The last few stories for this lead up to Hallowe'en take place much closer to the waterfront. As I have often pointed out on these talks, we often forget that Toronto began its life as a port city, and still maintains an active port to this day- third most active inland harbour in North America, if memory serves. So with that in mind, lets head to the site of the Harbor Westin Hilton. This may be the site of a luxury hotel today, but, in the earlier days of Toronto this area was under water. On September 17th of the year 1949, this was the site of pier 9, and docked at it was a ship called the S.S. Noronic.
The Noronic was a ship from a time lost and forgotten to us: an era when people cruised the Great Lakes for pleasure. It was launched in 1913 in Thunder Bay, its construction delayed somewhat because one of the chief architects was lost when the Titanic went down. She was 362 feet in length, had five decks, at maximum capacity could hold 600 passengers and 200 crew, and was considered the most beautiful of the Lake Cruisers.
She had embarked on September 14th out of Detroit on a seven Day Cruise of Lake Ontario and Thousand Islands. She picked up other passengers and began making the tour. She had on board 524 passengers, all but 20 of whom were American, and 171 crew members, all of whom were Canadian.
On the evening of September 17th, she was docked at pier 9, and most of her passengers and crew left the ship for the evening to enjoy the night life of Toronto. Around 2:30 that morning, a passenger noticed the smell of smoke. He followed the smell and noticed that smoke was coming out of a linen closet. He notified a bellboy, who, rather than informing anyone, went to the steward’s office to retrieve the keys to the closet. Upon opening the door, the previously smoldering fire got a supply of fresh air and erupted out of the closet. The passenger and the bellboy, along with another passenger and another bellboy attempted to fight the fire with extinguishers, but this proved impossible. One went to get the ship’s fire hoses, but found they were not operational. Meanwhile, the fire was spreading rapidly along the ship’s wooden panelling, aided by the lemon oil that had been recently spread. The passenger who had first spotted the fire rushed to his room, grabbed his wife and children and fled the ship. The bellboy ran to the captain, informed him of the fire. The captain sounded the ship’s alarm. At this point, the fire had only been detected eight minutes earlier, but half the ship was already on fire.
The situation rapidly descended into utter chaos. Only one of the ships decks had access to the ramp that lead off the ship. Passengers jumped from the ship and into the oily waters of the harbour. the few crew members on board smashed portholes to help passengers get out. The first fire truck arrived by 2:41- 11 minutes after the fire was first detected, but by now the entire ship was in flames.
Only fifteen of the crew had been aboard Noronic when the fire started, and they could not make a full sweep of the ship before flames forced them off the boat. Firemen put up ladders and ropes to help any passengers who could get off. The steel of the ship’s hull began glowing white hot as the flames gutted the interior. They dumped so much water on to the ship to try and put out the flames that the ship developed a list towards the docks, forcing the firemen to retreat, as they thought the ship may tip over onto them. The ship then righted itself, and the firemen continued pouring water onto the blaze.
The fire was out by 5:00 am, but they had to wait over two hours for the metal to cool enough before fire fighters and other crews could go on board to begin the recovery of bodies. (picture) The found that every stairwell save one had been destroyed by the fire. The heat had melted the glass from the portholes. Several of the dead were found in an embrace, holding a loved one in their last moments, others were reduced to ash. Firefighters used pitchforks to separate the human remains from the debris. Most of the dead could only be identified through dental records.
The death toll could never be precisely determined. Estimates ranged from 118 to 139. By comparison, the death toll in the Great Fire of Toronto of 1904, which destroyed much of the downtown core of the city, was 1. Before long, many safety measures for boating and shipping were put in place, Noronic’s sister ships were rapidly phased out and scrapped, and before long, Lake cruising fell out of popularity. Toronto has had other tragedies and disasters, some with higher body counts, but this one has a gruesomeness and a horror that places it near the top of any list of the worst things to ever happen in the city.
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