MS Normac

Normac is a floating restaurant boat that was launched as a fire tug named the James R. Elliot. She was built at the Jenks Shipbuilding Company in Port Huron, Michigan, in 1902.

After she lost her usefulness as a fire tug, she was sold in 1930 to the Owen Sound Transportation Company Limited. At that time she was taken to the Georgian Bay Shipbuilding Company at Midland for conversion into a combination package freighter and passenger ferry and from a steamer to a diesel powered vessel.

In 1931 the vessel was renamed the Normac which was the namesake of captain "Norman Mckay," founder and general manager of Owen Sound Transportation Company Limited, which is still running today. Mckay was the captain of the company flagship SS Manitoulin.

The Normac sailed the Owen Sound to Sault Ste. Marie route via Killarney and the North Channel, commencing July 16, 1931. From 1932 she sailed the Manitoulin Island - Tobermory route and in later years, along this same route with the S.S. Norisle. After the SS Norgoma was converted to diesel fuel and placed on the Tobermory run, in 1964 the Normac took up the role as an automobile ferry across the North Channel from Meldrum Bay to Blind River and Cockburn Island, a portion of its original run from Owen Sound. Normac remained on this route until the close of the 1968 season when she was retired. She was sold to Donald F. Lee of Port Lambton Ontario, and moved from Owen Sound to Wallaceburg Ontario, where she spent the winter.

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