DULUTH — Terrence Tysall was one of only two people to do it, and it may never be done again.
On Sept. 1, 1995, Tysall and Mike Zlatopolsky — popularly known as Mike Zee — descended from the surface of Lake Superior just west of Whitefish Bay to the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. In so doing, they set a record for the deepest shipwreck dive in Great Lakes history.
The wreck lies in Ontario waters and, since 2006, it has been forbidden by Canadian law to dive on the Fitzgerald without official permission.
“If that’s what helps families cope with a loss, and if the people in power are after that, then, fine,” said Tysall about the ban. “I think the sensitivities were sharpened by the fact that this happened to be the wreck that gained notoriety through that wonderful piece of music that Gordon Lightfoot wrote.”
Tysall, already a veteran diver, and Zee studied deep-water scuba techniques together. The two decided to use their knowledge on a dive to the Fitzgerald, which lies under approximately 530 feet of water.
“The depth sounds not ridiculous today, but certainly deeper than most (shipwrecks),” Tysall said. “By the standards of the day, it was just way, way, way out there.”
For Tysall and Zee, the dive was a personal project to push the boundaries of what diving equipment could then sustain. “We wanted to go see the site and prove that the technology was mature enough,” Tysall said.
To ensure their support vessel remained in position above the wreck, the divers dropped a camera that would show the boat crew where they were in relation to the Fitzgerald. “We were very careful not to hook into the wreck,” Tysall said.
The divers were underwater for about three and a half hours, but the large majority of that time was required for a gradual ascent, with decompression stops, to avoid getting the bends. Each diver brought five bottles of breathing gas, with two additional divers jumping in to lend support as needed at different depths.
It took about 10 minutes to make the descent, remembered Tysall, and the two planned for 15 minutes on the bottom. Their primary goal was the bow section, which lies upright.
When Tysall first saw the wreck, he was immediately struck by how the boat had carved up the lake’s clay bottom as it impacted with forward momentum.
“It looks as if the ship is just steaming, almost like an icebreaker, through blocks of clay,” Tysall said, “maybe meters thick, that are just coming away.”
A drawing of the bow section of the Edmund Fitzgerald as it came to rest at the bottom of Lake Superior. The drawing was commissioned by the U.S. Coast Guard as part of the Marine Board of Investigation Report issued in 1977.
Contributed / U.S. Coast Guard
The divers moved toward the pilothouse, where they could read the ship’s name in paint that was still intact.
“I tend to be a very kinesthetic person,” Tysall said. “To me, it was just the most natural thing in the world to just, you know, there’s the rail right sitting outside of the wheelhouse, to just watch my hands wrap around that rail.”
Tysall and Zee did not have time to do much more than that. Having reached the deepest point of an ambitious dive, they turned their attention to the steps required for a safe ascent.
When news of their dive broke, it attracted both admiration and controversy.
The pair emphasized that they had been respectful and destroyed the video they had recorded during their dive. A representative of the crew members’ families contacted the divers to ask if they had encountered any human remains.
“No, ma’am,” Tysall replied. “That’s not why we were there. We weren’t looking for bodies or anything like that, nor did either one of us see them.”
While Tysall can’t say he ever received approval from the families, he believes that with the passage of time, they understand he and Zee were sincere in their motives.
“This was not a money-making scheme or a stunt,” said Tysall. “It was us proving technology and visiting a very historic shipwreck.”
A shipping vessel can be seen on Lake Superior from Whitefish Point, near where the Edmund Fitzgerald sank.
Wyatt Buckner / 2025 File / Duluth Media Group
The two had indeed proved the wreck could be visited by scuba, and concerns that later divers might be less respectful fueled the decision to ban such activity.
While he understands the prohibition, Tysall pointed out just how unusual it is. When he dove on the Athabaskan, a Canadian destroyer torpedoed in 1944, “we had survivors on the surface that took us aside. They watched us dive. They looked at our footage with us.”
Tysall continued: “I’ve been on countless wrecks, including some with human remains in the Great Lakes, where you can see the skeletal remains of people. I’ve been in U-boats and … warships and other ships that many people have died on, and I’ve never seen a diver that I’ve been involved with ever act with anything (other than) the utmost reverence.”
Still, no shipwreck outside the Titanic has such a large presence in popular culture as the Edmund Fitzgerald. With protections in place, no further scuba dives on the wreck are likely, by anyone.
Reflecting back 30 years after his dive, and 50 years after the ship’s loss, Tysall said it was still meaningful to know that “my hands have touched that wreck, and it was done with respect, in those clay blocks. Just to be there, it’s almost surreal.”
