Update on the Edmund Fitzgerald life preserver

I recently mentioned a story about a family that discovered a battered orange life preserver with Edmund Fitzgerald stenciled on it. Many wondered if this was a hoax of some kind or if it could possibly be the real deal. Cynthia Edwards has apparently put to rest any ideas of the ring's authenticity or chance that it was a hoax. She is quoted in the Marquette Mining Journal as saying -

. . . her father acquired the orange preserver more than 20 years ago and stenciled ‘‘Edmund Fitzgerald’’ on it.

The ring was kept at the family’s cabin along Lake Superior and the Eagle River — not far from where it ultimately was found in the Upper Peninsula’s Keweenaw Peninsula — until it was lost about two years ago.

Her father painted the ship’s name on the ring as kind of a remembrance of the ship.

She also stated that, "It was never to trick anybody or make anybody think it was real."

Three stories of interest from Northern Michigan

It is a bit odd, but some interesting stories that have hit the newswire the past couple of days that all take place in Northern Michigan and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. First and foremost is the wildfire that has apparently stalled out after consuming some 18,000 acres of forest. For the first time since the fire began last week, the fire did not advance on Thursday. Fire lines have now ensnared about 70 percent of the fire's perimeter and hopes are high that the fire can be contained and snuffed out without further damage. Locals believe that the fire will not be officially put out until snow blankets the region.

Some sad news from the Mackinac Bridge of an unidentified woman who jumped 175 feet to her death just before 4 p.m. yesterday. There was another suicide at the bridge this past February and in the bridge's 50 years there have been more than a dozen such deaths at the bridge.

Here is a story that, if true, is one of those "how did that happen?" type of stories. An apple farmer and his family were searching for rocks along the Lake Superior shore at Fort Wilkins State Park when they came upon an orange weather beaten life preserver. Further inspection showed the faded and worn name of the ship - Edmund Fitzgerald.

Some are speculating that the preserver was planted by someone for whatever jollies they might derive from it. Is it possible that a piece of wreckage was actually found almost 32 years after the Edmund Fitzgerald sank? I think it is possible and so does a daughter, Cheryl Rozman, of one of the 29 who perished - Ransom Cundy.

The Keweenaw area is rugged and unpopulated and the preserver was found near a fallen tree which could have offered it a hiding place all of these years.