Edmund Fitzgerald

It has been 35 years since the big ship went down in a fierce storm on Lake Superior, but the mystery of the Edmund Fitzgerald lives on.

The sinking of the ore freighter claimed 29 lives on Nov. 10, 1975, in what is considered the worst disaster in Great Lakes maritime history.

It is being marked Wednesday with a memorial service in Whitefish Point, Mich.

The sinking was the inspiration for Gordon Lightfoot's 1976 song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and the subject of a documentary.

But despite an investigation by the U.S. Coast Guard, the mystery of exactly why she went down in that fierce storm has never been solved. The coast guard once blamed the crew, saying they failed to fasten the hatches properly.

Members of the maritime community have said that isn't likely in light of the dangerous weather on the lake that night.