A look back at the 50th anniversary of perhaps the best-known shipwreck in North American nautical history leads off the 2025-26 Maritime Speaker Series at the Door County Maritime Museum in Sturgeon Bay.
The annual series, whose schedule was announced Sept. 12, brings maritime experts and interesting characters from around the country to the museum to talk about a variety of topics that range from historical subjects to current issues affecting the Great Lakes and the economy that relies on them. Programs are held at 7 p.m. the first Thursday of the month from October through April, except. Jan. 1 this season, and those who aren’t able to attend in person can attend online as well.
Opening this year’s Speaker Series on Oct. 2 is “The 50th Anniversary of the Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” a presentation commemorating the Nov. 10, 1975, loss of the 729-foot-long ore freighter and all 29 men on board when the ship, intending to carry a load of taconite from Superior to Detroit, sank in a fierce storm with winds of 60 mph or more in Lake Superior. The sinking made national headlines and was further immortalized a year later by Canadian balladeer Gordon Lightfoot’s hit song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
Chris Winters, board member of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Paradise, Michigan (not far from the site of the sinking), will talk about the Fitzgerald and what happened on that fateful night in his program.
Future programs in the 2025-26 series are:
The Door County Maritime Museum is at 120 N. Madison Ave., Sturgeon Bay; the museum also operates seasonal locations at Cana Island Lighthouse in Baileys Harbor and its Death’s Door Maritime Museum in Gills Rock. Admission to Maritime Speaker Series events is free, although donations of a nonperishable food items are requested. Online presentations of the series are held via Zoom; a link to register to watch is on the Maritime Speaker Series page on the DCMM website.
For more information, call 920-743-5958 or visit dcmm.org/seaperch/maritime-speaker-series.
Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or cclough@gannett.com.
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This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Edmund Fitzgerald 50th anniversary program opens Door County Maritime Museum Speaker Series
Reporting by Christopher Clough, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
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