginning on the northernmost point and proceeding clockwise: 4730.0 N, 08550.0 W 4724.2 N, 08538.5 W 4704.0 N, 08549.0 W 4705.7 N, 08559.0 W 4718.1 N, 08605.0 W. In the more than 40 years since the ship went down, a cottage industry of shipwreck theorists have tried in vain to solve the sinking of the Fitzgerald, which rests in two pieces in 530 feet of water on the lake bottom 17 miles north of Whitefish Bay. [7], These reefs are not coral reefs. She was under command of Canadian born and highly experienced ship master Captain Ernest M. McSorely. Officers from the Anderson observed that the Fitzgerald sailed through this exact area. There's even a work of Fiction, SCP-1174, titled, and I quote, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". He and his officers watched the Fitzgerald pass right over the dangerous area of shallow water, Ley wrote. Photo Credit: Greenmars (Wikimedia Commons: Link) As the afternoon wore on, radio communications with the Fitzgerald concerned navigational information but no extraordinarily alarming reports were offered by Captain McSorley. Marie, Michigan, and Sault Ste. However an interior lake, Deer Lake on the center East side of the island, was used as an Amphibian base with a dock and ramp built by the last private owners of the island because of the unpredictable water/wave condition of Lake Superior. Its as certain as anything can be that sooner or later there will be another ship lost on Lake Superior, says maritime historian Frederick Stonehouse. The shoal is a hump of Keweenawan basaltic lava flows with ophitic interiors and amygdaloidal tops in an otherwise deep part of the lake, and though fishermen had known of its existence for generations it was only officially charted in 1929 by the United States Lake Survey. The light at Whitefish Point was out temporarily on the night the Fitz went down. [4] The Jacobsville Sandstone is the uppermost and youngest layer comprising about 8 kilometers (5.0mi) of sandstone and conglomerate that underlies Lake Superior and fills the upper part of the Lake Superior segment of the Midcontinent Rift. On April 15, 1977 the U.S. Coast Guard released its official report of Subject: S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald, official number 277437, sinking in Lake Superior on 10 November 1975 with loss of life. While the Coast Guard said the cause of the sinking could not be conclusively determined, it maintained that the most probable cause of the sinking of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald was the loss of buoyancy and stability resulting from massive flooding of the cargo hold. A small three room cabin was built on the east shore of Lake Superior adjacent to Deer Lake and the Amphibian base. Images of the Fitz's 1958 construction and launch. Perhaps the most widely accepted of the several theories about the loss of the Fitzgerald is that the ship crossed Caribou Islands Six-Fathom Shoal, which nestles off the north end of the island with water as shallow as 26 feet. Contributing factors noted were a lack of internal watertight bulkheads and allowances for more cargo weight during the ship's 17 years afloat. Whether spoken from a desire to maintain calm in his pilothouse or from his own false sense of security, his assessment was obviously quite wrong. I was a student of Tom's in 85 7th grade science at Sault jr high. The Anderson changes course to avoid Six Fathom Shoal area north of Caribou Island. If you think you can safely go back up to the area, I would request that you do so. They would later make a turn to the southeast toward Whitefish Point. * The ship had run aground on a reef during the worst of the storm (likely the reef in question was Six Fathom Shoal near Caribou Island). WHITEFISH POINT Captain McSorley told Woodard that the ship has a bad list, implying that it had gotten worse since his earlier report to Captain Cooper. 5. At about 5:20 pm the crest of a wave smashed the Andersons starboard lifeboat, making it unusable. Tom Farnquist is also notably the foremost expert on the wreck of the S.S. Edmunds Fitzgerald. Captain Cooper observed the Fitzgerald passing very close to the dangerous Six Fathom Shoal near Caribou Island on the east side of the lake at around 1520 on November 10. Captain Cooper of the Anderson mentioned the possibility of a stress fracture in his testimony before the marine board and also included it in his personal story of the wreck in James R. Marshalls Shipwrecks of Lake Superior. By its last voyage, the freighter had made about 748 round trips. Clark called the Fitzgerald again at about 7:22 pm. Captain Cooper maintained that he watched the Edmund Fitzgerald pass far too close to Six Fathom Shoal to the north of Caribou Island. Join us at Islands Restaurant in Fullerton on Malvern Avenue. It is approximately 5.6 kilometres (3.5 mi) long and 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi) wide, and 1,600 acres (647 ha . Edmund Fitzgerald - "Touching Bottom At Six Fathom Shoal". It was also revealed that a fence railing on theFitzgerald's deckhad been broken and a number of vent covers were missing. I have a fence rail down, two vents lost or damaged, and a list. Marie at 7:39 p.m., continued to try to raise radio contact with the big ship. But it also added time and nautical miles to her course in the middle of shifting, increasing winds and waves -- FROM THE WEST -- behind her. However, the Lake Carriers Association vigorously disagreed with the Coast Guards suggestion that the lack of attention to properly closing the hatch covers by the crew was responsible for the disaster. The Fitzgerald being the faster took the lead, with the distance between the vessels ranging from 10 to 15 miles. The Coast Guard were at this time trying to locate a 16-foot boat that was overdue.. Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. In 2018 6 caribou were moved to Caribou Island from Michipicoten Island to the north, due to pressure from Michipicoten First Nation. The two ships were in radio contact. All were lost to the depths of Lake Superior. He is particularly intrigued by the command that Woodard overheard. May god rest the souls of the 29 men who perished that fateful night, The iron ore freighter is only about 9 nautical miles from Pancake Bay off highway #17 Ontario Canada, it sits in Canadain waters. Later, in a videotaped conversation with GLSHS, Captain Cooper said that he always believed McSorley knew something serious had happened to Fitzgerald as the ship passed over Caribou Shoal. In the early afternoon of November 10, the Fitzgerald had passed Michipicoten Island and was approaching Caribou Island. The first one flooded our boat deck. These records are part of the Records of Bureau of the Census, Record Group (RG) 29.
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