With its distinctive stripes, varied merchandise and a penchant for being at the centre of the country’s busiest malls, few Canadians are without a story associated with the Hudson’s Bay.
The company, Canada’s oldest brand, filed for creditor protection and intends to “restructure its operations,” leaving thousands of jobs potentially on the chopping block.
As a stalwart of Canadian retail history and culture, here’s a look back at a few scenes and moments that defined Toronto’s relationship with its beloved department store chain.
1974: Flagship Mink Mile store opened
In August of 1974, Hudson’s Bay opened its five-floor flagship department store near the intersection of Yonge and Bloor streets, the first department store opened in downtown Toronto in 44 years.
At the time of its opening, the store had three restaurants, an exhibition hall for clubs and community groups and a “Canadiana” department.
The store’s opening was commemorated by a parade that left from the University of Toronto’s Varsity Stadium, the Star’s Trish Crawford reported at the time.
“We felt we had to have a Toronto flagship store,” a Bay general manager said prior to the grand opening.
1978: Zellers enters the fray
More than 300 years after its initial founding, the Bay acquired Zellers for $76 million (approximately $349.25 million in 2025, adjusted for inflation). The discount chain, founded in London, Ont. , had 350 locations in its heyday and anchored many a mall and plaza in Ontario.
Acquiring Zellers further cemented the Bay as “a serious rival” to the Simpsons and Eaton’s department store chains, who had been dominating the market in Canada alongside Sears, the Star’s Richard Conrad wrote in covering the takeover in August of 1978.
In the proceeding decades, Zellers would become a staple for budget-conscious shoppers across the country, becoming what the Star’s Kenneth Kidd described as a profitable “junior department store” with a “feisty” marketing strategy.
Zellers was eventually shuttered in 2013, before being revived and folded into flagship stores as a “store within a store” in 2023. In 2021, Star readers voted Zellers as their favourite “nostalgic mall store,” beating out such bygone gems as Future Shop and Grand & Toy.
2000: The Bay goes digital
In November of 2000, the Bay launched its website on the heels of one of its biggest competitors, Canadian Tire, also jumping into the online market.
The Star’s Steven Theobald described the Bay as a “latecomer” to the world of online shopping, while the company’s then-CEO George Heller said that e-commerce would “represent a small part of the Canadian market.”
“One would have to be a huge optimist to say in five years much more than 3 per cent to 5 per cent of retail would be done online,” Heller said.
A screenshot of the site published in the Star at the time showed a sparse webpage loaded in a Netscape browser window.
2010: Mitten fever hits Canada
Ahead of the 2006 Winter Olympics, the Bay secured the exclusive clothing rights to Canada’s Olympic team, a contract that would span the next three Olympic contests, including the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.
As part of the patriotic ensemble, the Bay launched $10 red mittens, which would soon become a must-have accessory for the winter of the games.
In the subsequent months, Canadians from coast to coast to coast would clamour for the chance to get their hands on — or, rather, their hands in — the now-iconic red mittens, which featured a simple maple leaf and the Olympic logo.
Crawford, in writing about the mitten-fueled fervour in February of 2010, described them as “a runaway hit” and “the hottest piece of Canada’s Olympic merchandise.”
The Bay sold two million pairs in fewer than six months.
2013: From bows to bold words
In 2013, the company rebranded from “the Bay” to “Hudson’s Bay,” going back to its past and trading its elaborate, ribbonlike ‘B’ for what the Star’s Ashante Infantry described as a “simplified and streamlined” wordmark.
“It’s a throwback to our remarkable history and an image for the direction we’re heading in,” then-creative director Tony Smith said.
The more fleshed out name made sense in the internet age, one expert who spoke to the Star noted.
The older, simplified name “could be confused with lots of other things, for example, eBay,” David Dunne, who taught marketing at the University of Toronto, told the Star at the time. “There’s nothing all that unique about ‘The Bay.’”
With files from Josh Rubin, Ghada Alsharif and The Canadian Press.
