– On May 2nd , 1670 , King Charles II allowed the group of Prince Rupert a monopoly to trade in the Hudson Bay drainage basin .

– 1672 the company’s first public Sale of Furs was held at Garraway’s Coffee house .

– 1690 Henry Kelsey embarked on a 2 years exploration journey that would make him the first white man to see the buffalo herd of the Prairies .

– 1713 Treaty of Utrecht . France relinquishes all claims to Hudson bay , which again becomes a British possession .

– 1745 British Parliament offers £ 20,000 for discovery of the North West Passage and

£ 5,000 for reaching the North Pole .

– 1754 Anthony Henday travels inland from York Factory to “draw down many of the natives to trade” . He passed Saskatchewan River as far as the Foothills and is the first to meet the Blackfoot tribes.

– 1774 Samuel Hearne completes building of HBC’s first inland post , Cumberland House near pine Island Lake of the Saskatchewan.

– 1779 North West Company (NWC) founded in Montreal as a seasonal partnership. The company becomes a permanent entity in 1783.

– 1811 Thomas Douglas, Lord Selkirk, majority shareholder of HBC , purchased over 74 million acres in the Red River valley from the company for the sum of ten shillings. He planned to use the land to settle displaced Scottish highlanders, the first settlers arrived in the following year.

– 1821 HBC , merhges with its main rival the NWC, based in montreal, and is granted a 21 year monopoly under the HBC name; Hbc controlled 3 million square of land (7.77 million sq.km.) and operates 173 posts.

– 1825 fort Vancouver is founded on the Columbia River to serve as the Pacific headquarters of the company.

– 1827 Fort Langley is established, the first HBC post on the coast of British Columbia.

– 1840 Puget Sound Agricultural Company formed as a joint stock company to develop agricultural businesses and settlement in the Oregon Country. PSAC’s stockholders are HBC drectors and senior officers.

– 1843 Fort Victoria is built.

– 1849 HBC moved from fort Vancouver to Victoria, since the former is now US territory.

– 1869 HBC returns sovereignty of Rupert’s land back to the Crown via a Deed of Surrender. The crow then transfers it to Canada. HBC receives a cash settlement of £300,000 , and considerable land concession.

– 1880 HBC began to sell farm lots in Western in west Canada.

– 1907 HBC established the Wholesale Department to sell liqour, tobacco, coffee, tea, confectionery and blankets.

– 1913 HBC opens new modern department store in Calgary and Edmonton, the first of six downtown stores planned in response to the Burbidge inspection tour.

– 1915-1919 HBC participated in war effort, chartering 300 vessels to transport foodstuffs, fuel, lumber and munitions as agent for the French Government.

– 1920 First establishment of Newfoundland fishery. HBC begins to produce Hubay and Labdor canned salmon following its proprietary method that constitutes a major improvement over pickled salmon.

– 1921 HBC entered into an agreement with Imperial Oil Company to exploit HBC mineral rights on all lands sold since 1910 in Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

– 1929 Hudson’s bay Oil and Gas Company formed.

– 1932 HBC introduce airplanes to deliver goods to Northern Canada, reducing ocean vessels to one steamer and several coastal and river vessels.

– 1934 HBC hired Professor Coupland of Oxford university and Mr.Hilary Jenkinson of the public record office to review the archival collection, and the prepare catalogues.

– 1944 HBC managed beaver sanctuaries in Quebec, Ontario and the northwest Territories cover over 43,000 square miles.

– 1945 First HBC scholarships awarded ( 2 in England and 2 in Canada ) to commemorate the 275 anniversary and encourage education in administrative and commercial subjects.

– 1948 Transfers all real estate holding except Fur Posts & land Dept to wholly owned subsidiary Rupert’s Land trading Co.

– 1959 Fur trade Division renamed northern stores department.

– 1964 HBC introduces the bay banner, converting its retail stores to the new brand.

– They still keep built, bought other company to get profitable , and when they saw them go down, they sold it, and continue…. At this time, HBC is a big company in Canada, they make a lot of productions in normal life to industry , electronic…..

The Fur Trade

Two centuries before Confederation a pair of resourceful Frenchmen named Radisson and des Groseilliers discovered a wealth of fur in the interior of the continent – north and west of the Great Lakes – accessible via the great inland sea that is Hudson Bay. Despite their success French and American interests would not back them. It took the vision and connections of cousin of the King of England, Prince Rupert. In May, 1670 , Charles II granted the lands of the Hudson Bay watershed to “the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson Bay.” Its first century of operation found Hbc firmly ensconced in a few forts and posts around the shores of James and Hudson Bays. Natives brought furs annually to these locations to barter for manufactured goods such as knives, kettles, beads, needles, and blankets. By the late 18th c. competition forced Hbc to expand into the interior. A string of posts grew up along the great river networks of the west foreshadowing the modern cities that would succeed them: Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton.
In 1821 Hbc merged with its most successful rival, the North West Company based in Montreal. The resulting commercial enterprise now spanned the continent – all the way to the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington and British Columbia) and the North (Alaska, the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut). The merger also set the pattern of the Company’s growth, being the first of a series of notable acquisitions

The Rise of Retail

By the end of the 19th c. changing fashion tastes contributed to the fur trade losing importance. Western settlement and the Gold Rush quickly introduced a new type of client to Hbc – one that shopped with cash and not with skins. With the Deed of Surrender in 1869 between Hbc and Canada, the Company yielded sovereignty over its traditional territories to the new country. The retail era had begun. The Company’s focus shifted as it concentrated on transforming trading posts into saleshops, stocked with a wider variety of goods than ever before.

In 1912, following advice from one of its directors who was with Harrods department store in London, Hbc began an aggressive modernization program. The resulting ‘original six’ Hudson’s Bay Company department stores, in Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon and Winnipeg, are the living legacy of this period.

Diversification

The growth of retail spurred Hbc into a wide variety of commercial pursuits. Liquor, canned salmon, coffee, tea and tobacco were all lines that supplemented traditional fur and retail and helped to establish a thriving wholesale business. Large holdings of land negotiated as part of the Deed of Surrender took the company into real estate. The sale of homesteads to newly-arrived settlers would later evolve into a full-scale interest in commercial property holdings and development. Shipping and natural resources, particularly oil and gas, were other important sidelines.

Focus on Retail

The economic downturn of the 1980s caused Hbc to rethink its priorities and, like many other firms, return to its core business. Non-retail businesses were sold off. The pace of retail acquisition increased with takeovers of Zellers (1978), Simpsons (1978), Fields (1978), Robinson’s (1979), Towers/Bonimart (1990), Woodwards (1994), and K-Mart Canada (1998) following in the tradition of Cairns (1921), Morgan’s (1960) and Freiman’s (1971).

The 21st century finds Hbc well into its fourth century of retailing in Canada. The Hbc Family of Stores – the Bay, Zellers, Home Outfitters and Shop.Hbc.com – together provide more than two-thirds of the retail needs of Canadians.