The Hudson Bay Company, in Canada, in the 1870's. Harper's New Monthly article

Page size: Approx 7" x 9" Illustrations Author H. M. Robinson examines the activities of the organisation known as "The Hudson Bay Company," in Canada, in the 1870's. Established in 1670 by a charter from King Charles II, "The Company of Adventurers from England trading with Hudson's Bay" had, for the past two hundred years, maintained an organized and systematic trade for fur with native Americans and European settlers and adventures from one coast of North America to the other.

From the article:

"Although the Hudson Bay Company is itself an entirely English corporation, its officers in the fur country are nearly all Scotsmen or natives of the Orkney Islands. Applicants are enlisted at an early age - from sixteen to eighteen - for a nominal term of five years, though the more distinct understanding is that the applicant shall devote his life to the business..."

"many of the servants of the Company whose lives have been passed in the service retire to end their days at Fort Garry, in the new province of Manitoba, forming among themselves a society constituting the aristocracy of the wilderness..." "The standard of values throughout the fur country is still, however, the skin of the beaver, by which the prices of all furs and articles of trade is regulated...any service rendered or labor performed by the Indians is paid for in skins, the beaver being the unit of computation..."

This is just a small sampling of the observations and facts presented in this unique article about the history and practical operation of the Hudson Bay Company in the 1870's

List of Illustrations:

· The rival companies soliciting trade a hundred years ago

· Arrival of the Bride Elect

· Half-breed family on the way to a Trading Post

· Trade-Room, Hudson Bay Company's Fort, in the Plain Country

· The Palaver - a dear pony

· A Trapper going his rounds

· Trappers leaving their hunting grounds

· The Balance of Trade

· Care for a sick Indian

· The Great Northern Packet

· News of the Day

· Meeting of the boats and inland trains

· Making a portage

· Voyageur's camp.