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The Hudson's Bay Company is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, it became the largest and oldest corporation in Canada, and now owns and operates retail stores across the country. The company's namesake business division is Hudson's Bay, commonly referred to as The Bay.
Fort Edmonton was the name of a series of trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) from 1795 to 1914, all of which were located on the north banks of the North Saskatchewan River in what is now central Alberta, Canada. It was one of the last points on the Carlton Trail, the main overland route for Metis freighters between the Red River Colony and the points west and was an important stop on the York Factory Express route between London, via Hudson Bay, and Fort Vancouver in the Columbia District. It also was a connection to the Great Northland, as it was situated relatively close to the Athabasca River whose waters flow into the Mackenzie River and the Arctic Ocean. Located on the farthest north of the major rivers flowing to the Hudson Bay and the HBC's shipping posts there, Edmonton was for a time the southernmost of the HBC's forts.
Sir George Simpson was a Scottish explorer and colonial governor of the Hudson's Bay Company during the period of its greatest power. From 1820 to 1860, he was in practice, if not in law, the British viceroy for the whole of Rupert's Land, an enormous territory of 3.9 millions square kilometres corresponding to nearly forty per cent of modern-day Canada.
Moose Factory is a community in the Cochrane District, Ontario, Canada. It is located on Moose Factory Island, near the mouth of the Moose River, which is at the southern end of James Bay. It was the first English-speaking settlement in lands now making up Ontario and the second Hudson's Bay Company post to be set up in North America after Fort Rupert. On the mainland, across the Moose River, is the nearby community of Moosonee, which is accessible by water taxi in the summer, ice road in the winter, and chartered helicopter in the off-season.
Lt.-Colonel The Hon. William McGillivray, of Chateau St. Antoine, Montreal, was a Scottish-born fur trader who succeeded his uncle Simon McTavish as the last chief partner of the North West Company until a merger between the NWC and her chief rival - the Hudson Bay Company. He was elected a member of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada and afterwards was appointed to the Legislative Council of Lower Canada. In 1795, he was inducted as a member into the Beaver Club. During the War of 1812 he was given the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Corps of Canadian Voyageurs as he was the highest up in the NWC's business hierarchy; the ranks of the Corps reflected one's position within the NWC as the Company had created the Corps under their own volition, and using employees as soldiers. He owned substantial estates in Scotland, Lower and Upper Canada. His home in Montreal was one of the early estates of the Golden Square Mile. McGillivray Ridge in British Columbia is named for him, as well as a handful of elementary schools in Ontario, Quebec, or British Columbia.
James Murray Yale was a clerk, and later, a Chief trader for the Hudson's Bay Company, during the late North American fur trade, as they were competing with the Montreal-based North West Company and the American Fur Company of John Jacob Astor. During his career, he would negotiate and compete with Americans, French Canadians, Russians, and Indians for market shares. He is best remembered for having given his name to Fort Yale, British Columbia, which became the city of Yale during the gold rush, and later on, became the name of the Yaletown district of downtown Vancouver.
Alexander Christie was a Scottish fur trader and chief factor of the Red River Colony from 1833 to 1839 and from 1844 to 1848. Christie was instrumental in leading trading ceremonies on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) while he served in a role known as chief factor. When he retired, he received a half share in the company's profits for two years beyond the normal retirement period.
Joseph Adams was a British-born Canadian chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company.
John Peter Pruden was an early pioneer of western Canada which at the time was known as Rupert's Land. During his many years of employment as a fur-trader with the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), he had extensive interactions with such First Nations as the Cree and Blackfoot. He was known to have spoken Cree fluently, a fact which was confirmed by HBC administrator Sir George Simpson in his famous but "sometimes erratic" 1832 Character Book.
William Charles was a Pacific coast pioneer, Hudson's Bay Company factor, and a prominent figure in the early history of British Columbia.
William Kennedy was a Canadian fur trader, politician, and historian.
Asleep by the frozen sea is a phrase coined by Joseph Robson to describe the policy of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) from its foundation in 1670 until the establishment of its first inland post in 1774. Unlike the French who sent Coureurs des bois inland to trade, the HBC built posts on Hudson Bay and waited for the Indians to bring furs to them. The decision to abandon this policy and move inland gradually turned the HBC into an informal government for western Canada and led ultimately to the confederation of western and eastern Canada.
Lac Île-à-la-Crosse is a Y-shaped lake in the north-central region of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan on the Churchill River. At the centre of the Y is the town of Île-à-la-Crosse, the second oldest town in Saskatchewan. The Churchill exits the north-east arm and flows east to Hudson Bay through a series of lakes. The Churchill enters at the north-west arm called Aubichon Arm or Deep River. Upstream it leads north-west to Athabasca Country passing Churchill Lake, Peter Pond Lake, Lac La Loche and on to the Methye Portage leading to Lake Athabasca.
James Isham (1716–1761) was chief factor (master) at both York Factory and Fort Prince of Wales in Canada during the mid-1700s. He kept detailed journals that described life in the region, including flora and fauna that were unknown to people in England at that time. His journals are important historical documents and he is well known to scholars of the fur trade in Canada during the early years of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC).
Erland Erlandson was a Danish carpenter and sailor who, after becoming a British prisoner of war during the Napoleonic Wars, joined the Hudson's Bay Company in British North America. Despite his poor English, his intelligence and hard work saw him promoted from carpenter to clerk to factor. Along with Nicol Finlayson, he crossed northern Quebec to establish the HBC's Ungava District, an ordeal fictionalized in R. M. Ballantyne's 1857 adventure novel Ungava. In 1834, misled by his Indigenous guides, he became the first known European to cross the Labrador Peninsula. He also established several outposts in the interior, including the successful Fort Nascopie, but, effectively barred from further promotion owing to his low and foreign birth, he eventually retired to a homestead in Canada West. Having never married, his large estate—usually credited by Canadian historians to two bank thefts—was mostly left to the Toronto General Hospital.
Robert Pilgrim was an employee of the Hudson's Bay Company, from 1730 to 1750. Pilgrim originally worked as a steward on Hudson's Bay Company ships. In 1735 he given command of a small local Hudson's Bay Company vessel.
The Hardistys are a Canadian family of commerce and politics of English, Scottish and indigenous North American heritage.
John George McTavish was a Scottish-born fur trader who played a significant role in the North West Company's activities in North America during the early 19th century. He entered the North American fur trade in 1798 with the North West Company, wherein he challenged the monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company. Personal controversies arose from his marriages, notably abandoning his common-law wife Matooskie, an Indigenous Canadian woman, for Catherine Aitken Turner, sparking condemnation and rumours.
John Thomas was a Canadian fur trader who played a significant role in the exploration and establishment of posts by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) in North America.
Fort Albany was a Hudson's Bay Company trading post established in 1679 near the site of the present day Fort Albany First Nation. The fort was one of the oldest and most important of the Hudson's Bay Company's posts. It was also involved in Anglo-French tensions leading to the Battle of Fort Albany in 1688.
References
- 1 2 "Biography – BEVAN, WILLIAM – Volume II (1701-1740) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography".
- ↑ Moose Factory – An Exploration of Frontier History, Ontario Heritage Foundation, 2002, 07-02-12M-9002-2002
