Trevor Collins

But prior to this incident, sinking ships in the Great Lakes were not all that uncommon.

As I hinted at before, between the years 1875 and 1975, so the hundred years leading up to this shipwreck, there was reportedly an average of one shipwreck per week on the Great Lakes.

Pause and think about it.

I wonder what that is per capita, though, if that's even the right thing to say.

Like per the actual traffic on the Great Lakes, is that actually low enough that they just go, eh?

Yeah, because they are heavily trafficked.

Yeah.

It's an interesting statistic to unnerve you, right?

Some reports state that about 25,000 ships are at the bottom of the Great Lakes, with roughly half of those wrecks occurring in November due to bad weather.

That said, the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was truly an eye opener for the nation and for the industry.

Because of the size of the ship, it was regarded as the Titanic of the Great Lakes, and its sinking brought attention to longstanding equipment issues.

After the wreck, the radar systems were updated, as well as navigational charts and communications between ships and those on land.

Since then, there have been no major commercial shipwrecks on the Great Lakes.

Hey, that's pretty nice.

Today, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald remains closed to private diving tours and explorations.

So this is more of a, you can't just go out there and go looking.

This is something that has to be an official kind of sanctioned investigation.

Now, since no bodies were recovered, this is where things get a little morbid.

It's possible that they remain amidst the wreckage, which is why in large part it is regarded as an underwater grave site and thus left undisturbed.

Now it's likely that those bodies are incredibly well preserved due to the 500 foot depth, the lack of oxygen, and the freezing temperatures of the lake.