Hudson's Bay Company, Hudson's Bay Company -- Juvenile literature, Canada -- History 

Chartered by Charles II in 1670, the Hudson's Bay Company can now look back on 300 years of dynamic history. Gone are the East India, the Africa , and the other great trading companies whose records highlight the saga of the British Empire. Only the Hudson's Bay Company remains as a vital, on-going corporation. The story of its birth, growth, and survival, as told by a distinguished Canadian write, is one of the epic proportions.
The company was first and always a fur-trading venture. Inspired by the tales of the French explorers Radisson and Grosseilliers, a "Company of Adventurers" was organized in London to explore and exploit the vast region of Hudson's bay. Rich in fur-bearing animals, the region also promised a key to the long-sought-after Northwest Passage to the Orient. If it failed to find the Passage, the Company was from the beginning enormously successful in the fur trade, though not without opposition-- first from the French, and later from its archrival, the Northwest Company. This rivalry led to terrible bloodshed on the Red River in Canada's western plains and was settled only by the merger of the two companies in 19211. 4

Able and willing to change with the times, the Company flourished, eventually extending its operation to include the great chain of retail stores that are now familiar landmarks throughout Canada. But the Hudson's Bay Company, as this history demonstrates, is more than Canadian in significance, for it was an important factor in the opening and development of the New World.