Where to honor the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Fifty years ago on Nov. 10, 1975, the 729-foot lake freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank during a severe gale in Lake Superior. All 29 crewmembers were lost. It was the largest ship ever to sink in the Great Lakes, and the mystery of how it could happen in the modern era endures.

Our memory of the shocking incident is ingrained in Minnesota’s cultural DNA — but the story resonates throughout the Lake Superior and Great Lakes region. In Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ontario and beyond, there are special events, memorials and exhibits commemorating the ship and the anniversary. Here are some places and events where you can pay tribute.

Perched high on the North Shore, the Split Rock Lighthouse was built in response to a 1905 storm that claimed 29 vessels. Now the lighthouse anchors the second most popular state park in Minnesota, and hosts the Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial Beacon Lighting, a quintessential annual ceremony. At 4 p.m. on Nov. 10, the lighthouse temporarily closes as names of the 29 deceased are read aloud with an accompanying ship’s bell. That’s followed by the lighting of the historic beacon, which was retired in 1969.

Monday’s 50th-anniversary event is sold out (there’s always next year), but will be livestreamed on Split Rock’s Facebook page and the Minnesota Historical Society’s YouTube channel.

Maritime scholars, meanwhile, will be interested in this weekend’s “Gales of November” program put on by the Lake Superior Marine Museum Association. Speakers on Friday and Saturday in Duluth will discuss the 1975 storm, theories of the sinking, and its impact. (At 4 p.m. Saturday, Fitzgerald wreck explorer Ric Mixter will speak at the nearby University of Wisconsin-Superior, along with a musical tribute featuring Gordon Lightfoot’s epic 1976 song about the tragedy.)

The Edmund Fitzgerald actually loaded its final cargo in Wisconsin on Nov. 9. After taking on 26,116 long tons of taconite pellets, Fitzgerald departed from the Burlington Northern Railroad Dock No. 1 in the Allouez neighborhood of Superior, Wis., not far from the President’s Liquor store on Hwy. 2.

That dock is decommissioned, but you can glimpse the site from the nearby 1913 Wisconsin Point Lighthouse. (On the Minnesota side of the harbor, explorers can also get close to the former dock at the end of Duluth’s 4-mile out-and-back Park Point Nature Trail.)

To really take a deep dive into the Fitzgerald story, you need to go to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, on the end of Whitefish Point — an area known as the Graveyard Coast — is the definitive site for learning about the Great Lakes history of more than 6,000 wrecks. In 1995, Fitzgerald’s 200-pound bronze bell was recovered from the wreckage, and it is now the centerpiece of the museum’s memorial exhibit.

Sadly, the museum is already closed for the season (it’s open daily from May 1-Oct. 31; $15 admission). But the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society is holding an outdoor public remembrance service at 2 p.m. Nov. 10 at Whitefish Point. There will be no tickets or seating, and parking is limited. (A ceremony for family members only is later in the evening, with no access for the general public.)

Perhaps even more poignant than the Fitzgerald’s bell, the freighter’s actual lifeboats were also recovered from the wreck. Badly damaged, they are on display at the Museum Ship Valley Camp — a maritime museum aboard a historic steamship in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. The floating museum is open from May through October. Sault Ste. Marie is also notable for the spectator-friendly Soo Locks, which usher 10,000 ships a year between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes.

These Michigan sites are a scenic seven-hour road trip east of Duluth. You can also fly nonstop from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Chippewa County International Airport (CIU) via Delta Connection.

Meanwhile, a former anchor from the Edmund Fitzgerald, lost in the Detroit River just one year before the ship’s demise, is on display outside the Dossin Great Lakes Museum on Belle Isle in Detroit.