On the 17th of September, 1949, a small fire began on board the passenger cruise ship the
SS Noronic.
The ship was docked in Toronto Harbour at the time, and yet despite its proximity to
shore, the blaze would go on to become one of the deadliest in Toronto’s history.
It would be the end not just of a magnificent ship, but also of many innocent lives.
The disaster would also mark the beginning of the end for the once-massive Great Lakes
passenger cruise industry.
The SS Noronic was built in 1913 by the Western Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company at Port
Arthur for the Northern Navigation Company – a business that would go on to become
Canada Steamship Lines.
The 110-meter- (or 120-yard-) long ship could carry 600 passengers and 200 members of crew.
It was nicknamed “The Queen of The Great Lakes”, and quickly became one of the most
popular and well-regarded passenger cruise ships operating in that area.
The SS Noronic deserved her reputation.
As well as being the largest cruise ship to operate on the lakes, she was also the most
luxurious.
Designed to carry wealthy tourists, she was fitted with a library, music room, beauty
salon and an ornate ballroom, which housed a full orchestra.
Walls and ceilings throughout the ship were beautifully decorated with hand-carved wooden
panels made from oak, teak and cherry wood.
On the 14th of September, 1949, the SS Noronic began a seven-day cruise of Lake Erie and
Lake Ontario.
The ship was captained by 65-year-old William Taylor, who had nearly four decades of experience
working with Canada Steamship Lines.
Starting off in Detroit the cruise ship made its way along the Detroit River to Lake Erie.
After crossing the lake and docking in Cleveland, more passengers joined the ship for the second
leg of the journey.
At this point a total of 574 passengers and 131 crew were on board.
The first few days of the cruise went smoothly, until on the evening of the 16th of September
the SS Noronic docked at Pier Nine of Toronto’s ferry port.
Many of the passengers and crew on board disembarked and went to explore the city; the ship would
be carrying on to Prescott the next day, and so they had only the one night to see what
they wanted to see in Toronto.
Few of those on board wanted to miss the opportunity.
By midnight, however, most tourists had returned to the ship.
Exact records of who was on board and who was still out in the city in the early hours
of the 17th of September are not available, but most sources agree that several hundred
passengers were back on board, along with only a small number of crew; by some estimates
there were only 16 crewmembers on duty overnight.
At around 2.30am, Donald Church, a passenger who was making his way back from the smoking
lounge, noticed smoke pluming from a linen cupboard.
Alarmed, Mr Church tried to open the door, but was unable to do so.
He quickly summoned a member of the ship’s crew.
Bellboy Ernest O’Neill attended and witnessed the smoke, but did not alert his fellow crewmembers.
Instead, O’Neill unlocked and opened the cupboard.
Immediately, flames burst out and began to spread.
Mr Church and Mr O’Neill fetched a nearby fire hose, but it malfunctioned and would
not dispense any water.
Realising that the situation was out of control, the two men fled – Mr Church running to
inform his family, and Mr O’Neill to tell the captain of the ship.
At this stage that the ship’s whistle was used to sound an alarm… but – much like
the fire hose – at the crucial moment it did not work.
Possibly because of damage caused by the heat of the fire, the whistle gave only a single,
brief shriek before falling silent.
At this point calls were placed to the Toronto Fire Department by people on the shore who
could see smoke.
The fire was spreading rapidly through the ship’s narrow wooden corridors.
By 2:38am around half of the ship's decks were on fire.
The SS Noronic has been decorated with vast amounts of wooden panelling that had been
oiled and treated for decades, providing plenty of fuel for the fire.
One witness described the ship as “going up like a paint factory.”
The flames were visible to firefighters as they approached the scene at 2:41am.
Their size and intensity caused firefighters to call for extra resources while still en
route to the site of the disaster.
When firefighters did arrive, the scene confronting them was chaotic.
The ship’s only exits were on the lowest deck, and only two of its gangplanks were
currently deployed.
This left many passengers with no way of leaving the ship.
Witnesses watched numerous passengers jump from the upper decks into the water of the
harbour, or climb down ropes hanging from the side of the ship.
Some passengers even smashed open the windows of their cabins and clambered out in order
to escape.
Firefighters quickly set up ladders to aid the evacuation.
Many passengers were able to escape using these…
so many that in one case a ladder leading from an upper deck to a lower one broke under
their weight.
While firefighters rescued people from the ship, police and civilians were busy pulling
passengers from the water.
Donald Williamson, a civilian bystander who had been on his way back from a late shift
at the factory where he worked, was one of the first on scene.
He commandeered a nearby painter’s raft, steered it towards the bow of the ship, and
began pulling passengers out of the oily, freezing cold waters of the Toronto Harbour.
The pier was quickly filled with emergency vehicles and rescuers.
When there weren’t enough ambulances to carry all the injured to hospital, private
taxis were used to ferry the most seriously injured to Toronto General Hospital and St
Michael’s Hospital.
The walking wounded and those with minor injuries were directed to nearby hotels, where they
were tended to by the Red Cross.
Over 2 hours later, at around 5:00am, the fire had been extinguished, exposing the charred
wreckage of the SS Noronic.
By 10:00am the rescue effort had become a recovery operation.
Firefighters carried one body after another out of the ruin of the ship.
Without knowing how many had been aboard when the fire began, an exact death toll could
not be determined, but most estimates note that at least 118 people lost their lives.
All of those who died on the day of the disaster were passengers, with only a single crew member
later passing away from their injuries.
An investigation into the causes of the disaster found that the ship's crew were insufficiently
trained to respond to a fire, and that no reasonable plan was in place to evacuate passengers.
No crewmember had tried to summon the fire service during the disaster, and almost none
had made any effort to wake sleeping passengers.
One exception to this was Captain William Taylor, who was seen during the fire helping
passengers from their cabins.
He was reportedly one of the last to leave the burning ship.
Despite this it was determined that his lack of leadership had contributed to the high
death toll, and he was suspended for a year.
Taylor accepted this suspension, but retired before it was over and did not sail again.
The inquiry also criticised the design and maintenance of the ship – in particular
the poor condition of the fire hoses, and the abundance of flammable material used to
decorate the interior.
It was decided that, in the future, passenger ships would need to be fitted with automatic
alarms, sprinklers, and fire-resistant bulkheads.
Crew would be required to carry out routine patrols, and would have to receive extra training
in how to respond to a fire on board.
To comply with these new standards, several older ships in service on the Great Lakes
were retired early, and those that remained were subject to refurbishment and a rigorous
inspection routine going forward.
Despite its findings and recommendations for change the inquiry was not able to determine
the exact cause of the fire.
Speculation that it had been arson became widespread.
This idea – that the fire had been started intentionally – gained traction when, less
than a year after the fire on the SS Noronic, the SS Quebec (another Canada Steamship Lines
passenger ship) caught fire.
In this case, the ship was safely evacuated, and it was determined that the fire had been
started intentionally inside a linen cupboard.
Nobody was ever charged with this arson, but the similarities to the fire on board the
SS Noronic struck many as suspicious.
It was, however, a mystery that would never be solved.
Not long after these successive fires the passenger trade on the Great Lakes came to
an end.
Many passengers expressed that it had not been the same since the loss of the “Queen
of the Great Lakes”.
For the region, and for the many people who worked and travelled on the lakes, the loss
of the SS Noronic marked the end of an era.