Hudson Bay
History

The search for a western route to Cathay and the East Indies, which had been actively pursued since the days of Christopher Columbus and John Cabot, in the latter part of the 15th century, directly resulted in the first sighting of Hudson Bay by Europeans. English explorers and colonists named Hudson Bay after Sir Henry Hudson who explored the bay beginning 2 August 1610, on his ship Discovery. On his fourth voyage to North America, Hudson worked his way around Greenland 's west coast and into the bay, mapping much of its eastern coast. Discovery became trapped in the ice over the winter, and the crew survived onshore at the southern tip of James Bay. In the spring, as the ice receded, Henry Hudson expressed a desire to continue exploring the uncharted region. However, on 22 June 1611, the crew mutinied. They left Hudson and others adrift in a small boat. The fate of Hudson and the other men stranded with him remains undetermined. Nevertheless, there is little evidence in historical documents to suggest that they persisted for a long time thereafter. In May 1612, Sir Thomas Button sailed from England with two ships to look for Henry Hudson, and to continue the search for the Northwest Passage to Asia.

In 1668, Nonsuch reached the bay and traded for beaver pelts, leading to the creation of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), which still bears the historic name. The HBC negotiated a trading monopoly from the English Crown for the Hudson Bay watershed, called Rupert's Land. In 1670, the English Crown granted a charter to facilitate fur trading within the Hudson Bay drainage basin. France contested this grant by sending several military expeditions to the region, but abandoned its claim in the Treaty of Utrecht (April 1713).

The Treaty of Utrecht, signed on 11 April 1713, marked a significant agreement between Britain and France. The treaty was negotiated in Utrecht, Netherlands, and marked a crucial stage in the conclusion of the War of the Spanish Succession. Its provisions had a significant impact in shaping the postwar landscape and establishing a new order in both Europe and North America. French concessions in North America as outlined in the Treaty of Utrecht included: Hudson Bay region, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland.

During this period, the HBC built several factories (forts and trading posts) along the coast at the mouth of the major rivers (such as Fort Severn; York Factory, Churchill; and the Prince of Wales Fort). The strategic locations were bases for inland exploration. More importantly, they were trading posts with Indigenous peoples who came to them with furs from their trapping season. The HBC shipped the furs to Europe and continued to use some of these posts well into the 20th century.

The HBC's trade monopoly was abolished in 1870, by a British Order in Council called the Deed of Surrender, ceded Rupert's Land to Canada, an area of approximately 3,900,000 km (1,500,000 sq mi), as part of the Northwest Territories. In 1912, the western shore south of 60° and, following the Quebec Boundaries Extension Act, 1912, all the eastern shore were transferred to the adjacent provinces, but the bay and offshore islands remained part of the Northwest Territories. Starting in 1913, the bay was extensively charted by the Canadian government's CSS Acadia to develop it for navigation. This mapping progress led to the establishment of Churchill, Manitoba, as a deep-sea port for wheat exports in 1929, after unsuccessful attempts at Port Nelson.

The Port of Churchill was an important shipping link for trade with Europe and Russia until its closure in 2016 by owner OmniTRAX. The port and the Hudson Bay Railway were then sold to the Arctic Gateway Group —a consortium of First Nations, local governments, and corporate investors—in 2018.

On 9 July 2019, ships resupplying Arctic communities began stopping at the port for additional cargo, and the port began shipping grain again on 7 September 2019.
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