''Hamonic'' was a passenger vessel designed for service on the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

. She was launched in 1909, and served until she burned, in a catastrophic fire, at

Sarnia, Ontario Sarnia is a city in Lambton County, Ontario, Canada. It had a 2021 population of 72,047, and is the largest city on Lake Huron. Sarnia is located on the eastern bank of the junction between the Upper and Lower Great Lakes where Lake Huron flo ...

, on July 17, 1945. However, unlike the catastrophic fire that struck her

sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They often share a ...

, , in 1949, where 119 passengers died, all of ''Hamonic''s passengers and crew survived. Elmer Kleinsmith, a crane operator, operating a crane designed to load and unload

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

, was near enough to use his crane's bucket, to rescue the ship's complement. Some sources say there were no fatalities, others say there was a single fatality. Other members of her fleet included , , and .

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite book , url = https://books.google.com/books?id=LJyPlbkz05IC&q=hamonic+freighter+OR+CSL+OR+steamship&pg=PT136 , title = Great White Fleet: Celebrating Canada Steamship Lines Passenger Ships , author = John Henry , publisher =

Dundurn Press Dundurn Press is one of the largest Canadian-owned book publishing companies of adult and children's fiction and non-fiction. The company publishes Canadian literature, history, biography, politics and arts. Dundurn has about 2500 books in print, ...

, year = 2013 , isbn = 9781459710481 , accessdate = 2019-03-20 , url-status = live {{cite web , url = http://www.mooremuseum.ca/newsletter-articles/marine-memories-hamonic , title = Marine Memories: Hamonic , publisher = Moore Museum , quote = The Hamonic was a well-appointed passenger ship with many facilities, including a barbershop, music room, ballroom and dining salon with large windows for viewing the passing scenes. Canada Steamship Lines ran 7-day passenger cruises on the Hamonic, from Detroit to Duluth, including a stop at Sarnia. , access-date = 2019-03-20 , archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190222234636/http://mooremuseum.ca/newsletter-articles/marine-memories-hamonic , archive-date = 2019-02-22 , url-status = live {{cite news , url = http://images.ourontario.ca/gateway/56211/data , title = Canadian Northern Docks - S.S. Noronic and Huronic , work =

Thunder Bay Public Library The Thunder Bay Public Library serves the citizens of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada and surrounding areas. Services *Information and reference services *Access to full text databases *Community information *Internet access *Reader's advisor ...

, accessdate = 2019-03-20 , url-status = live {{cite news , url = http://www.sarniahistoricalsociety.com/story/the-hamonic-burns-at-sarnia/ , title = The Hamonic Burns at Sarnia , work =

Sarnia Observer The ''Observer'' has been serving Sarnia-Lambton since 1853 and publishes five times per week, Tuesday through Saturday. The offices of the ''Observer'' are in Sarnia. The paper is printed in London, Ontario, on presses owned by Postmedia, which ...

, author = Cathy Dobson , date = 2003 , accessdate = 2019-03-20 , url-status = live , quote = As the ship burned that fateful morning of July 17, 1945, Kleinsmith loaded eight to 10 people into the bucket at a time and carried them to safety. In the Sarnia Observer published that afternoon, Kleinsmith was credited for continuing to load his crane until all the passengers in the bow were removed. {{cite news , url = http://thesarniajournal.ca/sad-death-hamonic , title = The sad death of the Hamonic , work = The Sarnia Journal , date = 2014-11-21 , author = John Rochon , archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20190320052101/http://thesarniajournal.ca/sad-death-hamonic/ , archivedate = 2019-03-20 , accessdate = 2019-03-20 , url-status = live , quote = Luckily, Elmer Kleinsmith, a crane operator for the Century Coal Co., saw the blaze, fired-up the crane and used the bucket to move passengers and crew to safety. Miraculously, all 350 people aboard survived the ordeal but the same couldn’t be said of the Hamonic. 1909 ships Steamships of Canada Great Lakes ships Canada Steamship Lines Ship fires Ships built in Collingwood, Ontario