Soon to be available will be a new book on the Edmund Fitzgerald, the famous 1975 Lake Superior shipwreck. Author and Upper Peninsula native Ric Mixter tells WSJM News he remembers the storm that sank the 729-foot vessel on November 10, 1975, killing all 29 on board. He was part of a 1994 dive team that found the body of a crew member, and Mixter says he’s been able to uncover new information about the shipwreck and incorporate it into his book, Tattletale Sounds.
“There are over 30 things that haven’t been published before, and so much of it are the personalities of the people who built the Fitz, who sailed in it, and of course, who dove it,” Mixter said.
Mixter got his book’s title from the Gordon Lightfoot song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. He says that song is why people are still fascinated with the Great Lakes tragedy, considering there have been countless shipwrecks in the lakes.
“But we only remember the Edmund Fitzgerald, and that’s because it went to number two on the charts in 1976, Gordon Lightfoot still sings it in concert, and certainly, the families join him backstage to hear about the loved ones who were lost.”
Telltale Sounds includes highlights from hours of previously unreleased commentary by Coast Guard investigators in 1976, and it’s the first book to share Mixter’s interview with the cook from the Fitzgerald, who left the ship just a few weeks before the sinking. The book will soon be available in museums and at LakeFury.com. There will also be a documentary airing on PBS in the Detroit area on November 11.
