Door County Maritime Museum SS Edmund Fitzgerald exhibit. PC: Fox 11 Online
STURGEON BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — The 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald will be marked Nov. 10, 2025, with the ringing of the ship’s bell, retrieved from the bottom of Lake Superior some 30 years ago.
The bell was recovered during the last sanctioned dive to the wreckage, which has been designated a grave site by the Canadian government.
Family of the 29 crew members who went down with the cargo ship routinely take part in the annual remembrance ceremony at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum on the shores of Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Among them is Debbie Champeau, who was just 17 years old when her father, Oliver “Buck” Champeau, was lost aboard the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.
Debbie says it’s tough to have a yearly reminder.
“It doesn’t feel like closure at all. It feels like it’s yesterday and it brings him back and it makes me very sad,” said Debbie, wiping away tears.
Debbie’s father is one of two crew members on the Edmund Fitzgerald who grew up in Sturgeon Bay. The other is Russell Haskell. Both were engineers on the ship. Buck was 41 when he died, after sailing the world on different ships.
Debbie recalls her close relationship with her father, but admits he did not share a lot about his time working on ships.
“Honestly, I didn’t even really understand what he did on the ship,” said Debbie. “I had no idea about anything with the Fitz. All I knew was he was going away on a ship. I just knew he’d be back, and I’d get a phone call, and it would be him, ‘So I’m back in port.'”
Until that fateful night Nov. 10, 1975, when the Edmund Fitzgerald would go down in a storm.
“It’s amazing how fast 50 years goes by, because I remember the day it happened like it was yesterday,” said Mike Champeau. He’s Debbie’s cousin and the son of Buck’s brother, Jack. “I couldn’t believe it. And my father, when my uncle went down with the boat, half of my father died with him.”
Mike says the two brothers were very close.
“I’ve never seen two brothers closer in my life. You can see the bond between them. And yeah, so my dad was in Vietnam. My uncle said, ‘If you pass and get killed in Vietnam, I’ll come get your body back.’ That was the deal made. So when Uncle Buck went down with the boat, my dad tried everything to bring his body back up.”
Jack was right there on the boat, taking part in the civilian expedition in 1995 to retrieve the bell from the Fitzgerald, after it was determined recovery of all 29 bodies would not be an option. Instead, the bodies would be left untouched with the Fitzgerald to rest in peace.
Once the bell was cut loose and brought up, it was Mike’s father who was the first to ring it.
“I didn’t even know he was the first to ring it until last year. I was told that. So yeah, it’s a great honor,” said Mike.
For Debbie, she relies on that bell from the ship to bring her peace year after year.
“I have a grave that’s empty at St. Joe’s [in Sturgeon Bay]. And it just meant something to have a piece of the Fitz,” Debbie said about the recovered bell.
That bell is on display at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. Once again this year, Debbie will be surrounded by others who lost loved ones on the Fitzgerald, and they will ring the bell 29 times to honor them.
“It’s a piece of where they were. It’s the last thing I feel they heard… that bell going off,” explained Debbie. “I want him to rest in peace.”
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