Savona, which is on the traditional and the unceded territory of the Skeetchestn Indian Band in the Secwepemc Nation, was originally named Savona’s Ferry. It is a small community located at the west end of Kamloops Lake approximately halfway between Kamloops and Cache Creek along the Trans-Canada Highway.
Savona was originally located on the north shore of Kamloops Lake, where it was the end of the stagecoach line from Cache Creek on the Cariboo Wagon Road. Originally passengers continuing on had to take the steamboat up the lake to Kamloops, the Shuswap Country and the goldfields of the Big Bend of the Columbia River.
Savona was first called Bout Du Lac by the French fur traders until a man named Francois Saveneux in around 1859 built a ferry to cross the mouth of the Thompson River – hence the name of Savona’s Ferry.
Saveneux, whose surname was anglicized to Savona, came to the area in around 1859. A Hudson’s Bay Company fort had been established at Kamloops, and the route along the lake was an important part of the fur brigade trail. The Hudson’s Bay Company wanted a wharf and warehouse at the western end of Kamloops Lake, and Donald McLean of the HBC in Kamloops wrote to Governor James Douglas in January 1859, recommending Saveneux for a position at the new site.
Not long after McLean wrote to Douglas that Saveneux and his family took up residence at the site on the northwestern shore of Kamloops Lake. The fur trade route followed the south shore of the lake to its western end, where the travelers had to cross the Thompson River where Saveneux established a cable ferry.
The small settlement on the northwestern side of Kamloops Lake soon became known as Savona’s Ferry where Francois Saveneux enjoyed the operating the cable ferry until his death in 1862 – 1865 when his widow took over running the ferry across the Thompson until 1870 when it was acquired by the government.
In 1885, it was an end of an era for the cable ferry when the Canadian Pacific Railway was built on the south side of the lake. After the railway was built, the ferry disappeared but the name Savona remained and most of the houses were pulled across the lake when the lake froze over – moving the community to where it is today.
During this time people thought they should name Savona’s Ferry “Port Van Horne” in honor of the general manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway – William Cornelius Van Horne, but when he found out what a small, insignificant place Savona’s Ferry was, he declined after passing through the area and seeing it for himself in 1883.
