The Edmund Fitzgerald was christened on June 8, 1958 where more than 15,000 people attended its launch. The ship made regular routes between Duluth, Detroit, Toledo and other ports carrying up to 24,000 tons of taconite.
On Sunday, November 9, 1975 the Edmund Fitzgerald left from Superior, Wisconsin heading for Zug Island, near Detroit. The following day across Lake Superior there were reported winds of 60mph and waves of 35 feet. The Soo Locks had already closed. The Arthur M. Anderson had been trailing the Fitzgerald across Lake Superior and would eventually lose radio contact with the Fitzgerald.
We know this is the sort of thing that has kept you up at night. But first, let’s talk about the current and historical context of a frozen Lake Superior.
Lake Superior is currently 76.8% frozen with a few days remaining in February. The average Lake Superior ice cover for the last week of February is 44%. “So you’re saying there’s a chance?” Yes, there’s a chance we could inch towards the magical number of 100% ice cover.
As part of our mission at U.P. Supply Co. we hope to instill a sense of pride and wonderment in our natural surroundings, and especially the Great Lakes. They’re breathtakingly enormoous and beautiful, and you know this. They’re also very important to protect. It’s that we want to show off just how big the Great Lakes are (ok, that’s definitely part of it), but we want to show these comparrions so that we don’t take these lakes for granted.
Do you ever wonder where all these awesome satellite images of the frozen Great Lakes come from and where to access them?
With Lake Superior and the Great Lakes set to reach record levels of ice cover this winter, there has been an abundance of satellite images passed around on news and social media sites. However, there hasn’t been much information on where these impressive images came from. Our curiosity piqued and we set out to do a little research.
A longtime friend and customer of UPSCo brought to our attention the following comic that was included in New Yorker magazine. We chuckled, for quite some time. Have a look yourself.