40 Years Ago This Week We Remember the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

40 years ago tomorrow, November 10th, 1975 the bulk freighter Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior with all hands on deck.  29 men were lost that night...

The Fitzgerald cleared Superior, Wisconsin, on her last trip with a cargo of 26,116 tons of taconite pellets consigned to Detroit. Traveling down Lake Superior the boat encountered some heavy weather... and sank.

The Detroit News caught up with several families as they remember the anniversary of that tragic day 40 years ago...

But it's also remembered because recording artist Gordon Lightfoot immortalized it in song.

"It's a folk song," Lightfoot told a Grand Rapids audience before launching into the song at DeVos Performance Hall in May 2013. "But it's a true story that we all know well in these parts of Michigan."

The Canadian singer and songwriter recorded "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" on his 1976 album "Summertime Dream." The single hit No. 1 in Canada and reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States.

The song, nominated for two Grammy Awards, would go on to become one of Lightfoot's biggest hits, topped only by his 1974 song, "Sundown."

Here he is discussing the song below:

Here's a story that recently surfaced about the Edmund Fitzgerald...