They are! Mine had a cheeky personality but not in a bad way! We got along great.

Yeah, 100% not worth it. There was no line when I went and it's no surprise why now.

Or they stole it. (speaking from industry experience)

The storm that night was BAD. My dad grew up in Sault Ste Marie and my grandmother always said it was the worst and most terrifying storm she ever had the misfortune of experiencing. To her, it was less a surprise that the Fitz sank and more of a miracle it was the only ship lost that night.

To this day, we still aren't 100% certain how or why the ship sank. It disappeared and sank 5 minutes after its last transmission and we don't know if a large wave finally capsized it or if it took on water or ran into a shoal.

Lastly (for tonight), every year the church bell of the Mariner's cathedral in Detroit Michigan tolls 29 times for each member of the crew who died when the Edmund Fitzgerald sank. When Gordon Lightfoot passed away in 2023, it rang an extra time for 30 chimes.

These same Canadian federal regulations are what protect the wrecks of HMS Terror and Erebus upon their discoveries in 2014 and 2016. Concern that Canadian scientists wouldn't find the wrecks before Hollywood did were a major motivation for renewed funding for the search.

I can't speak for most US law, but on the Canadian side these restrictions eventually made it to the federal level. The site of the Edmund Fitzgerald was formally declared a protected gravesite and all dives firmly restricted by government permits.

The Ontario Heritage Act already had some diving permit restrictions for wreckage site dives, but introduced newer restrictions after this. The Michigan state government also introduced similar legislation after pressure from NOAA.

The victims' families were understandably furious and put pressure on both the US and Canadian governments to do something about the wreck which they considered to be the burial place of their loved ones.

In 1994 a diving expedition went down to the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Photos from the dive were later sold to and published by a newspaper which included photos of some of the bodies of the victims still preserved by the frigid waters of Lake Superior.

"How does this relate to the Franklin Expedition?" you ask. With the Great Lakes being home to thousands of shipwrecks, recreational diving and tours of wrecks was and continues to be a big thing. You can take glass bottom boat tours of wrecks in shallower waters in parts of Lake Huron for example.

Because of this, there was increased pressure to improve ship and sailing safety practices and regulations in the wake of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. And it's thanks to these changes that we have not lost a single ship to the lakes since that night.

Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot memorialized the story of the ship's sinking with a song he wrote not long after the tragedy. The song's focus on the human side of the tragedy and the captain and crew and their families kept the story in the collective consciousness of people.

November 10th, 1975 is when the Edmund Fitzgerald (the largest freighter on the lakes at the time) sank during a terrible storm on Lake Superior. This ship would have arguably been just another casualty of the great waters except for one man and one song...

Most importantly though, what you need to know is:
1) Between 1875 and 1975 the number of Great Lakes shipwrecks amounted to ONE SHIP PER WEEK FOR AN ENTIRE CENTURY.
2) There has not been a ship lost to the Great Lakes since November 10, 1975.

We don't know how many shipwrecks there are in the Great Lakes because records are spotty past a certain point. Current estimates are roughly 6000 ships.

The first thing you need to know is that the Great Lakes are huge. Like freshwater seas huge. They also make up a significant portion of the St. Lawrence Seaway which is an important trade route and has been for centuries.