Fur Trade & Exploration

Fort ChurchillHenry Hudson was the first European to explore the Bay – he did so in the early 17th century. Danish explorer Jens Munck arrived a decade later in search of a northern passage to the Orient – his expedition came ashore near the mouth of the Churchill River and named the area “New Dane’s Land”. Almost all of his crew died as a result of disease and exposure. Munck and his couple surviving crewmen were able to sail home in 1620.

Famously established in 1670, The Hudson’s Bay Co. is the oldest commercial corporation in the world. Originally named The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson’s Bay, its headquarters were at York Factory, some 250 kilometres southeast of what is today the town of Churchill. From here, the Company controlled much of the fur trade for decades.

In 1717, Fort Churchill was established at the mouth of the Churchill River, and Fort Prince of Wales followed in 1731. The fort took fourty years to build, and was overtaken by three French warships in 1782 – without a shot ever being fired. The Hudson Bay Co. reclaimed control over Fort Prince of Wales the next year, but by that time it was in disrepair and the fur trade was already in decline.

Churchill was the home of Canada’s first astronomical observations, made in 1769, and was also the point of departure for Samuel Hearne’s overland journey to the Arctic Ocean.