Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial Swim to Take Place in 2025

Open-water swimmers will participate in a 17-stage, 411-mile relay swim from Lake Superior to Detroit on July 26, 2025 to commemorate 50 years since the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior and to pay tribute to the 29 lost mariners. Participating swimmers will symbolically complete the intended route and cargo delivery that the Edmund Fitzgerald was unable to complete on that fateful night in 1975. Swimmers will pass between them iron ore pellets from the same dock in Superior, Wisconsin, where the ship took on its last load.

Swimmers will raise funds for the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society (GLSHS) to preserve the Whitefish Point Light Station, the oldest operating lighthouse on the lake. All swimmers and guests are invited to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum for the 50th Anniversary Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial Event on the afternoon of November 10, 2025, and all swimmers will receive special recognition from the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society.

The event is organized by Jim Dreyer, who has swam across all five Great Lakes.

Learn more at edmundfitzgeraldswim.org.