WHITEFISH POINT, MI-- Behind thick museum glass at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum sits a 200-pound bronze bell, the centerpiece of an exhibit honoring one of Lake Superior’s most famous maritime tragedies.

The bell was retrieved from the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald on July 4, 1995, by a U.S.-Canadian dive team working approximately 17 miles northwest of Whitefish Point.

The recovery operation brought the corroded bell up from 530 feet below the surface, where it had remained since the ship sank during a storm on Nov. 10, 1975, claiming the lives of all 29 crewmen aboard.

The historic dive was a collaborative effort involving the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, National Geographic Society, the Canadian naval ship HMCS Cormorant, Sony Corporation and the Sault Ste. Marie

See Full Page