Savant Lake is an
unincorporated place
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
and community in
Unorganized Thunder Bay District
Thunder Bay District is a district#Ontario, district and Census divisions of Canada, census division in Northwestern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario. The County seat, district seat is Thunder Bay.
Most of the district (93.5%) is uni ...
in
northwestern Ontario
Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...
, Canada.
History
The town was founded when the
National Transcontinental Railway
The National Transcontinental Railway (NTR) was a historic railway between Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Moncton, New Brunswick, in Canada. Much of the line is now operated by the Canadian National Railway.
The Grand Trunk partnership
The completion o ...
was built in the early 1900s. It was originally named Bucke, after a civil engineer in charge of building the railroad. In 1928, after it was found that there already was another town of the same name in Ontario (Bucke Township, now amalgamated in
Temiskaming Shores
Temiskaming Shores is a city in the Timiskaming District in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It was created by the amalgamation of the town of New Liskeard, the town of Haileybury, and the township of Dymond in 2004. The city had a total population ...
), it was renamed after the name of the lake north of the town,
Lake Savant.
In 1901, gold was discovered on Lake Savant. Therefore, in 1905, the Saint Anthony Goldmine located south of the town opened. It serviced the town until it was closed in 1941.
In 1913, CN Savant Lake railroad station was built. Until 1959, the main form of transportation was dog teams until
Highway 599 was completed.
[
In 1918, the ]Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), originally the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It was the owner of the ...
opened a fur-trade post along the railway at Bucke in order to forestall competition. From 1935 on, the post operated a fur-trade outpost at the St. Anthony Mine. The Bucke Post closed in 1938 and the post at St. Anthony Mine operated briefly as a full post, until operations were moved to Dinorwic and it too closed that same year.
In 1973, Hydro (electricity) was brought in.[Wildewood on Lake Savant]
/ref>
Transportation
Savant Lake is on Highway 599, roughly halfway between Ignace Ignace may refer to:
* 11963 Ignace, main-belt asteroid
*Ignace (name), surname and given name of French origin
*Ignace, Ontario, township in Northwestern Ontario, Canada
*Ignace (film)
''Ignace'' is a 1937 French musical comedy film directed by ...
and Pickle Lake
Pickle Lake is a township in the Canadian province of Ontario, and is the most northerly community in the province that has year-round access by road. Located north of Thunder Bay, highway access is via Highway 599, the only access road to the ...
. The community is also connected to Sioux Lookout
Sioux Lookout is a town in Northwestern Ontario, Canada, with a population of 5,838 people (up 10.8% since 2016). Known locally as the "Hub of the North", it is serviced by the Sioux Lookout Airport, Highway 72, and the Sioux Lookout railway ...
via Highway 516, and is the proposed northern terminus of an extension of Highway 811, if the extension is ever built.
Savant Lake is on the Canadian National Railway
The Canadian National Railway Company () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States.
CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue a ...
transcontinental
Transcontinental may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* "Transcontinental", a song by the band Pedro the Lion from the album ''Achilles Heel''
* TC Transcontinental, a publishing, media and marketing company based in Canada, a subsidiary ...
main line,flag stop
In public transport, a request stop, flag stop, or whistle stop is a bus stop, stop or train station, station at which buses or trains, respectively, stop only on request; that is, only if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or drop ...
to the east. Savant Lake railway station is on the line and is served by Via Rail
Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via (stylized as VIA Rail), is a Canadian Crown corporation that operates intercity passenger rail service in Canada.
As of December 2023, Via Rail operates 406 trains per week across eight ...
transcontinental ''Canadian
Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...
'' trains.
Local media
Television
* CBWDT-03 (channel 8) (CBC)
* CICA-63 (channel 10) (TVO)
See also
* Northern District School Area Board
* Ojibway Nation of Saugeen
References
{{authority control
Communities in Thunder Bay District
Local services boards in Ontario