The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson's Bay Empire

by Stephen R. Bown

A thrilling new telling of the story of modern Canada's origins.

The story of the Hudson's Bay Company, dramatic and adventurous and complex, is the story of modern Canada's creation. And yet it hasn't been told in a book for over thirty years, and never in such depth and vivid detail as in Stephen R. Bown's exciting new telling.

The Company started out small in 1670, trading practical manufactured goods for furs with the Indigenous inhabitants of inland subarctic Canada. Controlled by a handful of English aristocrats, it expanded into a powerful political force that ruled the lives of many thousands of people--from the lowlands south and west of Hudson Bay, to the tundra, the great plains, the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific northwest. It transformed the culture and economy of many Indigenous groups and ended up as the most important political and economic force in northern and western North America.

When the Company was faced with competition from French traders in the 1780s, the result was a bloody corporate battle, the coming of Governor George Simpson--one of the greatest villains in Canadian history--and the Company assuming political control and ruthless dominance. By the time its monopoly was rescinded after two hundred years, the Hudson's Bay Company had reworked the entire northern North American world.

Stephen R. Bown has a scholar's profound knowledge and understanding of the Company's history, but wears his learning lightly in a narrative as compelling, and rich in well-drawn characters, as a page-turning novel.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Canada, Business, Audiobook, Economics, Politics

496 pages, Hardcover

First published October 27, 2020

About the author

www.stephenrbown.net
www.facebook.com/srbown

Winner of the 2024 Governor General's History Award for Popular Media: the Pierre Berton Award

I am a popular historian and author of 12 works of literary non-fiction on Canadian and international topics. I have also written more than 20 feature magazine articles highlighting lesser-known characters and events in Canadian history. I strive to make the past accessible, meaningful, and entertaining by applying a narrative and immersive style to my writing, which blends story-telling with factual depth.

My recent best-selling books The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson's Bay Empire and Dominion: The Railway and the Rise of Canada offer fresh perspectives on Canada's foundational stories by casting a broader lens on events of the day and highlighting characters who were not previously part of the dominant narrative. My work has been recognized for enriching public discourse and creating a lasting impact on how Canadians view and understand our shared history.

The Company won the 2021 National Business Book Award and the J.W. Dafoe Book Prize. I also won the BC Book Prize for Madness, Betrayal and the Lash: The Epic Voyage of Captain George Vancouver, the Alberta Book Award for Island of the Blue Foxes: Disaster and Triumph on Bering's Great Voyage to Alaska and the William Mills Prize for Polar Books for White Eskimo: Knud Rasmussen's Fearless Journey into the Heart of the Arctic.

"Learning from the past isn't about judging the past by modern standards, or agreeing or disagreeing with the actions or decisions of historical characters. It is about understanding the challenges and struggles of past people within the context of their times, technology, education and infrastructure and state capacity to solve problems. In other words, it involves learning about and considering the good, the bad, and the ugly of the past in its full context, the way a visitor might explore a foreign country, open-minded to the differences from their own culture and experience.

Knowing how we came to be where we are as a nation - the choices made by people in the past - should be about understanding our origins, not glorifying or denigrating them. To deny knowledge and remain ignorant is an abrogation of responsibility that paves the way for future failure. Gaining knowledge of our shared history builds a sense of community and inoculates us against agenda-driven distortions of facts and events."

I live in a small town in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. When I'm not writing I'm usually reading, mountain biking, hiking and camping in the summer, and downhill and cross country skiing in the winter.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Canada recently went through an election, pushing up against some turbulent times south of the border, I took it upon myself to do more reading about Canadian politics and what some have been discussing. That went well, though I did not get to finish all the books I had hoped. One I wanted to tackle was this piece by Stephen R. Bown. It tackles not the current situation in Canadian politics, but rather some themes that helped shape the financial and cultural foundations that would be Canada. The fur trade proved essential in laying the groundwork for modern communities and trade routes, injecting significant funds while also developing great cultural traditions that Canadians still celebrate today. Bown delivers a formidable tome that explores this and so much more in a story that never wanes in its intensity.

Many historians will argue what might be the most important building block that laid the foundation of the Canadian territory. Stephen R. Bown delivers a solid argument for the importance of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The fur trade flourished under the Company, helping to map various trade routes and settlements, while also exemplifying numerous interactions between settlers and the indigenous population. It is both a complex topic and one that is easy to understand, under Bown’s guidance.

The Company’s early years in the 1670s proved successful. Bown explorers the hunting and manufacturing of various fur items that could be traded between European settlers and the indigenous communities. Political power and business prowess helped expand the importance of the Company, led by the English and soon expanded to others who wished to play a role. The expansion served not only to develop new outposts and population centres, but pushed non-indigenous presence further north into areas that were much harder to inhabit, due to low temperatures and limited vegetation.

Bown delves into the importance of the transformation of cultural and economic interactions for indigenous groups, allowing them to see different histories and daily agendas of the settlers, while also working to do the same for the Europeans of the local population. These interactions and ability to live in tandem helped forge connections that would bind the territory together and provide a foundation for Canada. There are numerous examples that emerge in the narrative, many of which were areas I had not considered before.

The Company would not hold a monopoly over trade once the French could make their own impact. As Bown argues, the cultural differences helped flavour the communities, while also injecting new traditions that would be woven into the Canadian fabric. Both groups had to understand the indigenous perspectives, while also seeking to subsume them into their respective belief systems. This mentality has not stopped today, though Bown does not explore this argument more than in passing.

Bown spends a great deal of time throughout the time discussing the treatment of indigenous peoples by the settlers and European visitors. Bown pulls no punches by presenting the sometimes vicious treatment and how settlers plied the indigenous with alcohol and other substances in order to take advantage of them in trade. While the narrative does explore some positive aspects, including marriages that helped extend bloodlines, there were many troubling stories Bown puts into the book that may leave the attentive reader wincing as they digest everything.

The fall of the Company’s importance two centuries later left an indelible mark on Canada and its culture. There were many struggles that Canada absorbed, but also strong financial foundations that helped shape perspectives still used in modern Canada. Bown uses his great ability to shape the narrative in ways the reader can folllow with ease, while always learning something well worth their time. Stephen R. Bown has outdone himself with this tome and I cannot wait to see what else he has to offer.

I love a good story that explores Canadian history, particularly those that are not seen on a regular basis. Stephen R. Bown delivers a stunning account of the Hudson’s Bay Company and how it laid the groundwork for future economic and social expansion. Bown uses this book as a preface for his later book on the Canadian Pacific Railway, another economic gem for early Canada. Bown uses each chapter to better craft the foundations of the Company, while also addressing that this was a time when Canada was but a collection of settlements. Bown delivers a stunning account, tackling angles of Canadian history unbeknownst to me. I was highly impressed with all aspects of the story Stephen R. Bown presents here and I hope others will take the time to discover it, when time permits.

Kudos, Mr. Bown, for pulling me into the middle of another wonderful piece of Canadian history.

Like/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

[Kevin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t recommend this book. “The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson’s Bay Empire” is more than just the story of one of the world's oldest capitalist enterprises, the topic is inseparable from the history of North America and Canada in particular. And that’s where the wheels fall off for me.

The author is not an academic historian, which makes this book readable in a way that other books, more rigorously cited and researched, are not. Credentials should not be a gatekeeper for the writing of history though, the subject is probably the most political one can study, outside of current events, and it is something on which everyone is entitled to an opinion. But the “techniques of fiction writing,” which, according to his website, animate the author's approach to writing history, should similarly not be a standard for writing non-fiction.

Had the book been written as historical fiction a good writer might’ve been able to do something with the topic. But Canadian history in the hand of a philosophical idealist with an agenda is a boring subject. It's largely the same old same old recounting of the exploits of the great men, buffed to suit the modern reader. In fact, the book was so boring I set a daily reading goal to help ensure I’d finish it.

The reader is presented with anachronisms throughout, as well as the poor use of big words that add nothing that couldn’t be said using more everyday language. Also, downright strange accounts of the travels his heros undertake; like the description of crossing dunes in the high passes of the Rocky Mountains, or echoes which resonate from behind the speaker, leave an unsettling impression that the author is relying more on imagination than reality in writing this history.

But worse, the narrative which the author seeks to regale us with contradicts, at nearly every step, his own world view. According to his website the author believes “that people and their behaviour never change, only the context is different.” But the entire history of the HBC is one of change. Of the conditions that the company operated within, of the economic relations it introduced, and also in the people who lived within that changing context. In the book he can’t help writing about these changes, but is unable to come to terms with them or their implications.

Such as when writing of the journey of Samuel Hearne with the Chipewyan trader Matonabbee. Hearne took copious notes and remarks indirectly on the effect of the introduction of HBC trade on the traditional society of the Chipewyan. But little is made of this historically important situation. Instead the emphasis is on Matonabbee and Hearne, assessing or assassinating their characters and describing their individual roles and responses to events. For someone convinced that “people...never change, only the context is different” this is a strange omission.

It is interesting to note how the philosophical bias of the author becomes a matter of inconvenience. Or rather, how his principles are like a flag of convenience flown by a smugglers ship. The history of the HBC is all about change, particularly in the way that it introduced a whole new set of economic relations and paved the way for the political transformation of what remained of British claims to the continent. And in so doing transformed the lives of the indigenous inhabitants of this land.

Philosophically speaking, as Karl Marx famously noted, people live in society, and societies produce their existence in definite ways. We have free will, but only within limits that are beyond our own choosing. This is unavoidable in class society. And it is these limits which determine how we see the world. Marx summed this perspective up by writing, “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness…” No amount of ‘free will’ can elevate a streetcleaner to the office of President of the USA or CEO of Suncorp. If that were true it would be entirely correct to blame the poor for their poverty, or the homeless for their indigence. On the other hand, change a person's circumstances and you can expect changes in how they perceive the world, and what is possible within it.

It could be argued that the HBC and its “Empire” never fell. “The Company” still exists, go to any Canadian city and you’ll likely find it there. Albeit in a different form, but one that still seeks profits from trade. And its ‘Empire’, never explicitly defined by the author, is really only a 400 year old document written by an English prince. One that granted a monopoly over the profitable extraction of all the resources contained in a land mass that makes the Louisiana Purchase look like a condo sale.

To realize a profit the HBC depended largely on the exploitation of the labour of the indigenous people and that meant the introduction and extension of capitalist relations in a place where class societies had yet to fully form. This ‘Empire’ of profit has only become even more entrenched. In this vein the title of the book might be written as the rise of the HBC, and the Creation of Modern Canada. But that is not the book the author sought to write.

Instead we have the author’s opinion masquerading as history. A history which focuses on the exploits of great men, rather than one that explains the rise of Canada through the growth of the HBC’s inability to maintain its monopoly, or the changes the introduction of capitalist relations meant for indigenous societies.

For example, in the way that the efforts of the HBC to enforce its monopoly are described as an effort to enforce a “centralized”, “planned” economy. One that the “freedom loving” and independently minded Metis of the west who sought a sort of decentralized economy rebelled against, preferring instead a decentralized economy. Thus the Metis of the west are blamed for ‘western alienation’ because their character as a people “...form[ed] the defining ethos of Canada’s Prairie provinces.”

From the ground up, it is obvious that the author has an agenda. And that’s okay, though he should be up front about it. This is a history which on the one hand seeks to push forward and amend the old “Two Solitudes” narrative of Canadian history by tacking on and squeezing in indigenous characters. It revises Canadian history in a way that justifies its modern society, with a few superficial changes. If you're content with the status quo, this is the history for you. If you’re not, if you seek to understand the historic roots of the contradictions in modern Canada, or if you want to come to terms with how to change it, then this is not the book you are looking for.

[Matt Munkittrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic, comprehensive history of the HBC, northern North America, and ultimately of Canada. Great representation of the many Indigenous peoples who are often overlooked in this type of history. 10/10 would recommend for anyone wanting to understand what went into creating Canada as the country we live in today.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was interested in this book because there are very few companies that last fifty years let along three hundred and fifty years. And very few companies of that age exist in North America.

Overall, I found it to be a solid and well researched read, although not very exciting. The history was good, but I felt that the storytelling could have been more spicy.

The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was founded in 1670 and had an enormous impact of the founding of Canada which occurred in 1867, almost two hundred years after the establishment of this independent corporation that has historically had connections with the British Crown – starting with Charles II who gave HBC its original charter.

The history of the HBC is fundamental to the history of Canada. As incredible as this may seem now, the main export from Canada to Europe up until the mid-19th Century was beaver furs. Beaver had become extinct in Europe and its pelt were used for fashion (coats and felt hats) and for military purposes such as protecting powder and ammunition as it is nearly waterproof.

Trade in beaver was so important that “Made beaver” or one pelt of beaver became a unit of currency for trade with the Indigenous people around the Hudson Bay basin and in both Upper and Lower Canada. The hunt for beaver resulted in the economic transformation of the North American continent and changed the lives of many Indigenous groups from hunters to traders, with the Cree, Chipewyan and Assiniboine tribes becoming key middlemen.

The book was a story of the English and French heroes involved in the Beaver trade, although 2-3 indigenous peoples including Thanadelthur and Motanabbee played very significant roles. We do not know much about their history because of the lack of their written records. That said it is a narrow point of view because the European traders could not have survived without support, skills and technology from Canada’s indigenous peoples. As a book “The Company” did outline the good that HBC did in recognizing and respecting local customs – for at least the first 50 years of its charter. But over time Indigenous and even half-blood people were looked down upon in the Company. So while HBC leaders such as Simpson helped propel HBC forward, history has not treated them well – because they were often racists.

There were a few things I found very interesting and the most interesting was how the first comprehensive map of North America, created by David Thompson around 1820. It brought forth the dreams of who would control it. As the author Stephen Brown states “Empires exist because they can be conceived.” This shows the importance of maps.

The second thing I thought interesting was HBC’s resistance to settlers in the 19th century. The Company’s trade was based mostly on Indigenous peoples sourcing furs. If and when it let in settlers it meant that there would be pressure on their precious monopoly. This is precisely what led to the repeal of HBC’s monopoly in 1870. The people of the Red River Valley et. al. wanted to be part of the newly formed Canada.

[Arah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that connects my original home in the Pacific Northwest to my current Minnesota home. And more: I first think of the term “adventure” but it’s more about personalities, economics and more than anything else: conquest and and ruination for many, many indigenous cultures. What have we learned? What have I learned, in addition to feeling surprising nostalgia for the woods, coast and my family, who has roots in early Oregon? It’s a thinker.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good history of the HBC, but only up to the end of its monopoly on trade in the Hudson Bay watershed, followed by the transfer of the territory to Canada in 1870. I was disappointed not so much that the last 150 years of the company’s history are not covered (as suggested by the word Empire in the title), but that the book gives no hint that the company had any further history
An initiative that implemented Pierre Radisson’s insight (see Bush Runner, Mark Bourrie, 2020 for an excellent account of the events leading up to the founding of the company) that Hudson Bay provided excellent access to the best beaver (because it came from the coldest winter territories) via Cree people around the bay who had previously had limited and expensive access to European goods via intermediaries between their territories and Montreal. It is so sad to see a respectful and mutually beneficial relationship that flourished for 150 years become one where the racism of George Simpson infected the entire enterprise. It seems likely that diminishing numbers of indigenous people (mainly as a result of diseases introduced by Europeans), and the advent of more and more settlers who saw indigenous people as competitors for land rather than the partners they had been in the earlier fur trade would have led to great disruption for indigenous people in any case, but racism of the governor of the HBC certainly seems to have laid the foundation for racism toward indigenous people that persists to this day. Unfortunately the book is marred by some errors:
The first map is titled HBC Territory , c. 1820-1860, but most of the southern regions on the map (Missouri, Mississippi, Snake river, the Great Lakes) were not HBC territory; The Parsnip river label on this map is applied to the Finlay; Fort St James is placed on Fraser Lake rather than its actual location further north on Stuart Lake.
On the 2nd map: the Deh Cho (McKenzie) inexplicably dies several hundred miles short of the Arctic coast; Lake Huron drains into a misshapen Lake Ontario, the St Clair River appears as wide as Lake St Clair and the Detroit river has disappeared; the North Saskatchewan is shown connected to the Columbia, and the connection between the Red and the Mississippi via the Minnesota River does not correspond correctly to the edge of the watershed shown.
On the 3rd map Pigeon river is not drawn, its label is pointing to an empty space; Moose and Albany Forts should be placed in their respective river estuaries, not out on the coast of James Bay.
p.2, line 4 “countless generations”? even 200 years is only about 7 generations;
- para 2 “The region held nearly half the world’s supply of fresh water” is wildly incorrect, whether the intent was to refer to the amount of liquid surface fresh water (the majority of which is in Lake Baikal and the Great Lakes of Africa and North America), let alone the renewable supply (of which Brazil and Russia together have 4 times as much as Canada, and most of Canada’s freshwater flow is into the Pacific, the Arctic, or other parts of the Atlantic).
p.88 “canoed downstream along the Nelson to Lake Winnipeg”, but the Nelson drains Lake Winnipeg, so they canoed up, not down
p.106 “The bay is colder and icier than the Arctic Ocean” may be true in winter because the bay is much shallower than the Arctic Ocean, so a larger fraction of its volume is frozen or close to it, while both have surfaces that are virtually completely frozen. But what counts to us humans is the air temperature at the surface, which averages higher at Hudson Bay than across the Arctic Ocean, year-round.
p. 160, line 1 “They paddled down the Hayes…[to] Lake Winnipeg” As on p. 88, down is the opposite direction. And p.347 “set off from York Factory…Swooshing down the Nelson” – again that should read up the Nelson.
p.174 “permafrost descended two inches below the surface” Two hundred feet would be closer. Perhaps permafrost extended from the depths to within 2 inches of the surface?
p.178-9 “Hearne…north to the mouth of the Coppermine River… the first European to view the Arctic Ocean” I am pretty sure Europeans have been seeing the Arctic Ocean on the north coast of Europe for thousands of years.
“The journey included travelling as far west as Great Slave Lake….the 2nd largest lake in Canada’s Northwest Territories” Great Slave Lake is actually the 2nd largest lake within Canada, since the Great lakes are shared with the USA, and it is not as far west as the mouth of the Coppermine.
p.251 “established the first fur trade outpost west of the Continental divide … at the juncture of McLeod Lake and the Pack River” This is not west of the Continental divide, and ‘junction’ would be a better word than ‘juncture’ here.
p.267 “Columbia…is the greatest drainage basin in North America, encompassing 155,000 square kilometres”. It is actually 670,000 square kilometers. And did no editor think to check whether the Mississippi-Missouri drainage (2,980,000 square kilometers) might be bigger? But it has the largest average flow draining into the Pacific in North America.
p.373 “moved northwest to … Fort Walla Walla” should read northeast
p.394 “Fort St James on the upper Fraser River” Fort St James is on Stuart Lake, about 160km from where its water drains (via the Stuart and Nechako rivers) into the Fraser

[Jack Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Company, The Rise and Fall of the Hudson’s Bay Empire
Steven R. Bown, 2020
We are all probably aware of the European colonization of the Americas with all the attendant exploitation, cruelty, and genocide of the indigenous peoples. Was there another model where relations between cultures were based on mutual benefit, cooperation and respect? It turns out there was one such enterprise originally based on those values called the Hudson Bay Company. Hudson Bay is a huge inland sea situated in the extremely far northern reaches of North America. Why would a company be founded in a remote, bleak and frigid place such as Hudson Bay? This is the intriguing story of this company which endured for over 200 years and shaped the history and the peoples of Canada in the process.
What was the business of the company? It turns out that in 17th century Europe there was a very lucrative market for beaver felt hats. Why Beaver felt? Because the inner fur of a beaver has soft fibers that have hooked appendages that lock together making it ideal for waterproof durable felt hats. Up to this time most beaver pelts came from Russia or the area around present-day Montreal. Around 1660 two French coureurs de bois, runners of the woods, explored the unknown area west of Hudson’s bay. There they found a huge expanse, thousands of square miles, of a land interlaced with thousands of lakes and rivers. It was a land inhabited by multiple tribes who had already in place a trading network based on canoe travel, that utilized and traded beaver pelts and that had existed for hundreds of years prior. They immediately realized the potential of such a place and tried to sell and obtain financing for their scheme to the French King. On being rebuffed they went to Charles II, King of England, obtained financing and secured a Royal charter, a monopoly for their business extending to the west of Hudson’s Bay to an undetermined and unmapped unknown region.
For the first decades of their business, the company set up warehouses on the shore of the Bay. Each summer ships, bearing trade goods, would arrive from England at company warehouses located around the bay. The merchandise would include a wide variety of metal tools, guns, blankets, fabrics, gloves, metal cookware and other items not available to the indigenous population. The closest Indian tribes, notably the Cree and the Chipewyan would arrive by canoe bearing beaver pelts and specifically something known as a made-beaver which was a beaver pelt that had been used where the outer rough bristles had fallen off leaving the desirable soft inner fur. All goods at the bases were priced in the currency of made-beaver pelts. The company issued a copper currency with an image of a beaver that could be traded at any of the company stores for merchandise. The business model was the company acted as a wholesaler, the Indians, distributors, and retailers. The goods were passed along the Indian markets, each time being marked up, reaching thousands of miles to the west, bringing metal technologies and tools to populations that had never seen them. This eventually turned out to be a very lucrative business and always in a situation like this it attracts competitors, in this case in the name of the North West Company, A Scottish run company out of Montreal.
A number of years ago we spent a week at Voyageurs National Park on the Minnesota, Canadian border. The park is located on Rainy lake. One of the activities at the Park was to emulate the Voyageurs. About a dozen visitors boarded a very large canoe, about 35 feet long and them assumed paddling positions on either side. At the stern steering position was a Park employee dressed as a Voyageur with blue jacket, scarlet sash and tasseled cap. As we paddled around Rainy Lake, we sang French Folk Songs and were told stories of the prodigious feats of the Voyageurs. The boat we were in was a copy of what was called at the time, a canot de maître, which was the semitruck of the northern intercontinental water way system. These boats could carry up to two and a half tons of goods over thousands of miles. At the time I sort of had a romantic vision of Voyageurs, these bold and fearless Frenchmen paddling through beautiful virgin forests, singing French songs. After reading this book I am now totally disabused of this notion. This profession as described was a brutally labor-intensive ordeal where paddlers logged sixteen hours a day, traveling up to a hundred miles in a day, packing 200-pound packs over mile long portages. Then months of tedium and hardship waiting in frigid isolated outposts for the next season. But I was always curious; who did these guys work for and where did they travel to? Reading this book, I found out that they worked for the competing company to Hudson’s Bay, The North West Company. What were called summer Voyageurs traveled out of Montreal carrying European trade goods. They traveled close to 1500 miles down the St. Lawrence, the Ottawa river to Lake Huron, then across Lake Superior to Grand Portage on the western shore. There they would be met by the winter Voyageurs, carrying beaver pelts who would have come 2000 miles from as far away as Lake Athabasca in northern Saskatchewan, down through Lake Winnipeg to the Lake of the Woods to Rainy Lake, where I emulated a Voyageur, to Grand Portage on Lake Superior. When they arrived, they would exchange beaver pelts from the previous season for trade goods to take back north. The book describes a grand festival of close to two weeks when these two groups met once a year: music, dancing, contests and carousing.
The relations between these two companies were relatively benign for the first 140 years or so because they weren’t seriously encroaching on each other’s territory but that changed drastically when the Hudson Bay Company moved its warehouses further and further west as territories closer to the Bay became over exploited. What ensued was a reign of murderous destructive competition that very nearly destroyed both companies. The end result was a merger, originating in London, that profoundly changed the culture of the resulting company from a mutually beneficial model, one of racial integration and mixing to a destructive, rapacious exploitive and racially tinged one. But as Bown says in his summation “The final years of the Company’s monopoly shouldn’t taint its first one hundred and seventy, which were more dynamic and surprising, During that time, the Company evolved from a band of bewildered foreigners eking out their lives in trading posts along the sparsely inhabited rugged rim of a vast unknown continent, to a mostly domestic entity of blended cultures and customs dealing among themselves. Although most of the profits ended up in London, most of the drama occurred in western and northern North America. The land was changed, people’s lives were altered in the pursuit of the fur of the beaver and other animals. Apart from the technical minutiae, the company’s business, like all business, was fundamentally about managing people and relationships over the generations that had such a profound influence on the course of history. The Company was merely a vessel for the dreams, aspirations, hopes and ambitions of the thousands of men and woman whose contributions animated it for two centuries, in the process transforming a continent. The company was nothing other than its people and their stories; everything else is dust. And we live in their world, just as they live in ours”.
This is a sweeping story that encompasses not only the settlement of inland Canada but also the first settlement of Oregon and Washington, the founding of Victoria as the capital of BC, and the battle to secure the border between Canada and the United States. If you have an interest in the formation and history of Canada, if you like stories of exploration and have traveled in Canada and are interested in its vast and varied geography, then you are going to be entranced by this well told yarn. A caveat: there are some very basic maps in the book, but I found having a detailed map of Canada very helpful in following the places and explorations described. JACK

[Garry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to this as an audio book. This was such a good read. It was exactly what I have been looking for to learn about the fur trade and creation of the Hudson's bay company. Lots of good detail and brings history alive from Radisson in the 1600s up to George Simpson, the CEO of the HBC in mid 1800s. A good read for anyone interested in the early years of Canada's history.

[Robert Morris · Rating 5 out of 5]

The history of European relations with American Indigenous communities is too often reduced to a caricature. The bold strokes most know are correct: disease, genocide and replacement were the results of the Columbian exchange. But if you just know that, you leave out infinite detail. The history of European-Indigenous interactions in the Americas before the founding of the United States is still longer than the history of the entire United States. On the Northeastern seaboard, the history of the United States only just became longer than the time since first the first English landings in my parents' lifetime. The horrors we all know came in great waves, initially with disease in the 16th century, and then with waves of gold and land-hungry settlers in the 19th century (who often brought disease as well). But there are centuries of vitally important history in between, that too many are completely ignorant of. Great indigenous cultures and peoples arose and even prospered in the centuries between annihilations waves.

This book is about a significant chunk of that time in between. It focuses on Canadian history and territory, but it includes a great deal of the history of the US west as well. Those two regions were not rigorously divided things until the mid to late 1800s. The book is nominally a history of the Hudson's Bay Company, the grand old British fur monopoly founded in the late 1600s. But it's also a history of the company's interaction with its many rivals and employees, which happen to encompass most of what was going on in much of North America from the European perspective for 200 years.

While Anglo settlements clung tenuously to the North American coasts, the fur traders of a range of companies worked their way across the continent by land and river. Lewis and Clark are big in the history books, but the other hundred first European travelers across the continent were predominantly going in search of fur. For the first centuries they were traders, not trappers, which is very important. The companies mostly purchased their furs from indigenous trappers. The fur economy, and the European trade goods they brought, infiltrated, or perhaps corrupted an ever widening spread of indigenous life. This multi-century industry gave rise to new ethnicities and cultures, the Metis and others, who mixed European and Native lineages and practices in fascinating new ways.

My main impression of this masterfully told story is one of waves, and adaptation. The Europeans throw something into the mix, and then the First Peoples adapt to it, and figure out how to thrive. The centuries long trajectory is unmistakable however. As the years go on the cast of characters shifts with the power relations. The early pages are full of powerful Indian chiefs or just entrepreneurs who make the foreign companies work for them. By the end of the book it's mostly about the petty European or mixed tyrants who are desperately trying to hold on to the Company's privileges in the face of a stampede of settlers and gold prospectors in the second half of the 19th century.

I think that the book gets at something profound about both British and US world empire. We set the terms of trade, of law and existence, and allow cultures to grow up around it. Then the empire's center comes up with a different set of requirements, and the generations of people who served the old set of requirements are discarded and/or forced to submit. It's a depressing story, but it's an important one to understand. It's a controversial thing to say, but I believe I can can see it in the US's treatment of China today.

This book is great. It manages to illustrate how the great forces of history worked on a vast stretch of North America, filling in a great deal of important history. But in the stirringly told anecdotes of the larger than life characters that shaped that history, Bown also makes it clear how contingent this whole thing was. Without the bigotry of 40 year Hudson Bay Company Director George Simpson personally, in some cases against his own mixed children, it's possible that Western Canada could have been built on a much stronger basis, socially and geographically. And without the gold rush era road-building of James Douglas, the man who invented British Columbia, there might not have been a Western Canada at all, just another handful of US states. Fascinating book. I will return to it the next time I write seriously about the British Empire. It really aided my understanding on a range of topics.

[Elias C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yeah, this took me ten months to read, but only cuz I don't like long chapters. Can't fault the book for that.

Bown's main thesis is that people, across time and space, are notably the same- yeah we're all different and special and all, but we are all human, and that means something remarkable. He argues that we are all motivated by the same basic urges and desires, and that the real difference between us is the circumstances we find ourselves in (I think this position can certainly be held while maintaining to critical biblical doctrine, not that Bown makes his own religion clear). He traces the history of what he initially presents as a living, breathing thing- The Hudson's Bay Company. But in the epilogue, he makes it clear the only reason The Company seemed alive was because of the living, breathing, dreaming human beings that made up its call sheet, the ones who had a vision and sought after it with all they had. This was a chronicle of dream chasers, from Raddisson, to Hearne, to Knight, and it showed just how radically people like that can change things. But not all dreams are worth changing, as made clear by George Simpson's dream of unquestionable power over his domain. But in the end, Bown does illustrate his point well: We are all human, and find ourselves to be human in very different circumstances. And if anyone can change a fort, a colony, a nation by wholeheartedly pursuing a vision, well, then we all live in the same world: A world ripe for the taking.

In a weird way, this got me thinking about revival in the North American church. The vast majority of Christians right now are sleepy. But if even a handful of us weren't- If just a fraction of all Canadian Christians were utterly captured by a vision of God, as He truly is, and were just entirely enraptured by His beauty and glory, what change would come about in this country? If these people put their absolute all into making His Name known, who then would know God? This isn't to say that by human effort the church can be reformed or revived, but rather the opposite. If we as Christians were living fully for God's glory, that would look like rejoicing always, praying without ceasing, and giving thanks in all circumstances- it would look like total and utter dependence on God. And that is what would change this country. If we as Christians took being faithful to God as seriously as these explorers and pioneers took their dreams, what would our church look like? These are, by God's common grace, role models, that though some may be a far cry from being Christian, us Christians can still look up to them.

[Polina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. It reads more like adventure fiction than a historical non-fiction book. The author made an effort to craft coherent narrative, add color to historical figures, and use appropriate language. In many parts, book relies on written accounts of people who worked for the HBC and wrote books or letters about their grand adventures or daily life. There is some humor to the book as well.
The only thing this book is lacking are visuals, namely maps. It would have been much easier to relate to the adventures of HBC employees while looking at the map. One of the employees created a detailed map of Canadian North Western territories - it would be great to see the map attached to the same chapter that talks about it. The same goes for the portraits or engravings ( some of them attached at the end).

[Giliam Meeussen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. However, focuses more on Canadian history adjacent to the Hudson Bay company rather than getting into depth on the company.

[Robert Bridgewater · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good account of extreme camping in the early days of Europeans coming to Canada. Jokes aside, fantastic book.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really 2.5 (maybe 2?)

Another reviewer, Kevin, I believe, said many things I agree with including style, vocabulary, and more. Here are my own thoughts hastily written down.

In a nutshell: poor writing and story-telling; doesn’t know their audience.
The author continually starts down paths that would generally be interesting and have lots of potential, only to abruptly drop them and start talking about something else only vaguely related.

There is lots of fun information and I’m glad I read this book, but it could have been so much better if the author wasn’t preoccupied with apparently pleasing everyone and instead took a stance.

Also, a pet peeve of mine is not citing your sources on the page or including footnotes, which this author does not do and instead leaves running pages at the end of the book for you to piece together quoted snippets and no references to the pages the references appear on, only chapters.

I don’t know who the intended audience was for this book, but it certainly wasn’t me. If you’re looking for Canada’s origins, read something else. If you’re looking for history about British empire in Canada, I’m sure there’s something better.

If you’re looking for something that talks a bit about the Hudson Bay Company, but never really gives you any good conclusions or quite enough information to form your own, AND you feel like reading over 400 pages to get there, maybe this will appeal to you.

TLDR; this book annoyed me, and there is better stuff out there, but I still enjoyed it overall.

[Liam McCoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this. Despite being a Canadian citizen and having a Bachelor in History I've never really known too much Canadian history. I suppose I've chalked it up to being a little boring. This book proves the contrary and the author and narrator for the audiobook both have a really engaging tone.

I was a little concerned when at the beginning the author made a whole spiel about engaging "diverse opinions" as this is often a platitude used to prelude certain political agendas but in all honesty he genuinely portrays "diverse opinions" with historical honesty. Yet it's not like he falsely tries to paint himself as a objective on-viewer either. He makes his opinions known just he looks at all the parties involved in the context of the time and gives a generally fair and honest treatment. He won't shy away from discussing things like the slave trade done by many of the indigenous nations along with their often brutal warfare practices yet also does not shy away from calling out certain figures' "narrow-mindedness" even from the standards of their time.

Living in Victoria I found it particularly fascinating as, especially towards the end of the companies history, this little city on the hinterlands of empire played a pretty prominent role. He has a pretty charitable attitude towards James Douglas who's one of the "founding fathers" of Victoria, as it were, despite him being a controversial figure who's been condemned like all people even vaguely associated with European colonization since the whole BLM fiasco. The one man he does paint as a bit of a villain is George Simpson, but if what he says about him is accurate, this might be a fair judgement.

Overall worth a read.

[Cindy Wiedemer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book admitted to having a lot to unpack in terms of having multiple sides and views to somehow represent all together over decades of change, both positive and negative. I knew pretty much nothing about Hudson's Bay Company or the impact positive and negative on the Indigenous people already in Canada, and in forming Canada and its ideals. The fact in its earliest years it built respect and friendship and an interest in learning and understanding cultures. To the change in lives and livelihood for many nations and peoples in the land. Who moved from hunting societies to traders and trappers for and with the company. The amazing trips via canoe to explore the unknown country the desire for a passage to the pacific, the drive for wealth, the monopoly the company had while initially respecting the people of the land. As new men came into the company bringing their racist attitudes and drive for fame and wealth came the previous relationships were lost and the company began to decline along with the need for furs of any kind. I had no ide the vast importance Beaver pelts had in our history, and was happy to read some men were set to preserve their numbers while others set to wipe them out to prevent competition. All of this and more are covered in great detail. Well written, interesting and full of so much detail yet remains very readable and while occasionally boring, overall was a great reading and learning experience.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always seen Stephen Bown's books on the shelves at bookstores, and so finally decided to give one a try (thanks Brady) and I'm glad that I did! 'The Company' manages to take a ~250 years of history and break it down in a way that feels fairly extensive and maintains a rich tapestry of character-centred narratives.

I love Bown's almost anthropological approach to tackling the history of the Hudson's Bay Company, highlighting the centrality of relationships (like Radisson & Groseilliers, Matonabbee & Hesrne, and Anthony Henday & Attickasish). He sums it up nicely in the epilogue when he remarks that a company is simply the sum of its human parts.

The only real nitpick I have with the book really is its tendency to bounce around chronologically, though this is by no means a major problem. I also would have liked to see at least a short epilogue on what happened to the HBC from the 1860s to the present.

Overall, 'The Company' is an envigorating epic of Canadian history that made me excited for a topic I haven't ever really thought of on a deep level. I want to read his new book 'Dominion' at some point now!

[Jaime M · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to read this book now as the HBC is closing its doors and I believe have filed for bankruptcy. So much older than Canada, the iconic symbolism, impact and stamp that the HBC has had on the creation of Canada. I include the first “child support” implemented which came through HBC men leaving their country wives (Indigenous women) for “real” wives in Europe completely ignoring responsibilities of the families they help create and then left. This includes Simcoe and Simpson. The romanticized version of Charlotte Small Thompson annoys me because they say she was “almost 15” when they could have just said she was a child of 14 who was married to a 29 year old David Thompson who is celebrated across Canada. His relationship with the minor Charlotte resulted in 13 children (10 made it into adulthood), has been highly romanticized, perhaps not so much in this book, but the gender/age disparity between them wasn’t addressed either. It was hidden in a in veil by using the terms such as “almost 15.” Overall, I recommend this book because of the well researched historic accounts of the inner workings of the HBC - an important part of knowing Canada is to know the HBC in all its gruesome details.

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The company was nothing other than its people and their stories; everything else is now dust. And we live in their world, just as they live in ours."

Finally done! Very interesting read but quite long. Dives much deeper than I was ever taught in school.
Simultaneously insane and understandable that the series of events in this book lead up to the creation of Canada.

Also very interesting to imagine what Canada could have looked like if the HBC hadn't been governed by George Simpson towards the end. Prior to his arrival, the company was more of a mixed culture and accepting enterprise, that had a lot of respect for the indigenous groups of the land.

[Lucas Dolanjski · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely detailed and nuanced read, detailing the role the fur trade played in the founding of Canada and how HBC was behind it all. Especially interesting to read now as we see all Bay stores close and the company liquidated by private equity firms. At times the book was dramatic and exciting and a page turner, while some parts were more challenging to read and dragged on. Would recommend if interested in the history of Canada and the fur trade.

[Vladimir Baydin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic insight into Canadian history through the lenses of the Hudson Bay Company. This well written book is based on enormous amount of historical documents providing a clear picture of a rich, turbulent, and quite unique 200 hundred years journey of the Company. The journey that shaped and forever changed Canada.

[Kyle Unruh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book, wouldn’t have expected anything less from Stephen R Bown. I love his books, I love his research. Really thoroughly, researched. But the story line is there and remains in tact. I love it when one of the books I read cross references another book I’ve already read. This book does that.

[Bradley Lloyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential listening for all Canadians!

[Brady Lik · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was about CHOAM

[Emma Giles (byo.book) · Rating 4 out of 5]

for the love of God can Canadians stop buying Hudson's Bay blankets now??

[John Ireland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book on the history of the Hudson Bay company and role they played in the exploration and founding of Canada.

[Marissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This took me several months to get through, yikes. That doesn't reflect upon how interesting this book is, though. It was interesting; it's just long and not riveting. Lots of wild characters and stories. I wonder how much of this I learned in grade school history class and simply forgot. Regardless, it seemed like a great overview of the history of the HBC. And, moreover, Canada's founding. Worth the read, just don't expect to get through it quickly.

[Raven Cote · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book does a good job telling the story of northern North America from the time Europeans take interest in it up until Canada is formed. Pretty respectful to the indigenous peoples that were already there, reminding the reader of them and what they called areas/lakes/rivers before European influences - as well as highlighting how they weren't considered in land claims but played vital roles in the expansion of the fur trade.

Overall enjoyed the book and seems to tee you up for his next book that is the history of Canada after confederation via the railway expansion.

[Camille Jovanovic · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my Everest. Or should I say my perilous journey crossing the continent to reach the Pacific coast or whatever.

Anyway this was cool, I read this to learn more about Canadian history but it turns out I was less interested in the history of the Hudson Bay Company, which is what this book is about. Kinda got all those fur traders mixed up if I’m being honest.

I do think this book does a great job of explaining the geopolitical impact of the Company on the Indigenous nations who were its clients and partners, and their impact on the Company in turn. As compared with the history I learned in middle school, this book treats Indigenous nations as more than just incidental side characters, but as actual political movers with agency. So THAT part I liked!

[Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

For Christmas, I was fortunate enough to receive Stephen R. Bown’s The Company from my in-laws, who have given me several of the most remarkable books I’ve had the pleasure of reading now. The Company deals with the rise and fall of the Hudson’s Bay Company empire, particularly touching on how the monopoly-holding organization helped shape the continent socially and economically. However, what makes this piece of work so enthralling is Bown’s ability to lay out an otherwise lesser-known era of history in such a captivating tale, using narrative and the rich characters that made up the HBC to keep the reader hooked on each chapter.

Personally, I haven’t paid much study into the era between the late fifteenth century to the late nineteenth century, which isn’t great considering the creation of the Dominion of Canada happens as a result of this period, and, even today, the policies & direction of different parts of the country stem from the different peoples that socially evolved in the respective regions governed at one time by Upper and Lower Canada as well as the HBC West of these colonies.

Relating back to a previous read, The Corporation spoke of the dangers of monopoly, particularly speaking of one that encompassed more than half a continent at one time with a ludicrous charter essentially giving free reign to subjects of Rupert’s Land in the noted time frame. Bown does a great job at underlining the different first nations that inhabited the regions prior to the arrival of the HBC, further detailing their own roles in the flourishing of the Company and subsequent development of a nation - which demonstrates incredible research on the author’s part considering the lack of detail the HBC subjects themselves left regarding their counterparts despite the fact that they would have died hungry and frozen without them. It is Bown himself that finally states of the Company “being nothing more than a legal entity for tax and accounting purposes. It has no life of its own. The Company was merely a vessel for the dreams, aspirations, hopes and ambitions of the thousands of men and women whose contributions animated it for two centuries, in the process transforming a continent.”

Overall, the lofty manuscript was well worth the read. The HBC played an incredibly important role in the founding of two nations. It did some great things in its time under the direction of men such as George Simpson or Sam Hearne, but it also left some incredibly deep scars that resonate even today with the Douglas Treaties, demarkation of boundaries, and basis for economy in various regions. In short, if you’re looking for an encapsulating read about our history, looking at both the good and the bad, I couldn’t recommend The Company more.