The story
Founded by Médard des Groseilliers and Pierre-Esprit Radisson on May 2, 1670.1
17th-century history
For much of the 17th century, the French colonists in North America, based in New France, operated a de facto monopoly in the North American fur trade. Two French traders, Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers (Médard de Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers), Radisson's brother-in-law, learned from the Cree that the best fur country lay north and west of Lake Superior, and that there was a "frozen sea" still further north. Assuming this was Hudson Bay, they sought French backing for a plan to set up a trading post on the Bay in order to reduce the cost of moving furs overland. According to Peter C. Newman, "concerned that exploration of the Hudson Bay route might shift the focus of the fur trade away from the St. Lawrence River, the French governor", Marquis d'Argenson (in office 1658–61), "refused to grant the coureurs des bois permission to scout the distant territory". Despite this refusal, in 1659 Radisson and Groseilliers set out for the upper Great Lakes basin. A year later they returned to Montreal with premium furs, evidence of the potential of the Hudson Bay region. Subsequently, they were arrested by French authorities for trading without a licence and fined, and their furs were confiscated by the government.
Determined to establish trade in the Hudson Bay area, Radisson and Groseilliers approached a group of English colonial merchants in Boston to help finance their explorations. The Bostonians agreed on the plan's merits, but their speculative voyage in 1663 failed when their ship ran into pack ice in the Hudson Strait. Boston-based English commissioner Colonel George Cartwright learned of the expedition and brought the two to England to raise financing. Radisson and Groseilliers arrived in London in 1665 at the height of the Great Plague. Eventually, the two met and gained the sponsorship of Prince Rupert. Prince Rupert introduced the two to his cousin, the reigning king – Charles II. In 1668 the English expedition acquired two ships, the Nonsuch and the Eaglet, to explore possible trade into Hudson Bay. Groseilliers sailed on the Nonsuch, commanded by Captain Zachariah Gillam, while the Eaglet was commanded by Captain William Stannard and accompanied by Radisson. On 5 June 1668, both ships left port at Deptford, England, but the Eaglet was forced to turn back off the coast of Ireland.
The Nonsuch continued to James Bay, the southern portion of Hudson Bay, where its explorers founded, in 1668, the first fort on Hudson Bay, Charles Fort at the mouth of the Rupert River. It later became known as "Rupert House", and developed as the community of present-day Waskaganish, Quebec. Both the fort and the river were named after the sponsor of the expedition, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, one of the major investors and soon to become the new company's first governor. After a successful trading expedition over the winter of 1668–69, Nonsuch returned to England on 9 October 1669 with the first cargo of fur resulting from trade in Hudson Bay. The bulk of the fur – worth £1,233 – was sold to Thomas Glover, one of London's most prominent furriers. This and subsequent purchases by Glover proved the viability of the fur trade in Hudson Bay.
A royal charter from King Charles II incorporated "The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England, trading into Hudson's Bay" on 2 May 1670. The charter granted the company a monopoly over the region drained by all rivers and streams flowing into Hudson Bay in northern parts of present-day Canada, taking part on behalf of England. The area was named "Rupert's Land" after Prince Rupert,
the first governor of the company appointed by the King. This drainage basin of Hudson Bay spans 3,861,400 square kilometres (1,490,900 sq mi), comprising over one-third of the area of modern-day Canada, and stretches into the present-day north-central United States. The specific boundaries remained unknown at the time. Rupert's Land would eventually become Canada's largest land "purchase" in the 19th century.
The HBC established six posts between 1668 and 1717. Rupert House (1668, southeast), Moose Factory (1673, south) and Fort Albany, Ontario (1679, west) were erected on James Bay; three other posts were established on the western shore of Hudson Bay proper: New Severn (1685), York Factory (1684), and Fort Churchill (1717). Inland posts were not built until 1774. After 1774, York Factory became the main post because of its convenient access to the vast interior waterway-systems of the Saskatchewan and Red rivers. Originally called "factories" because the "factor", i.e., a person acting as a mercantile agent, did business from there, these posts operated in the manner of the Dutch fur-trading operations in New Netherland. By adoption of the Standard of Trade in the 18th century, the HBC ensured consistent pricing throughout Rupert's Land. A means of exchange arose based on the "Made Beaver" (MB); a prime pelt, worn for a year and ready for processing: "the prices of all trade goods were set in values of Made Beaver (MB) with other animal pelts, such as squirrel, otter and moose quoted in their MB (made beaver) equivalents. For example, two otter pelts might equal 1 MB".
During the fall and winter, First Nations men and European fur trappers accomplished the vast majority of the animal trapping and pelt preparation. They travelled by canoe and on foot to the forts to sell their pelts. In exchange they typically received popular trade-goods such as knives, kettles, beads, needles, and the Hudson's Bay point blanket. The arrival of the First Nations trappers was one of the high points of the year, met with pomp and circumstance. The highlight was very formal, an almost ritualized "trading ceremony" between the chief trader and the captain of the Indigenous contingent who traded on their behalf. During the initial years of the fur trade, prices for items varied from post to post.
The early coastal factory model of the English contrasted with the system of the French, who established an extensive system of inland posts at native villages and sent traders to live among the tribes of the region, learning their languages and often forming alliances through marriages with Indigenous women. In March 1686 the French sent a raiding party under the Chevalier de Troyes more than 1,300 km (810 mi) to capture the HBC posts along James Bay. The French appointed Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, who had shown great heroism during the raids, as commander of the company's captured posts. In 1687 an English attempt to resettle Fort Albany failed due to strategic deceptions by d'Iberville. After 1688 England and France were officially at war, and the conflict played out in North America as well. D'Iberville raided Fort Severn in 1690 but did not attempt to raid the well-defended local headquarters at York Factory. In 1693 the HBC recovered Fort Albany; d'Iberville captured York Factory in 1694, but the company recovered it the next year.
Read the full text
In 1697, d'Iberville again commanded a French naval raid on York Factory. On the way to the fort he defeated three ships of the Royal Navy in the Battle of Hudson's Bay (5 September 1697), the largest naval battle in the history of the North American Arctic. D'Iberville's depleted French force captured York Factory by laying siege to the fort and pretending to be a much larger army. The French retained all of the outposts except Fort Albany until 1713. A small French and Indian force attacked Fort Albany again in 1709 during Queen Anne's War but was unsuccessful. The economic consequences of the French possession of these posts for the company were significant; the HBC did not pay any dividends for more than 20 years. See Anglo-French conflicts on Hudson Bay.
18th-century history
With the ending of the Nine Years' War in 1697, and the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713 with the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht, France had made substantial concessions. Among the treaty's many provisions, it required France to relinquish all claims to Great Britain on the Hudson Bay, which again became a British possession. (The Kingdom of Great Britain had been established following the union of Scotland and England in 1707).
After the treaty, the HBC built Prince of Wales Fort, a stone star fort at the mouth of the nearby Churchill River. In 1782, during the American Revolutionary War, a French squadron under Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse captured and demolished York Factory and Prince of Wales Fort in support of the American rebels.
In its trade with Indigenous peoples, Hudson's Bay Company exchanged wool blankets, called Hudson's Bay point blankets, for the beaver pelts trapped by Indigenous hunters. By 1700, point blankets accounted for more than 60 per cent of the trade. The number of indigo stripes (a.k.a. points) woven into the blankets identified its finished size. A long-held misconception is that the number of stripes was related to its value in beaver pelts.
A parallel may be drawn between the HBC's control over Rupert's Land with the trade monopoly and government functions enjoyed by the East India Company over India during roughly the same period. The HBC invested £10,000 in the East India Company in 1732, which it viewed as a major competitor.
Hudson's Bay Company's first inland trading post was established by Samuel Hearne in 1774 with Cumberland House, Saskatchewan.
Conversely, a number of inland HBC "houses" pre-date the construction of Cumberland House, in 1774. Henley House, (HH) established in 1743, inland from Hudson Bay, at the confluence of the Albany and Kenogami Rivers, a prime strategic location between Upland and Lowland Indigenous peoples, as well as the rival English and French traders. HH was dependent on Albany River – Fort Albany for lines of communication. Henley House was sacked in 1754, and its servants killed. Three of the five attackers (rebels?) were apprehended at Albany Fort and hanged on June 21, 1755. HH was raised a few years later, then rebuilt in 1759, only to be sacked again immediately. Next, the inland houses of Split Lake and Nelson Houses were established between 1740 and 1760. These were dependent on York River – York Factory and Churchill River, respectively. Although not inland, Richmond Fort was established in 1749. This was on an island within Hudson Bay. It was titled a "New Discovery" in 1749, and by 1750 was titled Richmond Gulf. The name was changed to Richmond Fort and given the abbreviation RF from 1756 to 1759, it served mainly as a trade goods and provisions storage location. Additional inland posts were Capusco River and Chickney Creek, both circa 1750. Likewise, Brunswick (1776), New Brunswick (1777), Gloucester (1777), Upper Hudson (ca. 1778), Lower Hudson (1779), Rupert, and Wapiscogami Houses were established in the 1770s. These post-date Cumberland House, yet speak to the expanding inland incursion of the HBC in the last quarter of the 18th century. Minor posts also during this time period include Mesackamy/Mesagami Lake (1777), Sturgeon Lake (1778), and Beaver Lake Posts.
On their way to Canada from London, the Company's ships would call in at Stromness in Orkney to take on water and supplies. For most of the Eighteenth Century Orkney became the Company's principal recruiting ground.
In 1779, other traders founded the North West Company (NWC) in Montreal as a seasonal partnership to provide more capital and to continue competing with the HBC. It became operative for the outfit of 1780 and was the first joint-stock company in Canada and possibly North America. The agreement lasted one year. A second agreement established in 1780 had a three-year term. The company became a permanent entity in 1783. By 1784, the NWC had begun to make serious inroads into the HBC's profits.
19th-century history
The North West Company (NWC) was the main rival in the fur trade. The competition led to the small Pemmican War in 1816, which culminated in the Battle of Seven Oaks on 19 June 1816. In 1821, the NWC and Hudson's Bay Company were forcibly merged by intervention of the British government to put an end to the violent competition. Of the 175 posts, 68 of them the HBC's, were reduced to 52 for efficiency and because many were redundant as a result of the rivalry and were inherently unprofitable. Their combined territory was extended by a licence to the North-Western Territory, which reached to the Arctic Ocean in the north and, with the creation of the Columbia Department in the Pacific Northwest, to the Pacific Ocean in the west. The NWC's regional headquarters at Fort George (Fort Astoria) was relocated to Fort Vancouver by 1825, making it the HBC's base of operations on the Pacific Slope.
Before the merger, the employees of the HBC, unlike those of the NWC, did not participate in its profits. After the merger, with all operations under the management of Sir George Simpson (1826–60), the company had a corps of commissioned officers: 25 chief factors and 28 chief traders, who shared in the company's profits during the monopoly years. Its trade covered 7,770,000 km2 (3,000,000 sq mi), and it had 1,500 contract employees.
Between 1820 and 1870, the HBC issued its own paper money. The notes, denominated in sterling, were printed in London and issued at York Factory for circulation primarily in the Red River Colony.
Competition and exploration
Although the HBC maintained a monopoly on the fur trade during the early to mid-19th century, there was competition from James Sinclair and Andrew McDermot (Dermott), independent traders in the Red River Colony. They shipped furs by the Red River Trails to Norman Kittson, a buyer in the United States. In addition, Americans controlled the maritime fur trade on the Northwest Coast until the 1830s.
Throughout the 1820s and the 1830s, the HBC controlled nearly all trading operations in the Pacific Northwest region and was based at its headquarters at Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia River. Although claims to the region were by agreement in abeyance, commercial operating rights were nominally shared by the United States and Britain through the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, but company policy, enforced via Chief Factor John McLoughlin of the company's Columbia District, was to discourage US settlement of the territory. The company's effective monopoly on trade virtually forbade any settlement in the region.
Additional early presence in present-day United States
Over and above the NWC Fort George headquarters site, the HBC carried on the early presence in the region of the NWC when it merged in 1821 with noteworthy sites: Spokane House, Fort Okanogan and Fort Nez Percés. Fort Colville located further North on the Columbia River replaced Spokane House in 1825.
In the mid-1820s, Peter Skene Ogden and a brigade of over 100 men pushed south to trap in the area that is now the state of Utah. As one of the notable early European explorers in the region, several locations in northern Utah now bear Ogden's name, including the city of Ogden, the Ogden Valley and the Ogden River.
Fort Umpqua was established in 1832 in present-day southern Oregon after the Willamette River had been explored up toward its headwaters by mainly the NWC. Nisqually House was built during the same year to establish a presence further North on Puget Sound in present-day State of Washington, resulting in Fort Nisqually a few years later closer to present-day Canadian sites.
The HBC established Fort Boise in 1834 (in present-day southwestern Idaho) to compete with the American Fort Hall, 483 km (300 mi) to the east. In 1837, it purchased Fort Hall, also along the route of the Oregon Trail. The outpost director displayed the abandoned wagons of discouraged settlers to those seeking to move west along the trail.
HBC trappers were also deeply involved in the early exploration and development of Northern California. Company trapping brigades were sent south from Fort Vancouver, along what became known as the Siskiyou Trail, into Northern California as far south as the San Francisco Bay Area, where the company operated a trading post at Yerba Buena (San Francisco). The southern-most camp of the company was French Camp, east of San Francisco in the Central Valley adjacent to the future site of the city of Stockton. These trapping brigades in Northern California faced serious risks, and were often the first to explore relatively uncharted territory. They included the lesser known Peter Skene Ogden and Samuel Black.
The HBC also operated a store in what were then known as the Sandwich Islands (now the Hawaiian Islands), engaging in merchant shipping to the island kingdom between 1828 and 1859. Hawaiians themselves were recruited as part of the HBC workforce as navigators and often settled anywhere it harboured in the Northwest and intermarrying with the local populations from present day British Columbia all the way south to Washington especially Fort Vancouver.
Extending the presence it had built in present-day British Columbia northern coast, the HBC reached by 1838 as far North as Fort Stikine in the Alaska Panhandle by present-day Wrangell. The RAC-HBC agreement (1839) with the Russian American Company (RAC) provided for such a continuing presence in exchange for the HBC to supply the Russian coastal sites with agricultural products. The Puget Sound Agricultural Company subsidiary was created to supply grain, dairy, livestock and manufactured goods out of Fort Vancouver, Fort Nisqually, Fort Cowlitz and Fort Langley in present-day southern British Columbia.
The company's stranglehold on the region was broken by the first successful large wagon train to reach Oregon in 1843, led by Marcus Whitman. In the years that followed, thousands of emigrants poured into the Willamette Valley of Oregon. In 1846, the United States acquired full authority south of the 49th parallel; the most settled areas of the Oregon Country were south of the Columbia River in what is now Oregon. McLoughlin, who had once turned away would-be settlers when he was company director, then welcomed them from his general store at Oregon City. He later became known as the "Father of Oregon".
Early presence in present-day Canada (British Columbia)
The HBC also carried on the early presence in the region of the NWC in present-day central and northern British Columbia with noteworthy sites: Fort Alexandria, Fort d'Épinette (Fort St. John), Fort St. James, Fort George and Fort Shuswap (Fort Kamloops).
Since the 1818 Treaty settled the 49th parallel border only as far as the Rocky Mountains, the HBC was looking for a site further West in case the parallel border would become further extended at the end of the 10 years joint occupancy term. By 1824, the HBC was commissioning an expedition to travel from the Fort George regional headquarter on the southern shore of the Columbia River all the way to the Fraser River. The three boats 40 some crew led by the James McMillan were first to officially ever make it to Puget Sound from the continent, to reach its northern end into Boundary Bay and to bypass the mouth of the Fraser. They shortcut through two mainland rivers and a portage in order to finally reach the lower Fraser. Friendly tribes were identified along with subsistence farming land suitable for sustaining a trading post. The first Fort Langley was subsequently built (1827), establishing an early settlers long lasting presence in current day southern British Columbia. The fur trade in a wet climate turned out to be marginal and quickly evolved into a salmon trade site with abundant supply in the vicinity.
The HBC stretched its presence North on the coastline with Fort Simpson (1831) on the Nass River, Fort McLoughlin (1833) and the Beaver (1836), the first steamship to ever roam the Pacific Northwest for resupplying its coastline sites. The HBC was securing a trading monopoly on the coastline keeping away independent American traders: "By 1837, American competition on the North West Coast was effectively over".
The HBC gained more control of the fur trade with both the coastline and inland tribes to access the fur rich New Caledonia district in current day northern British Columbia: "monopoly control of the coastal fur trade allowed the HBC to impose a uniform tariff on both sides of the Coast Mountains".
By 1843, under pressure from the Americans to withdraw further North with the looming Oregon Treaty border negotiation finalized in 1846, and strong of its coastal presence on the northern coast, HBC built Fort Victoria at the southern end of present-day Vancouver Island in southern BC. A well sheltered ocean port with agricultural potential in the vicinity would allow the new regional headquarter to further develop the trade on salmon, timber and cranberries. Trade via the Hawaiian post was also increasing. The Fort Rupert (1849) at the northern end of the island would open up access to coal fields. On the continent mainland, Fort Hope and Fort Yale (1848) were built to extend the HBC presence on the Fraser River as far as navigable. Brigades would link a rebuilt Fort Langley (1840) on the Lower Fraser to Fort Kamloops by 1850 and the rest of the transportation network to York Factory on the Hudson Bay along with the New Caledonia district fur returns.
End of monopoly
The Guillaume Sayer trial in 1849 contributed to the end of the HBC monopoly. Guillaume Sayer, a Métis trapper and trader, was accused of illegal trading in furs. The Court of Assiniboia brought Sayer to trial, before a jury of HBC officials and supporters. During the trial, a crowd of armed Métis men led by Louis Riel Sr. gathered outside the courtroom. Although Sayer was found guilty of illegal trade, having evaded the HBC monopoly, Judge Adam Thom did not levy a fine or punishment. Some accounts attributed that to the intimidating armed crowd gathered outside the courthouse. With the cry, "Le commerce est libre ! Le commerce est libre !" ("Trade is free! Trade is free!"), the Métis loosened the HBC's previous control of the courts, which had enforced their monopoly on the settlers of Red River.
Another factor was the findings of the Palliser Expedition of 1857 to 1860, led by Captain John Palliser. He surveyed the area of the prairies and wilderness from Lake Superior to the southern passes of the Rocky Mountains. Although he recommended against settlement of the region, the report sparked a debate. It fuelled the ongoing debate over the region's agricultural potential, challenging the position of the Hudson's Bay Company, which had long disputed that the Canadian West was capable of agricultural settlement.
In 1863, the International Financial Society bought controlling interest in the HBC, signalling a shift in the company's outlook: most of the new shareholders were less interested in the fur trade than in real estate speculation and economic development in the West. The Society floated £2 million in public shares on non-ceded land held ostensibly by the Hudson's Bay Company as an asset and leveraged this asset for collateral for these funds. These funds allowed the Society the financial means to weather the financial collapse of 1866, which destroyed many competitors, and invest in railways in North America.
In 1869, after rejecting the American government offer of CA$10 million, the company approved the return of Rupert's Land to Britain. The government gave it to Canada and loaned the new country the £300,000 required to compensate HBC for its losses. HBC also received one-twentieth of the fertile areas to be opened for settlement and retained title to the lands on which it had built trading establishments. The deal, known as the Deed of Surrender, came into force the following year. The resulting territory, the North-West Territories, was brought under Canadian jurisdiction under the terms of the Rupert's Land Act 1868, enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Deed enabled the admission of the fifth province, Manitoba, to the Confederation on 15 July 1870, the same day that the deed itself came into force.
During the 19th century the Hudson's Bay Company went through great changes in response to such factors as growth of population and new settlements in part of its territory, and ongoing pressure from Britain. It seemed unlikely that it would continue to control the future of the West.
Shift to department stores
The modern department store evolved from trading posts at the start of the 19th century, when they began to see demand for general merchandise grow rapidly. HBC soon expanded into the interior and set-up posts along river settlements that later developed into the modern cities of Winnipeg, Calgary and Edmonton. In 1857, the first sales shop was established in Fort Langley. This was followed by other sales shops in Fort Victoria (1859), Winnipeg (1881), Calgary (1884), Vancouver (1887), Vernon (1887), Edmonton (1890), Yorkton (1898), and Nelson (1902). The first of the grand "original six" department stores was built in Calgary in 1913. The other department stores that followed were in Edmonton, Vancouver, Victoria, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg.
20th-century history
The First World War interrupted a major remodelling and restoration of retail trade shops planned in 1912. Following the war, the company revitalized its fur trade and real estate activities, and diversified its operations by venturing into the oil business. During the Russian Civil War, the company briefly operated in the Siberian far east, even obtaining an agreement with the Soviet government until departing in 1924. The company co-founded Hudson's Bay Oil and Gas Company (HBOG) in 1926 with Marland Oil Company (which merged with Conoco in 1929). Although the company diversified into a number of areas, its department store business is the only remaining part of the company's operations, in the form of department stores under the Hudson's Bay brand. The company also established new trading posts in the Canadian Arctic.
Indigenous health
The medical scientist Frederick Banting was travelling in the Arctic in 1927 when he realized that crew or passengers on board the HBC paddle wheeler Distributor were responsible for spreading the influenza virus down the Slave River and Mackenzie River. Less than a decade after the 1918 global flu pandemic, a similar virus spread territory-wide over the summer and autumn, devastating the Indigenous population of the north. Returning from the trip, Banting gave an interview in Montreal with a Toronto Star reporter under the agreement that his statements on HBC would remain off the record. The newspaper nonetheless published the conversation, which rapidly reached a wide audience across Europe and Australia. Banting was angry at the leak, having promised the Department of the Interior not to make any statements to the press prior to clearing them.
The article noted that Banting had given the journalist C. R. Greenaway repeated instances of how the fox fur trade always favoured the company: "For over $100,000 of fox skins, he estimated that the Eskimos had not received $5,000 worth of goods." He traced this treatment to health, consistent with reports made in previous years by RCMP officers, suggesting that "the result was a diet of 'flour, sea-biscuits, tea and tobacco,' with the skins that once were used for clothing traded merely for 'cheap whiteman's goods.'"
The HBC fur trade commissioner called Banting's remarks "false and slanderous", and a month later, the governor and general manager met Banting at the King Edward Hotel to demand a retraction. Banting stated that the reporter had betrayed his confidence, but did not retract his statement and reaffirmed that HBC was responsible for the death of Indigenous residents by supplying the wrong kind of food and introducing diseases into the Arctic. As A. Y. Jackson, the Group of Seven painter with whom Banting was travelling, noted in his memoir that since neither the governor nor the general manager had been to the Arctic, the meeting ended with them asking Banting's advice on what HBC ought to do: "He gave them some good advice and later he received a card at Christmas with the Governor's best wishes."
Banting maintained this position in his report to the Department of the Interior:He noted that "infant mortality was high because of the undernourishment of the mother before birth"; that "white man's food leads to decay of native teeth"; that "tuberculosis has commenced. Saw several cases at Godhavn, Etah, Port Burwell, Arctic Bay"; that "an epidemic resembling influenza killed a considerable proportion of population at Port Burwell"; and that "the gravest danger faces the Eskimo in his transfer from a race-long hunter to a dependent trapper. White flour, sea-biscuits, tea and tobacco do not provide sufficient fuel to warm and nourish him". Furthermore, he discouraged the establishment of an Arctic hospital. The "proposed hospital at Pangnirtung would be a waste of money, as it could be reached by only a few natives". Banting's report contrasted starkly with the bland descriptions provided by the ship's physician, F. H. Stringer.
Latter 20th century
HBOG also expanded during the 1960s, as it began shipping Canadian crude through a new link to the Glacier pipeline and on to the refinery in Billings, Montana. The company became the sixth-largest Canadian oil producer in 1967.
In 1970, on the company's 300th anniversary, as a result of punishing new British tax laws, the company relocated to Canada, and was rechartered as a Canadian business corporation under Canadian law, Head Office functions were transferred from London to Winnipeg. By 1974, as the company expanded into eastern Canada, head office functions were moved to Toronto.
In 1972, the company acquired the four-store Shop-Rite chain of catalogue stores. The chain quickly expanded to 65 stores in Ontario, but closed in 1982 due to declining sales. In these stores, little merchandise was displayed; customers made their selections from catalogues, and staff would retrieve the merchandise from storerooms. The HBC also acquired Freimans department stores in Ottawa and converted them to The Bay.
In 1973, HBOG acquired a 35 per cent stake in Siebens Oil and Gas, and, in 1979, it divested that interest. In 1980, it bought a controlling interest in Roxy Petroleum.
In 1978, the Zellers discount store chain made a bid to acquire the HBC; however, the HBC turned the tables and acquired Zellers.
In 1979, Canadian billionaire Kenneth Thomson won control of the company in a battle with George Weston Limited, and acquired a 75 per cent stake for $400 million. Thomson sold the company's oil and gas business, financial services, distillery, and other interests for approximately $550 million, transforming the company into a leaner, more focused operation. In the 1980s, sales and oil prices slipped, while debt from acquisitions piled up which led to Hudson's Bay Company selling its 10.1 per cent stake in HBOG to Dome Petroleum in 1981. HBC lost $330 million from 1983 to 1988 and although it returned to profitability in the late 1980s, it was hit by the early 1990s recession. On November 5, 1992, the Thomson family sold most of its stake in HBC but continued to be the largest shareholder. Thomson's remaining shares were ultimately sold five years later on September 15, 1997.
HBC sold its Canadian fur-auction business to Hudson's Bay Fur Sales Canada (now North American Fur Auctions). The Northern Stores Division was sold that same year to a group of investors and employees, which adopted The North West Company name three years later.
In 1991, the Bay agreed to stop retailing fur in response to complaints from people opposed to killing animals for this purpose. In 1997, the Bay reopened its fur salons to meet consumer demand.
21st-century history
2000s
In December 2003, Maple Leaf Heritage Investments, a Nova Scotia-based company created to acquire shares of Hudson's Bay Company, announced that it was considering making an offer to acquire all or some of the common shares of Hudson's Bay Company. Maple Leaf Heritage Investments is a subsidiary of B-Bay Inc. Its CEO and chairman is American businesswoman Anita Zucker, widow of Jerry Zucker. Zucker had previously been the head of the Polymer Group, which acquired another Canadian institution, Dominion Textile.
It had been a member of the International Association of Department Stores from 2001 to 2005. On 26 January 2006, the HBC's board agreed to a bid from Jerry Zucker. The South Carolina based billionaire financier was a longtime HBC minority shareholder. In a 9 March 2006 press release, the HBC announced that Zucker would replace Yves Fortier as governor and George Heller as CEO, becoming the first US citizen to lead the company. After Jerry Zucker's death in April 2008 from brain cancer, the board named his widow, Anita Zucker, as HBC Governor and HBC Deputy-Governor Rob Johnston as CEO.
From 2004 to 2008, the HBC owned and operated a small chain of off-price stores called Designer Depot. The concept was similar to the Winners and HomeSense retail format, but Designer Depot did not meet sales expectations, and its nine stores were sold.
On 16 July 2008 shortly after Zucker’s death, the company was sold to NRDC Equity Partners for just over $1.1 billion, a private equity firm based in Purchase, New York, which already owned Lord & Taylor, the oldest department store in the United States. The Canadian and US holdings were transferred to NRDC Equity Partners' holding company, Hudson's Bay Trading Company, as of late 2008.
2010s
Another HBC chain, Fields, was sold to a private firm in 2012. Established in 1950, Fields was acquired by Zellers in 1976. When Zellers was acquired by HBC in 1978, Fields became part of the HBC portfolio.
In October 2012, the HBC announced a $1.6-billion initial public offering (IPO); Baker planned to use the IPO to allow Canadian ownership to return to the company, and to help pay off debts with other partners.
In January 2016, HBC announced it would expand deeper into digital space with the acquisition of an online flash sales site, the Gilt Groupe, for US$250,000,000. HBC also announced its expansion into the Netherlands in May 2016 with the takeover of 20 former Vroom & Dreesmann (V&D) sites by 2017. V&D, a historic Dutch department store chain, had gone bankrupt and shut down in early 2016. As of November 2017, the company also expanded retail operations into Europe, including five Saks Off Fifth stores in Germany.
In early 2017, the Hudson's Bay Company made an overture to Macy's for a potential takeover of the US department store chain. Later, HBC also considered a purchase of Neiman Marcus Group Inc. It did not proceed with either deal.
On 1 April 2018, HBC disclosed that more than five million credit and debit cards used for in-store purchases had been recently breached by hackers. The compromised credit card transactions took place at Saks Fifth Avenue, Saks Off 5th, and Lord & Taylor stores. The hack had been discovered by Gemini Advisory, which called the breach "amongst the biggest and most damaging to ever hit retail companies". A July 2019 hack of Capital One, which provides HBC Mastercards, did not affect the HBC credit cards or card applications, according to HBC.
In June 2019, a consortium including chairman Richard Baker, Rhône Group, WeWork, Hanover Investments (Luxembourg) and Abrams Capital Management announced that it wanted to take the company private. The group then owned just over 50 per cent of HBC shares. In mid-August, the consortium said that it owned 57 per cent of the HBC shares. By 19 August 2019, however, Canadian investment firm Catalyst Capital Group Inc. said it had acquired enough shares to block the plan. A US company, Land & Buildings Investment Management, the owner of over 6 per cent of the shares, had also criticized the Baker plan. In March 2020, Baker and a group of shareholders were successful in taking the company private.
HBC sold Galeria Kaufhof, Galeria Inno, Gilt Groupe, and Lord & Taylor by August 2019. A feature article by Bloomberg News mentioned that CEO Helena Foulkes, recruited in 2018, "had helped improve the bottom line at Hudson's Bay". She was selling assets "to put the company on more solid financial footing" and could then focus on Saks Fifth Avenue and the Bay. On the other hand, Bloomberg suggested that millennial shoppers prefer to make purchases online, or direct from various brands' own stores, and that HBC "has yet to offer something they can't find somewhere else and risks drifting into irrelevance".
2020s
In February 2020, shareholders of the company voted in favour of a plan to become a private company at a special meeting of shareholders. Under the plan of arrangement, the company was to be owned by a group of continuing shareholders led by HBC governor and executive chairman Richard Baker. Effective 3 March 2020, the company was delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange, with Richard A. Baker replacing Foulkes as CEO.
On March 16, 2022, it was announced that HBC and Sycamore Partners were preparing bids to buy Kohl's.
In 2023, Hudson's Bay officially stopped selling animal fur products.
2025 liquidation and dissolution
HBC filed for creditor protection in Canada under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act on 7 March 2025, after failing to secure financing and consistently delaying in paying suppliers. The filing came during a trade war with the United States and an escalation of the ongoing retail apocalypse due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Chief financial officer Jennifer Bewley warned that if funding was not received within days, it would struggle with payroll obligations, lease defaults, and possible store closings. HBC began liquidating 74 Hudson's Bay stores, two Saks Fifth Avenue stores, and all 13 Saks Off Fifth outlets later that month, resulting in 9,000 employee layoffs. HBC intended for six Hudson's Bay stores in Ontario and Quebec to stay open. However, on 23 April, the company announced the liquidation of all remaining stores after a court ruling determined that it was unlikely that they would be bought. All remaining Hudson's Bay, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Saks Off Fifth stores were permanently closed by 1 June.
In early May, the liquidator solicited bids for HBC's leases, intellectual property, and real estate. By 3 June, HBC had completed its efforts to auction off its store leases. 62 leases had no bidder interest, and were returned to their landlords, and 12 properties were co-owned by RioCan, who decided to put them into receivership. On 23 May, successful bids were made by Ruby Liu Commercial Investment Corporation for 28 Hudson's Bay store leases. Objections were made by landlords for 23 of the leases, citing an insufficient business plan, financing, or retail expertise. On 23 June, the court approved the acquisition of 3 leases where Liu was the landlord. By late July 2025, HBC reached a deal with YM Inc. to sell the leases to five stores in Ontario, Alberta, and Manitoba for $5.3 million. On 31 July, a deal was reached with Ivanhoe Realties Inc. to sell the lease to a store in a mall owned by Ivanhoe Cambridge. On 24 October, the Ontario Supreme Court sided with landlords for the 23 disputed store leases and rejected Liu's bid to acquire them.
On 27 May, it was announced by the liquidator that HBC's intellectual property rights had been purchased by Canadian Tire for $30 million. The property consisted of the Hudson's Bay name, trademarks, logos, coat of arms, and stripes pattern, as well as many slogans, including Zellers's catchphrase, "Lowest price is the law". However, the Zellers brand itself was not acquired by Canadian Tire. The purchase of intellectual property by Canadian Tire required that HBC be renamed during the final liquidation proceedings to avoid confusion with the trademark acquired. By August 13, the company changed its name to 1242939 B.C. Unlimited Liability Co., which will be responsible for selling the former HBC's leases and auctioning its remaining art and artifacts.
In August 2025, filings revealed that the Hudson's Bay trademarks has transferred Zellers trademarks to Les Ailes de la Mode Inc., a defunct Quebec-based retailer run by Issac Benitah, owner of Fairweather and International Clothiers.
In October 2025, Canadian Tire announced that they would be marketing Hudson's Bay Point Blankets at their stores.
A 2026 Canadian Press report indicated that the company was still being unwound through court proceedings.
From Wikipedia’s article on Hudson's Bay Company, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3