Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY
In 1610, English navigator Henry Hudson discovered the strait and
the bay that would bear his name. Hudson Bay opens on to the Lab-
rador Sea and the Atlantic Ocean through the Hudson Strait, north of
what is now Québec.
During the late 1650s, Médard Chouart Des Groseillers and his
brother-in-law Pierre-Esprit Radisson, brave fur traders, or
coureurs
des bois
, organized an expedition that took them west of Lake
Superior. They failed however to reach Hudson Bay, which the Cree
had described to them in detail. In 1665 in London, contrary to all
expectations, they met King Charles II and shared with him the secret
of Hudson Bay's riches. He decided to equip them with two ships.
Radisson's ran aground, but the
Nonsuch
, under the command of Des
Groseillers, managed to enter the Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay in
1668.
In 1670, what would later become the Hudson's Bay Company was
founded under the name “The Governor and Company of Adven-
turers of England, trading into Hudson's Bay,” with the permission of
the king. Within a few years, it controlled most of northern Québec
and Ontario, all of Manitoba, virtually all of Saskatchewan, the southern
half of Alberta and a large portion of the Northwest Territories: this
huge territory was known as Rupert's Land. Following an 1857 par-
liamentary investigation, the company was forced to hand over the
southern portion of what are now Alberta, Saskatchewan and Mani-
toba to Canada. In 1869, it relinquished ownership of Rupert's Land.
In 1912, the Hudson's Bay Company planned to open a chain of
department stores in Western Canada. By the 1970s, it had a store in
every major Canadian city
and suburb. From a simple
fur trading company, over
the years the Hudson's Bay
Company, Canada's oldest
company, became a major
multinational enterprise and
one of the most successful
retailers in the country: The
Bay.
5
An old Hudson's Bay Company trading post.
© Glenbow Archives; NA-2750-1
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