Rupert's Land

The hillock on which the western hunter stood lay in the very heart of that great uncultivated wilderness which forms part of the British possessions in North America.

This region lies to the north of the Canadas, is nearly as large as all Europe, and goes by the name of the Hudson's Bay Territory, or Rupert's Land.

It had taken Jasper many long weeks of hard travel by land and water, in canoes and on foot, to get there, and several weeks of toil still lay before him ere he could attain the object for which his journey had been undertaken.

Wicked people say that woman is at the bottom of all mischief.

They generally feel very much like the Russian of whom it is said that he would be content to eat sawdust, if only he got plenty of it.

The steaks were washed down with tea.

There is no other drink in Rupert's Land.

The Hudson's Bay Company found that spirits were so hurtful to the Indians that they refused to send them into the country.

Newfoundland is also a contested area.

Rupert's Land in the Hudson Bay.

The French claim it, the English are occupying it, both occupy this at different times.

Another contested area to point out is this area that is eventually going to become Georgia.

Also, Newfoundland, Acadia, Hudson Bay Territory will be transferred from France over to England.

This is how they'll get control over what eventually becomes Maine, but also control and access of their own territories.

And so when you look at things after Queen Anne's War, remember Rupert's Land or Hudson Bay Colony is no longer contested.

This is still under contest, but this Newfoundland and this area here, Annapolis Royal, belong to the English.

It grew into a giant trading empire.

Wait, how giant are we talking? By the 1800s, the HBC controlled a territory they called Rupert's Land, which was almost 15% of the land area of North America.

They built hundreds of trading forts along the icy bays and deep

rivers.

Yeah

... um, that, that were established here in what we call Alberta, what was the, you know, the Northwest Territories, Rupert's Land, all of that stuff came from religious orders headquartered in Quebec, who sent brave, um, missionaries or nuns out to start those schools and those hospitals to work with the First Nations.

Yes, there were injustices, but much of that was done, m- m- much of that contact wa- w- were sacrificial acts of love.

You know, imagine coming from a aristocratic French family, ending up in Quebec City, and then, you know, a- and, and then, or being sent out to a, a mission hospital in northern Alberta in, in the 1870s or something to minister to the Indigenous people for their first time with Western medicine.

Philip of Anjou would indeed become the King of Spain and his descendants still sit on the Spanish throne to this very day.

In return, the Spanish recognised British claims in present-day Canada with Acadia, Newfoundland and Rupert's Land all going to the British.

The British and French declared the Ohio Valley a free trade zone with native peoples free to do business with either imperial power.

The treaty would have profound effects on North America and would set the course for future commercial and military conflicts.

Don't you suppose I knew what I was about when I came into this country? Don't you suppose I had weighed the risks and had made up my mind to take my medicine if I should be caught? Your methods are not quite so secret as you imagine.

I know perfectly well what happens to free traders in Rupert's Land.

You seem very certain of your information.

Your men seem equally so, pointed out the stranger.

Then began a series of baffling hindrances which resulted finally in his stooping to means repugnant to his open sense of what was due himself.

At the first he could not travel to his enemy because of the child in his care.

When finally he had succeeded in placing the little girl where he would be satisfied to leave her, he himself was suddenly and peremptorily called east to take a post in Rupert's Land.

He could not disobey and remain in the company, and the company was more to him than life or revenge.

He was born in Westminster in England.

received a charity school education, was apprenticed to the Hudson's Bay Company at the age of 14, at a time when the HBC was the primary economic force in what's now most of Canada, Rupert's Land.

He spent 28 years in the fur trade in the West, first for the Bay, and then after 1797 for their rivals, the Northwest Company, based out of Montreal.

He surveyed vast swathes of the West.