Which cities in the West began as Hudson’s Bay Company trading posts?
- Halifax, Saint John and Charlottetown
- Regina, Calgary and Saskatoon
- Toronto, Kingston and Ottawa
- Winnipeg (Fort Garry), Edmonton and Victoria
Answer: Winnipeg (Fort Garry), Edmonton and Victoria
The Hudson’s Bay Company came to dominate the fur trade in the northwest. Its trading posts included Fort Garry (Winnipeg), Fort Edmonton, Fort Langley (near Vancouver) and Fort Victoria, and they later became cities. Fort Calgary, by contrast, was founded by the North West Mounted Police.
Learn more: The fur trade and an early economy
- In 1670 King Charles II of England gave the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) exclusive trading rights over all land draining into Hudson Bay.
- For the next 100 years the HBC competed with traders based in Montreal.
- The voyageurs and coureurs des bois were skilled, brave traders who travelled by canoe and formed strong alliances with First Nations.
- Canada’s first companies were formed under the French and British regimes and competed for the fur trade.
- The HBC had French, British and Aboriginal employees and came to dominate the trade in the northwest.
- HBC trading posts that later became cities: Fort Garry (Winnipeg), Fort Edmonton, Fort Langley (near Vancouver) and Fort Victoria.
- The first financial institutions opened in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
- The Montreal Stock Exchange opened in 1832.
- For centuries the economy was based mainly on farming and on exporting fur, fish and timber, moved by roads, lakes, rivers and canals.