The Noronic Disaster
A little-known disaster on the Great Lakes happened right here in the Toronto Harbour when a passenger cruiser, the Noronic, burned on September 19, 1949, taking 119 lives. This remains Toronto’s worst disaster.
Location:
On the Toronto waterfront at the foot of Bay Street, just west of the ferry docks, where the ship burned
Themes:
Disasters
Plaque text:
On the evening of September 16, 1949, the "Noronic", a Great Lakes cruise ship carrying 524 passengers, docked at Pier 9, 100 metres east of here. At 1:30 the next morning a passenger noticed smoke seeping from a locked closet. Crew members fought the fire, but it erupted into a life-threatening inferno before they could waken everyone aboard. Passengers descended the gangway, climbed down ropes, leapt onto the dock, or jumped into the harbour. Firefighters, police and passers-by assisted, but 119 perished. All but one were American passengers. An inquiry resulted in stricter fire safety enforcement which forced older cruise ships out of service and caused a decline in passenger shipping on the lakes.
