TORONTO – Hudson’s Bay will seek court approval 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.
The collapsing department store chain known as Canada’s oldest company said it’s applying to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to sell the items, which would ensure some of its most valuable and historical assets get the “care, consideration and expertise required” and “can be fully prioritized through a separate process facilitated by a fine art auction house.”
Hudson’s Bay has yet to detail the catalogue of items it wants to hit the auction block, but the collection traces the path Hudson’s Bay took as it transformed from a fur trading powerhouse in the 17th century to one of the country’s most iconic retailers.
More than one company, it also tells much of Canada’s story, especially because the collection contains the charter Hudson’s Bay was granted by King Charles II in 1670.
In addition to establishing Hudson’s Bay as a fur trading company, the document gave the company rights to a vast swath of land spanning most of the country and extraordinary power over trade and Indigenous relations for decades more.
“It’s 100 per cent their crown jewel. There is no doubt this is the most significant document that the Hudson’s Bay Company has access to or that they’ve ever produced,” said Cody Groat, a historian of Canadian and Indigenous history who serves as the chair of the UNESCO Memory of the World Advisory Committee.
“Of course, there’s other documents we can think of that speak to relationships with Indigenous peoples, business ventures and there’s also hints of slavery in the Hudson’s Bay Company archives, which are quite significant … but this is the core.”
Groat had heard of efforts in recent days to encourage Hudson’s Bay to keep the charter from being auctioned off and instead donated somewhere like the Archives of Manitoba, which already serves as a custodian to some of the company’s artifacts.
With that advice going unheeded, he now expects there to be more interest in getting the document a UNESCO Memory of the World distinction, which is meant to safeguard documents of historical and cultural importance.
Other Hudson’s Bay artifacts donated to the Archives of Manitoba were given the recognition in 2007, but the charter escaped getting that status because the company held onto it. The recognition does not stop anyone from destroying or selling artifacts but applies a social pressure that helps preserve them, Groat said.
“There is zero legislative mechanism in the country to keep this charter out of private hands at this point in time,” he said, though Canada has cultural export policies that can delay a sale to a foreign buyer.
He suspects anyone wanting to buy the document would need deep pockets, making it difficult for “chronically underfunded” archival institutions to place bids. Indigenous communities may also be hampered in participating in the auction because they have no archival instruction unifying them all, Groat said.
Anyone who does get their hands on the charter, which comes with its red wax seal, will own the “Holy Grail,” said Mark Garner, who runs a Hamilton, Ont., museum dedicated to a Hudson’s Bay steamship.
“That’s a very important piece of paper. In the United States, that would be like the Declaration of Independence,” he said. “That’s what our history is made from.”
Garner owns hundreds of pieces connected to the Bay and the S.S. Beaver, a ship the company owned since the 1800s.
It ran aground at Prospect Point in B.C. in 1888 and sat there for four years, being pillaged of its wood and other mementos, until it sank in 1892. Garner developed a lifelong interest in the ship because a distant relative, Charles McCain, got the salvage rights to the boat and melted down its semi-precious metal to create commemorative medals.
Garner believes the Bay’s collection is vast and varied. It may contain pelts or point blankets from the company’s earliest days along with wood from the S.S. Beaver and captain’s logbooks Garner said used to be displayed in store windows in the 1890s.
“There could be some very valuable pieces, some of which I’ve been searching for 20 years and unable to find,” he said.
He imagines the sale will fetch the Bay millions, because many of the items are “one of a kind.”
The Bay hasn’t said how much it hopes to raise from the auction, which will be run separate from two other processes underway to uncover buyers for its licenses, brands and takers for its leases.
The searches have been necessary because the retailer owes millions to creditors. It filed for creditor protection last month, leading to the liquidation of 74 Bay, two Saks Fifth Avenue and 13 Saks Off 5TH stores. Six stores remain open but are seeking a long-term lifeline.
Sales of art and artifacts could back off creditors and prolong those six stores’ run, but Garner worries it will also lead to history winding up out of public view.
Garner, who displays his entire collection at his museum, hopes any pieces auctioned off don’t land in long-term storage or on a millionaire’s wall.
“It just concerns me that a lot of these historic value items might disappear from sight,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 17, 2025.
