Legends from sailors on Lake Superior abound: from ghost ships to haunted wrecks and other phenomena. The case of the Edmund Fitzgerald covers all of these. The last “modern†wreck on the lake, the story is famous in song and legend for the amount of bad luck the ore ship had. The actual sinking is still a bit of a mystery. One theory involves “The Three Sisters.†Reported by seasoned sailors, these three rogue waves can be of enormous size and show up at unpredictable time. The Sisters are just one of the theories as to why the Fitzgerald sank so quickly and unexpectedly. Currently, Split Rock Light House on Minnesota’s North Shore only lights up once a year, on November 10th, the day the Fitzgerald sank, in a terrible storm near Whitefish Bay on Lake Superior. All hands were lost.
The Three Sisters, Mixed media on canvas with plexiglass. 10ft. x 15ft.
Ship detail made possible by Lake Superior Maritime Collection, University of Wisconsin-Superior Special Collections and Archive.