Gordon Lightfoot’s “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” honors Ogdensburg ship captain

Photo courtesy of National Weather Service.

BY JIMMY LAWTON
North Country This Week

OGDENSBURG – “The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down, of the big lake they call Gitchigumi.”

You might recognize the lyrics from the recently deceased Canadian music legend Gordon Lightfoot’s hit song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

What you may not know is the Captain of the ship remembered in the tune spent some time in Ogdensburg during his formative years.

Ernest McSorley was Captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a Great Lake freighter that sank on November 10, 1975.

McSorley was born in Canada but moved to the United States at age 11 in 1924.

Some might be surprised to know he spent his teenage years in Ogdensburg, before taking a career as mariner.

McSorley assumed command of the Fitzgerald at the start of the 1972 shipping season.

He had commanded nine ships before joining the Fitzgerald crew.

“On the evening of 10, November 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, while in a severe storm, with a full cargo of taconite pellets, sank in eastern Lake Superior,” according to the Department of Transportation Coast Guard Marine Casualty report.

The ship was approximately 17 miles from the entrance of Whitefish Bay, Michigan. All 29 crewmen on board at the time were presumed dead.

The probable cause of the sinking was the loss of buoyancy from massive flooding of the cargo hold, the report said.

“The vessel dove into a wall of water and never recovered, with the breaking up of the ship occurring as it plunged or as the ship struck the bottom.”

While Lightfoot himself may not have spent much, if any, time in Ogdensburg, he did pay tribute to the community though his song. According to reports we wrote the song as a commemoration to the wreck and to the men.

Read more about the story and people who inspired the song at https://shipwreckmuseum.com/the-fateful-journey/ .