Mastodawn

Jérôme Apr 23, 2025

I was curious if the closure of The Bay meant we would lose archives about the company history.

Turns out there is an Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, which is a partnership between the Government of Manitoba and the Hudson’s Bay Company History Foundation (HBCHF). The foundation is funded separately from the actual The Bay company and apparently not about to close.

They published a memo to confirm that the archives are safe:
https://librarianship.ca/news/hbc-archives-update/

#thebay #archives #datahoarding #manitoba

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Jérôme Apr 23, 2025

However while many archives might be safe, there is an art collection and historical artefacts that are still within the hands of the company and likely to be aunctioned off

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/hudsons-bay-royal-charter-auction-1.7514048

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/public-access-to-hudson-bay-company-artifacts-absolutely-crucial-manitoba-history-prof-says-1.7515199

Hudson's Bay looks to auction off royal charter that launched company 355 years ago | CBC News

Hudson's Bay has asked a court to allow it to put the royal charter that launched the company 355 years ago on the auction block, along with its trove of art and historical artifacts.

CBC

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Jérôme

And of course the big question, in that big collection, how much of it are Indigenous artefacts that should be returned to their previous owners?

May be for a future podcast episode of 'Stuff the British Stole'.

#stuffthebritishstole