Empire of the Bay: The Company of Adventurers that Seized a Continent

by Peter C. Newman

Chronicles the exploration and settlement of a company that is three centuries old and worth six-billion dollars.

Genres: History, Canada, Nonfiction, World History, European History

612 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Peter Charles Newman (born Peta Karel Neuman), CC, journalist, author, newspaper and magazine editor (born 10 May 1929 in Vienna, Austria; died 7 September 2023 in Belleville, ON). Peter C. Newman was one of Canada’s most prominent journalists, biographers and non-fiction authors. After starting out with the Financial Post, he became editor-in-chief of both the Toronto Star and Maclean’s. His 35 books, which have collectively sold more than two million copies, helped make political reporting and business journalism more personalized and evocative. His no-holds-barred, insiders-tell-all accounts of Canada’s business and political elites earned him a reputation as Canada’s “most cussed and discussed” journalist. A recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees, Newman was elected to the Canadian News Hall of Fame in 1992. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1978 and a Companion in 1990.

Early Life and Education

Originally named Peta Karel Neuman by his secularized Jewish parents, Peter C. Newman grew up in the Czech town of Breclav, where his father ran a large sugar beet refinery. As Newman wrote in 2018, “I lived the charmed life of a little rich boy in Moravia, Czechoslovakia — until age nine, that is, when the world as I knew it vanished.” Fleeing the Nazis, his family came to Canada as refugees in 1940.

Newman initially attended Hillfield School in Hamilton, Ontario, a prep school for the Royal Military College of Canada. But, envisaging a business career for his son, Newman's father, Oscar, enrolled him as a “war guest” boarder at Upper Canada College in 1944. There he met future members of the Canadian establishment whose lives he would later document.

After graduating, Newman joined the Canadian Navy Reserves. He was a reservist for decades and eventually reached the rank of captain. For many years, he was rarely seen in public without his signature black sailor cap.


Career Highlights

Once he mastered English, Newman began writing, first for the University of Toronto newspaper, then for the Financial Post in 1951. By 1953, he was Montreal editor of the Post. He held the position for three years before returning to Toronto to be assistant editor, then Ottawa columnist, at Maclean's magazine. In 1959, he published Flame of Power: Intimate Profiles of Canada's Greatest Businessmen. It profiles 11 of the first generation of Canada's business magnates. In 1963, Newman published his masterly and popular political chronicle of John Diefenbaker, Renegade in Power: The Diefenbaker Years (1963). According to the Writers’ Trust of Canada, the book “revolutionized Canadian political reporting with its controversial ‘insiders-tell-all’ approach.” Five years later, Newman published a similar but less successful study of Lester Pearson, The Distemper of Our Times (1968).

In 1969, Newman became editor-in-chief at the Toronto Star. During this period, he published some of his best journalism in Home Country: People, Places and Power Politics (1973). He then published popular studies on the lives of those who wielded financial power in the Canadian business establishment. These included his two-volume The Canadian Establishment (1975, 1981), The Bronfman Dynasty (1978; see also Bronfman Family), and The Establishment Man: A Portrait of Power (1982). A third book called Titans: How the New Canadian Establishment Seized Power was added to this series in 1998.

Newman was also editor of Maclean's from 1971 to 1982. He transformed the magazine from a monthly to a weekly news magazine — the first of its kind in Canada — with a Canadian slant on international and national events. In 1982, he resigned to work on a three-volume history of the Hudson's Bay Company.

Honours

Peter C. Newman received the Canadian Journalism Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award and the Toronto Star's Excellence in Journalism award in 1998. He received a National Newspaper Award and in 1992 he was elected to the Canadia

Reviews

[Martine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely well researched and fun to read

[Ross Vincent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Today (May 2, 2025) is the 355 anniversary of the start of the Hudson Bay Company.
Think about that - a company that is older than the United States. And it all started because the 'influencers" of the 1600s discovered the fad that was the Beaver hat.
A company that would take up much of Northern Canada, and would go on for centuries.
(Although, sadly, early this week, HBC posted that they were closing the last of their stores. Sad times).

As a child, and later, a Teen, every trip to Montreal meant at least ONE visit to The Bay, with Mom. She went for the Royal Dalton figurines; I went for the french comics, books, and music, and we would also end up getting a few Back to School clothes during those trips.
At the time, I didnt realize how HIGH CLASS the Bay was (I knew it was no Simpsons, and definitely not Crouteaux); to me, it was one of three places to go clothes shopping with Mom. (Although I did find a golf shirt with STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION on the front. I bought it right away, and wore it to a few cons I went in in 1992 and 1993. And while I still have the shirt, it is now part of my "terminal illness but still geeking" collection. )

That last time I was in The Bay was in 2015, when I made my return trip to Montreal. I picked up some winter gloves / mittens, a scarf (with the stripped logo) and even a really cool rolling carry-on luggage (which was REALLY needed, given how much Souvenir shopping I did that trip). IF I had known what the future would hold, I would have gotten myself a HBC blanket, like the one my grandparents had back in the day.
(Trivia - if you have a HBC blanket, the little lines on it represent the number of full Beaver pelts it would take to own one).

This book has been republished and titled "The Illustrated History" - and that was the version I read. I like the various pictures and painting they had in it, showing the voyageurs and adventurers paddling along the rivers, on the hunt for the beaver. (And yes - more than a few time, I mentally pictured the KitH sketch about the Suit hunters in their canoe).

[Dennison Berwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was a time when books about business companies were staid and boring and read only by other historians. That age passed when popular authors such as Canadian Peter C. Newman wrote their biographies of some of the great companies of the world. Newman's claim to fame, in this realm, is his two volume history of the Hudson Bay Company - the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world.

What makes the story of the HBC so fascinating is that the corporation, more than any other company or institution, was responsible for the founding and establishment of Canada. Although founded in 1670 as a Company of Adventurers to discover a sea route via the Northwest passage to China, this was little more than window dressing for a trade monopoly on fur; specifically beaver skins that were processed into hats for European men. Its area of monopoly covered some 3 million square miles of land occupied by numerous aboriginal peoples. The company traded directly with few of them - tribes near the forts the company established in Hudson Bay and beyond were careful to maintain their own monopolies of supplying trade goods such as knives and blankets to inland tribes in exchange for a lot more beaver pelts.I've been reading and thoroughly enjoying Volume I of Newman's biography (which is now out of print); though the edition highlighted here is the reissued combination of Volumes I and II. Volume I is a great read for anyone with an interest in the human history of commercial activities. Newman managed to dig up numerous fascinating details that bring the story of the men in the first two hundred years of the company's history to life. Yet, at the same time, he never loses sight of the broad sweep and the drama of the story he's telling.

Canadian author and naturalist Farley Mowat has come in for heavy criticism in recent years for falsifying and hugely embellishing parts of his books. For example, when Mowat said he had spent two summers and a winter studying wolves, the Toronto Star, a newspaper in Toronto, Canada, wrote that Mowat had only spent 90 hours studying the wolves. Mowat has admitted he doesn’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.

While this may be very disappointing - personally, I like to be...more Canadian author and naturalist Farley Mowat has come in for heavy criticism in recent years for falsifying and hugely embellishing parts of his books. For example, when Mowat said he had spent two summers and a winter studying wolves, the Toronto Star, a newspaper in Toronto, Canada, wrote that Mowat had only spent 90 hours studying the wolves. Mowat has admitted he doesn’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.

While this may be very disappointing - personally, I like to be able to trust the information in a non-fiction book and dislike the modern fashion of “creative non-fiction”. The world as it is is fascinating without need of embellishment. True, sometimes situations need to be simplified in order to keep a storylike manageable, but the problem with making too free with the facts is that everything in the story then becomes a fairy-story. Defenders of the techniques would correctly argue – as with Farley Mowat’s books – that massaging the facts to serve a greater mission is admissable. This is what politicians and lobbyists and spin-doctors also propound. The result is that all public discourse becomes debased.

Mowat’s first book was “People of the Deer” published in 1952. It tells the story of his time with the Ihalmiut, a group of Inuit (Eskimo) who live on the great Barrens plains of northern central Canada in an area now known as the Kivalliq Region of present-day Nunavut. They are the only Inuit not to live by the sea. Caribou (reindeer), not seal meat, is an important part of their diet.

When Mowat lived with them in the late 1940s, he estimated that the Ihalmiut had numbered 7,000 in 1886, down to 40 by 1947-48. By 1950, only 30 remained. Their destruction was due to changes in their hunting dynamics (from hunting for food to hunting for furs), introduction of flour and sugar into their diet (through fur trader contact), disease (probably diphtheria), the failure of their primary food source (barren-ground caribou), and sickened sled dogs (possibly rabies).

It was Mowat’s book, ‘People of the Deer” that rescued the Ihalmiut from extinction. His book made Mowat into a literary celebrity and without its publication the Canadian government could have conveniently continued to ignore these people.
Instead, Mowat’s indignation, his explanations of the ways of the people and his entertaining storytelling contributed to the shift in the Canadian government’s Inuit policy that – despite many cruel blunders – did eventually ensure their survival.

So if some of the information in “People ofthe Deer” is oversimplified or just plain wrong (as revealed by later studies that have had the luxury of longer research time and greater research dollars) perhaps Mowat can be forgiven for deciding that reaching a wide audience by entertaining them was more important than academic exactness. His works have been translated into 52 languages and he has sold more than 14 million books.

For more reviews, essays and stories, please visit my website:
Serendipities of a Writer's life www.dennisonberwick.info

[Sara Laor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing history of the North American Northwest and Arctic. Such amazing men who explored territories under unbelievable conditions. Excellent read, full of original quotes.

[jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This excellent history of Hudson's Bay Company is a little slow to start and at times can be a challenging and difficult read - but what would you expect of a book that attempts to cover 300 years of history, the key events and players and the myriad shifts that occur in such a span?

The stories of early adventures to explore the Bay to the reluctant push inward to exploit central Canada and finally the exploration and exploitation of the west coast of the continent are well rendered and exciting.

The author does an excellent job of continually providing the global context in which the Company evolved and the levers of history that moved the Company from one incarnation to another.

For anyone interested in the history of The HBC, as well as the history of central Canada, this is an execllent, though long, read!

[Derrick Grose · Rating 4 out of 5]

The history of the Hudson Bay Company is central to the history of Canada and Peter Newman has woven anecdote and historical fact into an entertaining narrative that reviews the economic and cultural evolution of the company and the nation. While paying tribute to the people who built a company and opened up a continent, the book acknowledges that the bottom line was the over-riding concern throughout the history of a company that ultimately detached itself from its roots. Comprehensive illustrations using historical paintings, sketches and photographs as well as contemporary photographs enrich the text (although they sometimes interrupt the read). This tribute to a brick and mortar retail giant is dated by the absence of any reference to the challenges of on-line competition and by the demise of many of the retail brands acquired by "The Bay."

[John Geary · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book that traces not just the history of the Hudson‘s Bay Company from its early beginnings in the 17th century, but provides a good overview of the fur trade in Canada and how it eventually helped build the nation.
It’s an easy read and there are some excellent photos and reproductions of paintings by artists like Paul Kane, Frances Anne Hopkins and Frederic Remington, to name a few. It’s also very informative – even though I consider myself a history buff, particularly about this aspect of Canadian history, I learned a lot of information about our history and how we became a country that I did not know before reading this book.
If you’re interested in the history of the fur trade, or the history of Canada, this is almost a “must-read” to add to your shelves.

[Ian Durham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, what a tour de force. Who would have ever thought a corporate history could be so fascinating - and funny? The HBC peaked during the age of grand visions, when people thought of companies as long-term investments. Certainly the HBC was not some saintly organization, but it left an indelible but mostly forgotten mark on most of North America.

UPDATE: I just re-read this book. My opinion has not changed much, though there certainly were some things that I found a little anachronistic. I also think his treatment of First Nations and Métis left something to be desired. As such, I knocked a star off my original review. Still, it was an impressive work of corporate history.

[Tom Axworthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a an exceedingly well written book on Western Canadian history with beautiful illustrations. Newman has a knack for using the telling anecdote to make his points and the art work complements the flow of the history.

[Floyd Mann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great history of the Hudson Bay Company. It is mind-boggling how much influence this one company had on the history of Canada and the Pacific Northwest.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great amount of detail without being an encyclopedia, just wished it finished later than 1989...

[Tanis Buckton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read. Lots to learn.

[Eames Demetrios · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible story! Fighting between business entities, 12 guys in a room in London controlling 12% of the Earth's surface! Crazy. Well told story.