They still sell the "Point Blanket" but I didn't see anything in the way of Beaver Traps and such.
Posted on 01/28/2006 2:50:22 PM PST by quidnunc
Hudson’s Bay Company — the world’s oldest joint stock company, founded in the reign of Charles II — has been sold to a South Carolina billionaire.
The search by HBC directors for a buyer for Canada’s largest chain of department stores ended when they agreed to accept a $980m (£549m, e794m) offer from Jerry Zucker, a Charleston financier and HBC minority shareholder.
Zucker, 55, has holdings in chemical and textile companies and in South Carolina’s Stingrays hockey team. He has promised to continue operating the unprofitable group.
But the purchase by an American of a company so long and deeply entwined with Canadian history is a blow to Canada’s pride. Last October, L Yves Fortier, HBC’s 30th governor, rejected Zucker’s approach to bring an end to 336 years of independence.
At the weekend, its flagship Toronto store was festooned with clearance-sale signs to move winter stock, and shoppers talked of their anger at the sale of Canada’s oldest and most colourful company .
The company secured a charter from King Charles II of England to rival Britain’s East India Company. Its mission was to give fur traders in French Quebec some competition in the new world. As demand for beaver pelts and furs soared, HBC played a key role in developing Canada’s economy and building its embryonic mining industry. A group of self-styled gentlemen “Adventurers of England” set up summer trading posts in Canada to collect furs from trappers and Native Americans, exchanging them for coloured beads and silk ribbons, knives, axes and blankets. HBC once owned a string of forts to fend off attacks from the French.
The company shipped millions of beaver pelts to Europe and demand for the skins became so large that creeks soon became devoid of beaver. This forced the trappers and HBC trading posts to move deeper into Canada’s wilderness. HBC eventually laid claim to 3m square miles and at one time owned almost one-third of North America.
-snip-
That greedy, American, pig. This is horrible!
:-) Hehehe!
Canada: All your base are belong to us.
Hehehe!
Ah, visions of Jedediah Strong Smith, Kit Carson, William Sublette, and other fur trappers of a long bygone era.
Seems to me that they should be happy someone bought it as it was apparently going down the tubes.
Jerry Zucker?
What's Jerry Zucker going to do with a Canadian department store chain? Re-make "Are you Being Served?"
(Or was that Jerry ZuckerMAN?)
Ca Ca pasa, amigo.
Not the same Jerry Zucker.
That's why it was for sale in the first place, but if Canada keeps moving rightward and with some smart management, they may regret selling it in the future.
this is really big news here. it is almost like they would rather see the business go belly up. fine by me, Hudson Bay stuff is WAY to rich for my blood. lol
ping
They still sell the "Point Blanket" but I didn't see anything in the way of Beaver Traps and such.
Boo Effin' Hoo!
http://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/English/PreConfederation/hbc_charter_1670.html
"...And Wee doe hereby streightly charge and Command all and singuler our Admiralls Vice-Admiralls Justices Mayors Sherriffs Constables Bayliffes and all and singuler other our Officers Ministers Liege Men and Subjects whatsoever to bee ayding favouring helping and assisting to the said Governor and Company and to theire Successors and to theire Deputyes Officers Factors Servantes Assignes and Ministers and every of them in executeing and enjoying the premisses as well on Land as on Sea from tyme to tyme when any of you shall thereunto bee required
Any Statute Act Ordinance Proviso Proclamacion or restraint heretofore had made sett forth ordeyned or provided or any other matter cause or thing whatsoever to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding
In witness whereof we have caused these our Letters to bee made Patentes Witness Ourself at Westminster the second day of May in the two and twentieth yeare of our Raigne
By Writt of Privy Seale "
That's because it's Canadian. It just needed a little competition and prices would've stayed under control, and of course, it's earmarked to a high end clientele.
I'm pretty sure my memory is right about this, but if you own property anywhere in the NE of the US, your property Search will show the original owner as the Hudson Land Company. But I never knew that Hudson's in Toronto was a surviving vestige of the company.
I wonder what the new owner of that company is planning to do with it.
i have wanted a Hudson Bay coat for as long as i can remember, i found one in Value Village in Quebec, i think they didn't know what it was. lol full lenght, real HB Coat, $20.00. heehee
Could this have anything to do with
the New PM's declaration that Canada
has sole jurisdiction over the Arctic
Seas?
viz.
http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news.php?id=177945
If the question is, "What does Jerry Zucker need with a Hudson's Bay Company?" my rejoinder would be, "What does South Carolina need with a hockey team?"
Obviously HBC went too hard on the beavers. Poor beavers and to think that noble company was founded on them....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.