Hudson’s Bay Company records give public chance to ‘reconnect’ with ancestors

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WINNIPEG — Dyana Lavallee stares at a copy of a photograph on display to the public at the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives in Winnipeg.

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The Metis woman quickly recognizes it as the same one her grandmother had years ago.

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“This is my family,” she said referring to the figures in the picture. “I’m actually shaking a bit.”

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It’s not the first time Lavallee has visited the archives, but it is the first time she’s seen that photo among the thousands of historical documents that are housed at the Archives of Manitoba.

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The collection, which is owned by the province, features items including the company’s first minutes book from 1671, historical maps, videos, audio recordings and so many diaries, letters and research notes that the textual records alone take up more than 1,500 linear metres of shelf space.

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Hudson’s Bay donated the collection to the province in 1994.

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On Friday, the archives opened its doors to the public to celebrate the 355th anniversary of the company’s beginnings, and as North America’s oldest corporation is facing its demise.

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Hudson’s Bay filed for creditor protection in March after it could no longer pay its bills due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, an intensifying trade war and depressed store traffic.

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Amid store liquidation and a hunt for buyers for the business and its assets, the company has been given permission by an Ontario judge to auction off the 4,400 artifacts and art pieces in its possession, including the 355-year-old royal charter that launched the company.

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None of the items in the provincial archives are included in the auction.

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Since news of The Bay’s plans to auction artifacts, archivists, historians and First Nations groups have been calling for the pieces to be returned to Indigenous nations or be given to public institutions where they will be available for all to see.

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Lavallee, who works in the Manitoba Metis Federation’s Culture and Heritage department, agrees.

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“It doesn’t make sense to me to lock someone else’s history away for personal use,” she said. “It helps people reconnect with their ancestry. It gives them answers to their past.”

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Lavallee has been able to use the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives to learn more about her ancestor James Bird, a high-ranking officer with the company who was born in England and settled in what is now known as Canada.

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Kathleen Epp has seen the value in making records accessible to the public.

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“There are different questions asked of the records every year, so they stay alive in a way,” said Epp, who is the keeper of the province’s Hudson’s Bay Company Archives.

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“People come with questions that (the company) never would have envisioned when they created the records, and they find value in whatever they’re studying and in the answers that they find.”

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Not only has Epp seen the records used to trace genealogy, but also to study climate change because trading posts often recorded the weather, and animal populations were tracked by visiting and documenting trap lines.