The old sailor church in Detroit, Michigan, was an appropriate ending to honor an epic trip for a group of swimmers.
A day before, they completed a swimming that followed the scheduled route of the Edmund Fitzgerald, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the collapse of the American freighter.
“Edmund Fitzgerald and all the sailors who have been lost since they kept records … They were building the economies of Canada and the United States,” said the organizer of the Jim Dreyer event.
“The dangers they faced to do that: it really takes it home when we talk about Edmund Fitzgerald and all these other shipwrecks, how dangerous it is.”
Sixty -eight people turned to swim the 17 legs of the effort, which covered more than 650 kilometers and followed the remaining route that the ship had to complete to transport iron mineral from Wisconsin to a steel mill near Detroit.
The Edmund Fitzgerald sank into the Canadian waters of the upper lake on November 10, 1975. All 29 crew members were lost.
One of them was Blaine Wilhelm, who worked in the ship’s machine room. His daughter, Heidi Brabon, was at Thursday’s ceremony.
“I remember only fragments of that night. We discovered in the news,” he said.
“I remember sitting in the kitchen. Mom was in the kitchen talking to anyone who could give any type of information and told his mother: ‘I’m scared.’ I don’t remember much more of that night, but that stays in my mind.”
The church where the ceremony was held is at Detroit’s entrance to the Windsor-Detroit tunnel. It is mentioned in the classic song of the late Gordon Lightfoot, Edmund Fitzgerald wreck.
As referenced in the song, in this ceremony, the bell rang 29 times for every man who was lost: he gave an extra time to commemorate all lost sailors in the great lakes.
“The Church in Detroit, the church of the sailors, and I have passed it many times and I have never been here,” said one of the swimmers, Barry Alper, who is from Toronto.
“Then, be really here, and listen to the service, and then reflect on the song and have the sung song, it was really a complete circle for me.”
Dangerous trip
Dreyer said there was a bad weather during the swimmers’ trip and some parallels with what Edmund Fitzgerald faced.
“To experience the fury of Mother Nature as that, you can only imagine what it was in the upper lake with 30, 35 and a 40 -foot dishonest waves that took a 729 feet mineral bearer and broke it in half. It only shows the power of these lakes, and we experience some of that.”
Take in the afternoonThe swimmers finish the Edmund Fitzgerald Route 50 years after the shipwreck
Jane Baldwin-Marvel of Ridgetown joined almost 70 swimmers to track the route of the great lakes of Edmund Fitzgerald, a freighter that sank in 1975 killing the 29 men in the crew, in a commemorative swim. The guest presenter Kate Adach updates Baldwin-Marvell after she surpassed Stormy Waters to complete the swimming.
Brabon called the bell to honor his father. She said that witnessing the swimmers who finished the route that the ship could never be an emotional moment.
“It was incredible, symbolically finishing the trip,” he said.
The swimming also raised almost $ 200,000 for the historical society of the Naño de los Gran Lagos to help preserve the Luz de Point Whitefish station. Built in 1861, it is the oldest operational lighthouse of the upper lake and about 17 kilometers of the ship’s final resting place.
Bruce Lynn, executive director of the company, says that the funds raised will probably be used to build a new roof in the quarterfinals of the Lighthouse Guardians, which according to him receives a beating in the winter.
