The 1670 royal charter signed by King Charles II establishing Hudson's Bay on display at the Manitoba Museum in 2020.HO/The Canadian Press
The auction process for the 1670 Hudson’s Bay charter has officially concluded, with the selection of an uncontested $18-million bid from two of Canada’s most prominent families that will keep the historic document in the country and in public hands.
Wednesday’s announcement confirmed previous reporting by The Globe and Mail, which revealed that the Thomson and Weston families’ joint bid would prevail, after no other qualified bidders came forward with a higher offer by last Friday’s deadline.
The failed retailer will now seek court approval to sell the charter to DKRT Family Corp., the personal family holding company of Canadian businessman David Thomson, and the billionaire Weston family’s holding company, Wittington Investments Ltd. (The Woodbridge Co. Ltd., another holding company and primary investment vehicle for the Thomson family, owns The Globe and Mail.) A court hearing into the matter is scheduled for next week.
Once the deal is approved and finalized, the charter will be permanently donated to the Archives of Manitoba, the Manitoba Museum, the Canadian Museum of History and the Royal Ontario Museum.
The Bay – which was North America’s oldest continuously operating company until it was forced to shut down its operations this year – has been selling off a number of assets to pay down a portion of the $1.1-billion debt that pushed it to seek court protection from its creditors in March.
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But the charter, a document with deep significance to the history of the country and of Indigenous people, became the source of nationwide concern after The Globe first reported in April that Hudson’s Bay had listed it among assets that would be for sale.
“What we saw was, quite suddenly, this pushback across the country that this is not just an asset to be liquidated, but this is quite a legally consequential and culturally consequential document – for Canadians, but also for Indigenous nations," said Cody Groat, assistant professor of history and Indigenous studies at Western University, adding that the document “speaks to the core of the colonial relationship between what is now Canada and Indigenous nations.”
The 355-year-old parchment launched the Company of Adventurers of England, trading into Hudson’s Bay – granting it a trading monopoly, in “perpetual succession,” over a vast swath of territory covering nearly one-third of what is now Canada. Relying on the Doctrine of Discovery, it claimed ownership over the lands and waterways – those not already claimed by another “Christian prince or state” – without the knowledge or consent of the people who already lived there.
The court overseeing the retailer’s creditor-protection proceedings ultimately approved an auction process for the charter, with a number of conditions – including that any bidder must commit to permanently donating the parchment to a public institution in Canada and must provide a sizable donation to fund consultations with Indigenous groups and other concerned parties about how the document should be presented.
Cultural organizations with limited budgets would never have had the resources to bid on such a valuable document on their own, said Manitoba Museum chief executive officer Dorota Blumczyńska. “The outcome of this process is more than any of us could have hoped for.”
Thomson and Weston families submit $18-million joint bid for Hudson’s Bay charter
The Thomson and Weston families initially submitted separate offers for the charter, before joining forces on their bid, which also includes an additional $5-million donation to fund the consultations, as well as the document’s long-term preservation.
“It’s so important to know that there is not one story here. It is not one negative story, or one positive story,” said Kathleen Epp, the keeper of the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives at the Archives of Manitoba. “That’s part of the listening that we do.”
There are a number of details that still need to be determined, such as how the long-term preservation of the charter and its transport around the country will be funded among four institutions with very different budgets, and where the document will be displayed and when. (There are other costs as well: The Manitoba Museum will likely need to increase its security, as well as its liability insurance for the value of the collection, Ms. Blumczyńska said.) It is also yet to be decided who will have a seat at the table during the consultations.
Dr. Groat, who is Mohawk and a band member of the Six Nations of the Grand River, said he hopes the presentation of the charter takes into account the competing interpretations of the document.
“A lot of Indigenous peoples view this as not only a colonial document, but as a genocidal document as well,” he said, and it is also a foundational document in the history of Canada. “Recognizing those different opinions and saying, here’s what they are – that’s what we need to see.”
The discussions cannot stop after that first consultation, Ms. Blumczyńska said.
“The reality is that we are always in relationship with the past, we’re always interpreting and reinterpreting,” she said. “... It does demand dialogue, and an examination of who we are as a nation. And I think it offers us an opportunity today to shed increased light and understanding on that complex history, and in doing so find a way forward together.”