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Rock Depot
Rock Depot was a Hudson's Bay Company depot on the Hayes River about 120 miles upstream from Hudson Bay. It was established in 1794 by Joseph Colen, the chief factor at York Factory, who thought it inefficient to use canoes on the lower river. Here boats from York Factory were unloaded and goods placed in canoes for the more difficult journey upstream. By 1798 32 low-wage men were able to carry in 4 boats cargo that formerly required 72 highly paid voyageurs. Rock Depot was a transfer point and not intended as a trading post. In 1812 extra facilities were built for Lord Selkirk's Red River Colony. In 1820 George Simpson (administrator) met William Williams here. He proposed that record-keeping be moved back to York Factory because of the low quality of the up-country clerks. In 1821, when the HBC merged with the Northwest Company, many of the details were worked out at a meeting at Rock Depot. With the establishment of Norway House Norway House is a population centre of over 5,000 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) 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 company's namesake business division is Hudson's Bay, commonly referred to as The Bay ( in French). After incorporation by English royal charter in 1670, the company functioned as the ''de facto'' government in parts of North America for nearly 200 years until the HBC sold the land it owned (the entire Hudson Bay drainage basin, known as Rupert's Land) to Canada in 1869 as part of the Deed of Surrender, authorized by the Rupert's Land Act 1868. At its peak, the company controlled the fur trade throughout much of the English- and later British-controlled North America. By the mid-19th century, the company evolved into a mercantile business selling a wide variety of products from furs to fine homeware in a small number of sales shops (as opposed to trading posts) acros ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hayes River
The Hayes River is a river in Northern Manitoba, Canada, that flows from Molson Lake to Hudson Bay at York Factory. It was historically an important river in the development of Canada and is now a Canadian Heritage River and the longest naturally flowing river in Manitoba. Course The river begins at the northern end of Molson Lake (about northeast of the northern tip of Lake Winnipeg) at an elevation of and flows northeastward. Near Molson Lake, the Echimamish River connects with the Hayes. The Echimamish is a river bifurcation that connects the Hayes to the Nelson River, which flows out of Lake Winnipeg. This river connector was used by the voyageurs to travel from York Factory on Hudson Bay, up the Hayes and across to the Nelson and on to Norway House at the north end of Lake Winnipeg. Northeast of Robinson Lake is Robinson Falls and the mile-long Robinson portage which was the longest portage between Hudson Bay and Edmonton. Somewhere in this area is Hill Gates, a mile-l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
York Factory
York Factory was a settlement and Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) factory (trading post) located on the southwestern shore of Hudson Bay in northeastern Manitoba, Canada, at the mouth of the Hayes River, approximately south-southeast of Churchill. York Factory was one of the first fur-trading posts established by the HBC, built in 1684 and used in that business for more than 270 years. The settlement was headquarters of the HBC's Northern Department from 1821 to 1873. The complex was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1936. In 1957, the HBC closed it down. It has been owned by the Canadian government since 1968 and the site is now operated by Parks Canada. No one lives permanently at York Factory; there is a summer residence for Parks Canada staff, and some nearby seasonal hunting camps. The wooden structure at the park site dates from 1831 and is the oldest and largest wooden structure built on permafrost in Canada. Location York Factory is located on the north bank of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voyageurs
The voyageurs (; ) were 18th and 19th century French Canadians who engaged in the transporting of furs via canoe during the peak of the North American fur trade. The emblematic meaning of the term applies to places (New France, including the ''Pays d'en Haut'' and the ''Illinois Country, Pays des Illinois'') and times where transportation of materials was mainly over long distances. The voyageurs were regarded as legendary. They were heroes celebrated in folklore and music. For reasons of promised celebrity status and wealth, this position was coveted. Despite the fame surrounding the voyageur, their life was one of toil and not nearly as glorious as folk tales make it out to be. For example, they had to be able to carry two bundles of fur over portages. Some carried up to four or five, and there is a report of a voyageur carrying seven bundles for half of a mile.Mike Hillman, "La Bonga: The Greatest Voyageur" Boundary Waters Journal Magazine, Summer 2010 Issue, pp 20–25 Her ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red River Colony
The Red River Colony (or Selkirk Settlement), also known as Assiniboia, Assinboia, was a colonization project set up in 1811 by Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, on of land in British North America. This land was granted to Douglas by the Hudson's Bay Company in the Selkirk Concession. It included portions of Rupert's Land, or the watershed of Hudson Bay, bounded on the north by the line of 52° N latitude roughly from the Assiniboine River east to Lake Winnipegosis. It then formed a line of 52° 30′ N latitude from Lake Winnipegosis to Lake Winnipeg, and by the Winnipeg River, Lake of the Woods and Rainy River (Minnesota–Ontario), Rainy River. West of the Selkirk Concession, it is roughly formed by the current boundary between Saskatchewan and Manitoba. These covered portions consisted of present-day southern Manitoba, northern Minnesota, and eastern North Dakota, in addition to small parts of eastern Saskatchewan, northwestern Ontario, and northeastern South Da ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Simpson (administrator)
Sir George Simpson ( – 7 September 1860) 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 kilometers in northern North America. His efficient administration of the west was a precondition for the confederation of western and eastern Canada. He was noted for his grasp of administrative detail and his physical stamina in traveling through the wilderness. Excepting voyageurs and their Siberian equivalents, few men have spent as much time traveling in the wilderness. Simpson was the first person known to have circumnavigated the world by land. Early life Born at Dingwall, Ross-Shire, Scotland, as the illegitimate son of George Simpson, Writer to the Signet, he was raised by two aunts and his paternal grandmother, Isobel Simpson (1731–1821), daughter of George M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northwest Company
The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what is present-day Western Canada and Northwestern Ontario. With great wealth at stake, tensions between the companies increased to the point where several minor armed skirmishes broke out, and the two companies were forced by the Government of the United Kingdom, British government to merge. Before the Company After the French landed in Quebec in 1608, spread out and built a fur trade empire in the St. Lawrence basin. The French competed with the Dutch (from 1614) and English (1664) in New York and the English in Hudson Bay (1670). Unlike the French who travelled into the northern interior and traded with First Nations in their camps and villages, the English made bases at trading posts on Hudson Bay, inviting the indigenous people to trade. After 1731, pushed trade west beyond Lake Winnipeg. After the British ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norway House
Norway House is a population centre of over 5,000 people, some north of Lake Winnipeg, on the bank of the eastern channel of Nelson River, in the province of Manitoba, Canada. The population centre shares the name ''Norway House'' with the northern community of Norway House and Norway House 17, a First Nations in Canada, First Nation reserve of the Norway House Cree Nation (Kinosao Sipi Cree Nation). Thus, Norway House has both a Chief and a Mayor. The community is located by air north of Winnipeg, by air east of The Pas, and by air south of Thompson, Manitoba, Thompson. To drive from Winnipeg, it is approximately ; from Thompson, it is about . Major economic activities include commercial fishing, trapping, logging, and government services. Seasonal unemployment varies, with peaks as high as 70%. Norway House was an important establishment of the Hudson's Bay Company for most of the 19th century, serving as a major depot, and from the 1830s, as the seat of the Council of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
