Edmund Fitzgerald’s final voyage captured in radio play

After four decades, Minnesota author Hal Barnes has brought a radio play that captures the fateful final voyage of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald to life – with the help of a few old friends.

The ore carrier’s shocking sinking on 10 November 1975 was made more infamous by Gordon Lightfoot the following year when the musician released the song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. In 1982, Barnes — a Duluth native — decided to give the story a fresh, authentic perspective by using two-way radio transcriptions.

These conversations are between Fitzgerald Captain Ernest M. McSorley and Captain Bernie Cooper of the Arthur M. Anderson, who followed the Fitzgerald. Barnes also read the National Transportation Safety Board’s report on the wreck and received research assistance from the Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center’s original director, Patrick Labadie, who connected Barnes with experienced sailors.

However, Barnes’ play sat in a desk drawer for 40-some years.

In the spring of 2023, Barnes and his buddies Gary Muellerleile and veteran journalist Dave Nimmer were talking about Lightfoot, who had just died, and Barnes mentioned his dusty passion project.

“And Nim says, ‘oh, I want to read it.’ And the next week I gave it to him, so that’s how it started,” Barnes recalled to MPR News host Cathy Wurzer. Nimmer was immediately impressed by the fact-filled tale.

“It read as one reporter wrote it. “She was loaded with 21,000 long tons of taconite pellets and she carried 61,000 gallons of diesel fuel number six and she departed at 2:15 when the last hatch cover was closed,” said Nimmer. “And I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me? It sounds like someone knew what he was doing, and that just started the story.’

Nimmer was no stranger to being behind the microphone, but took on the role of narrator. Muellerleile, with a long-unused musical theater background, became McSorley.

“So this was another opportunity to do something, you know, to become a different character,” Muellerleile said. “And there is something extremely satisfying about becoming someone else. And then it’s stimulating, it’s exciting. And I got to do it with two of my best friends.”

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All now in their 70s and 80s, Nimmer said the project appealed to the group’s instincts and became an opportunity to stay creative while staying engaged.

“I’m a recovering alcoholic and part of that is trying to live a life that’s honest and a life that shares what you have with others and trying to be loving and kind – that was something I had to learn to do,” Nimmer said.

“In this group of healthy guys that I’m with, we’re all trying to get somewhere, to do what we can and it seems to me what it takes to have a good life,” Nimmer continued. “I say, I’m not sitting around waiting for the sun to go down. But there’s music to enjoy, there’s stuff to do, and we get to practice our craft.”

Listen to the entire radio play, “The Last Voyage of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald,” written by Barnes and performed by Nimmer and Muellerleile by clicking the player button below.