From Furs to Fortune: The Rise and Rise of Hudson’s Bay Company

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The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada, the United States and parts of Europe, including Belgium and Germany. The company's namesake business division is Hudson's Bay, and other divisions include Galeria Kaufhof, Gilt, Home Outfitters, Lord & Taylor, and Saks Fifth Avenue.

The company was incorporated by English royal charter in 1670 as The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay and functioned as the de facto government in parts of North America before European states and later the United States laid claim to some of those territories.

It was once the world's largest landowner, with the area of the Hudson Bay watershed, known as Rupert's Land, having 15% of North American acreage. From its long-time headquarters at York Factory on Hudson Bay, the company controlled the fur trade throughout much of the English and later British controlled North America for several centuries. Undertaking early exploration, its traders and trappers forged relationships with many groups of aboriginal peoples. Its network of trading posts formed the nucleus for later official authority in many areas of Western Canada and the United States. In the late 19th century, with its signing of the Deed of Surrender, its vast territory became the largest portion of the newly formed Dominion of Canada, in which the company was the largest private landowner.

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