The Legend Lives On...
The legend lives on, as Gordon Lightfoot so poetically put it, about that fateful night 36 years ago, when the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in Lake Superior taking all 29 of her crew with her. But today marks another anniversary too. It was 98 years ago today that the Great Storm of 1913 began to subside after ravaging the Great Lakes region for several days, revealing its terrible aftermath. The steamer Charles S. Price was found floating upside-down in Lake Huron on November 10th, one of twelve ships lost with all hands during the storm. Another 32 vessels went aground in the storm, seven of which were declared total losses.
One ship that was reported as "wrecked near Goderich" in the confusion immediately following the storm was the steamer Edwin F. Holmes. In fact, apart from some damage to her pilothouse suffered during an encounter with a 70-foot rogue wave as she fought her way bravely across Lake Huron at the height of the storm, the Holmes was one of the lucky few that made it safely into port. She survives today as the J.B. Ford.
In all, 235 sailors lost their lives in what became known as the "Freshwater Fury" or the "White Hurricane". It was the greatest natural disaster in Great Lakes History.