Destination Duluth presents nationally touring Home Free in an intimate setting at The West Theatre
The West Theatre in Duluth filled with reflection, music, and history on Friday evening during A Night of The Fitz and Sea, an event honoring the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Presented by Destination Duluth, the evening blended documentary film, local broadcast history, and a moving performance by the vocal group Home Free.
The program opened with something truly special—the big-screen world premiere of Challenge the Sea, a new video by Home Free that had debuted on YouTube only hours earlier. Audience members were also able to scan a QR code to download Home Free’s just-released album Challenge the Sea, featuring their stirring rendition of Gordon Lightfoot’s The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The Tragedy of November 1975
Fifty years ago, on Sunday, November 9, 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald departed the Duluth–Superior harbor at 2:15 p.m. with 26,000 tons of iron ore bound for Cleveland. The massive freighter, then the largest on the Great Lakes, disappeared from radar 29 hours later, at 7:15 p.m. on Monday, November 10, in a fierce storm on Lake Superior. All 29 crew members were lost. Minutes before she vanished, the captain radioed the Arthur M. Anderson with the words, “We’re holding our own.”
The tragedy was etched into public memory the following year when Canadian singer Gordon Lightfoot released The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. In modern American history, only one shipwreck is more widely remembered than the Edmund Fitzgerald—and that is the Titanic.
Home Free’s Appearance in the 250-seat West Theatre
Just one year after 1,500 fans filled the DECC to see Home Free, Destination Duluth helped bring the nationally acclaimed group to the intimate 250-seat West Theatre for a rare off-day appearance. The timing aligned perfectly—between shows in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Wisconsin Dells—and the group agreed to come because of Duluth’s special connection to the Edmund Fitzgerald and the fact that they had filmed their Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald video aboard the William A. Irvin. The smaller venue created a close, personal atmosphere. After the documentary, fans were treated to an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the filming of the Fitzgerald video, followed by Home Free’s live performance of the song, capped with a 12-minute Q&A with the all-vocal band.
Daughter of Lost Sailor Comments on HF Fitz video
“This one warmed my heart” — Deb Champeau, daughter of Oliver Champeau, third assistant engineer aboard the Fitzgerald
Within four weeks, the video had drawn more than half a million views, 30,000 reactions, and 2,200 comments. Among them was a powerful message from Deb Champeau:
“I don’t like many of the remakes of the song… BUT this one warmed my heart!! Thank you for doing a beautiful job of remembering my dad and his brothers. It’s been 50 years, and still, it feels like yesterday.”
Remembering Through Film and News
The evening also featured a screening of A Good Ship and Crew Well Seasoned, a documentary produced by the National Museum of the Great Lakes. While one interviewee mistakenly recalled the Fitzgerald sinking on a Sunday, Northlanders remember it was Monday night.
WDIO’s young Dennis Anderson Breaks the Fitz Story
Breaking the Edmund Fitzgerald tragedy became the most memorable broadcast of Dennis Anderson’s long career at WDIO. On the night of November 10, 1975—with the television cameras still warming up—he broke into Monday Night Football using audio only, with a bulletin slide on the screen.
“It takes 10–15 minutes to warm up the camera, so I had to do it live on audio,” Anderson said. “So I went into the audio booth. They put a bulletin slide on the air and I said something like, ‘We interrupt this program for a special news bulletin from the Channel 10 newsroom. Action News has just learned that …’ and I got into the fact that the ship has gone down, believed missing and everybody is dead.”
“We had relatives of the people who died call us,” Anderson continued. “We had friends; we had interested persons who were living in the Twin Ports, living in the Northland who wanted more information. We actually had some family members call us. We were the pipeline between the lost ship and these families.”
His calm but chilling words were the first public announcement of the disaster—news that would echo across the Great Lakes and headline broadcasts and newspapers around the world the next day. – Superior Telegram
A Night to Remember
From the video premiere to the documentary screening, and finally to Home Free’s stirring live performance of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the evening at The West Theatre carried both reverence and power.
Fifty years on, the legacy of the Edmund Fitzgerald is more than history—it is living memory in Duluth and across the Great Lakes. Through music, film, and community storytelling, the “Mighty Fitz” continues to remind us of the strength of the ships, the peril of the sea, and the lives forever bound to its story.
