A local teacher was making waves this summer.
Jane Baldwin-Marvell, a teacher at McNaughton Avenue Public School in Chatham, took part in a 661-kilometre swimming relay that symbolically completed the final voyage of the Edmund Fitzgerald, marking the 50th anniversary of its tragic sinking.
Baldwin-Marvell was one of 68 swimmers selected to participate in the event, which began above the wreck site in Lake Superior and made its way down to Detroit, Michigan. Her four-person team covered a 31-kilometre stretch from Lexington to Port Huron.
“It was physically the most grueling thing I have ever done,” Baldwin-Marvell said in a news release, “but at the same time, the most incredible experience.”
The relay was a tribute to the 29 crew members who lost their lives aboard the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975. Swimmers carried iron ore pellets, the same cargo the freighter was transporting, to deliver to Detroit, symbolically completing the journey that was never finished.