The Old Mariners Church in Detroit, Mich., was a fitting end to honour an epic journey for a group of swimmers.
A day earlier, they completed a swim that followed the intended route of the Edmund Fitzgerald, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the American freighter.
“The Edmund Fitzgerald and all the mariners that have been lost since they’ve been keeping records … they were building the economies of both Canada and the United States,” event organizer Jim Dreyer said.
“The perils they faced to do that — it really drives it home when we talk about the Edmund Fitzgerald and all these other shipwrecks, how perilous it is out there.”
Sixty-eight people took turns swimming the 17 legs of the endeavour, which spanned more than 650 kilometres and followed the remaining route that the ship was meant to complete to transport iron ore from Wisconsin to a steel mill near Detroit.
The Edmund Fitzgerald sank in the Canadian waters of Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975. All 29 crew members were lost.
One of them was Blaine Wilhelm, who worked in the ship’s engine room. His daughter, Heidi Brabon, was at Thursday’s ceremony.
“I remember just bits and pieces of that evening. We found out on the news,” she said.
“I remember sitting in the kitchen. Mom was in the kitchen talking to anyone that could give her any kind of information and just told her mom, ‘I’m scared.’ I don’t remember much more of that evening, but that sticks in my mind.”
The church where the ceremony was held sits at the Detroit entrance to the Windsor-Detroit tunnel. It is mentioned in the late Gordon Lightfoot’s classic song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
As referenced in the song, at this ceremony, the bell rang 29 times for each man who was lost — it tolled one extra time to commemorate all the mariners lost in the Great Lakes.
“The church in Detroit, the Mariners Church, and I’ve passed it so many times and never been in here,” said one of the swimmers, Barry Alper, who’s from Toronto.
“So to actually be in here, and to listen to the service, and then to reflect on the song and to have the song sung — it was really, like, full circle for me.”
Dreyer said there was some rough weather during the swimmers’ journey and some parallels with what the Edmund Fitzgerald faced.
“To experience Mother Nature’s fury like that, you can only imagine what it was like on Lake Superior with 30-, 35- and some 40-foot rogue waves that took a 729-foot ore carrier and broke it in half. It just shows the power of these lakes, and we experienced some of that.”
Brabon rang the bell to honour her father. She said witnessing the swimmers finishing the route that the ship never could was an emotional moment.
“It was awesome, symbolically finishing the journey,” she said.
The swim also raised nearly $200,000 for the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society to help preserve the Whitefish Point Light Station. Built in 1861, it’s the oldest operating lighthouse on Lake Superior and about 17 kilometres from the ship’s final resting place.
Bruce Lynn, executive director of the society, says the funds raised will likely go toward building a new roof on the lighthouse keepers’ quarters, which he said takes a beating in the winter.
