Gallery: Hudson's Bay Company artifacts at the Manitoba Museum
The most famous is the 16-metre replica of the Nonsuch, the ketch that sailed into Hudson Bay in 1668-69, commissioned by HBC to celebrate its tercentenary in 1970.
The museum's collection also includes brass tokens used as currency in the fur trade, a Plains hide dress and birch-bark canoe, and an array of other Indigenous and colonial objects related to navigation, exploration, retail and trade.
Amelia Fay, Curator of Anthropology and the HBC Museum Collection at the Manitoba Museum, shows paintings that would have been on display in stores.
Here's a small selection of items included in the massive collection.
Branded items that would have been sold in the stores.
Branded items that would have been sold in the stores.
Late 19th or early 20th century beaded wall pocket, unrecorded Anishinaabe artist.
Early 20th century Siberian wall pocket made from sealskin, unrecorded artist.
Desk calendar, reportedly left at Fort Chipewyan by Sir John Franklin.
Very large items sit covered in an alcove of the the HBC collections lab.
There are drawers full of HBC blankets and sashes.
Late 19th century binoculars owned by George Simpson McTavish Jr.
Early 20th century beaded bible bag, given to George Fowlie in York Factory, unrecorded artist
A beam scale from 1838, likely used at York Factory.
Late 19th century copper trade kettle, a popular trade good brought in by HBC.
The collection includes many handmade items of clothing.
A beaded Bandolier.
1970s HBC blanket coat with fur trim.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBC
an hour ago
- CBC
Yukon's Blood Ties Four Directions says more money is needed to provide weekend services
Blood Ties Four Directions Centre has been operating only on weekdays since an incident in April. The centre's executive director says the incident was hard on staff and it's becoming more and more difficult to retain people.
The Province
6 hours ago
- The Province
'Colonial decision-making': First Nations denounce Joffre Lakes closure as too short
The Lilwat and N'Quatqua nations say the closure from Sept. 2 to Oct. 3 is a "continuation of colonial decision-making" that does not respect Indigenous authority over their traditional lands. Published Aug 21, 2025 • Last updated 2 hours ago • 1 minute read The Lilwat and N'Quatqua nations say the closure from Sept. 2 to Oct. 3 is a "continuation of colonial decision-making" that does not respect Indigenous authority over their traditional lands. Photo by Tourism Pemberton Two First Nations are denouncing B.C.'s planned month-long closure of Joffre Lakes Park for Indigenous cultural practices as too short, calling it 'a fraction' of what they proposed within their title and rights. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors The Líl̓wat and N'Quatqua nations say the closure from Sept. 2 to Oct. 3 is a 'continuation of colonial decision-making' that does not respect Indigenous authority over their traditional lands. The B.C. government says it's the third and final such closure of the park this year. An online statement from the nations says they wanted a two-month closure, from Aug. 22 to Oct. 23, that the community needs 'to reconnect with the land, conduct ceremonies, and gather food and medicines' as well as give the area a rest period from recreational use. Trail marker for Joffre Lakes showing distances and hiking times to Lower, Middle, Upper lakes and campground mounted on wooden post The province had said this week that the closure times are in line with last year's and balance cultural, conservation and public access needs. The Ministry of Environment and Parks also said the dates ensure Joffre Lakes will be open for public use on the Labour Day weekend. The park was previously closed this year for three weeks, starting April 25, then for two weeks in June. Read More Local News Vancouver Whitecaps Local News Vancouver Canucks Local News
Canada News.Net
9 hours ago
- Canada News.Net
Climate change is profoundly affecting livelihoods across Canada
For years, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has been sounding the alarm: climate change is having significant effects on the conditions, characteristics and availability of work. As wildfires and other extreme weather events are destroying forests and threatening communities, ocean heating is impacting marine habitats and fisheries. Across these and other impacts of climate change, there is an undeniable relationship between the degradation of the environment and the degradation of work. A research project I led with colleagues, Work-Life in Canada, reinforces this truth, revealing how climate change shapes not just what we do for work and under what conditions, but who we are and how we understand ourselves. Over the last four years, our research team has photographed and interviewed more than 100 people from diverse walks of life across seven provinces. While we focused on the social meanings of their work, we constantly bumped into the ways, both subtle and direct, that changing environmental conditions are unravelling the social and economic fabric of people's work lives. We draw on two of our project sites to illustrate how climate change is impacting livelihoods - Lac La Ronge in northern Saskatchewan and Grand Manan Island in New Brunswick. The stories of participants, gathered by me, gender and women's studies professor Angele Alook and sociology professor Karen Foster, are paired with the evocative documentary photography of our project collaborator, Martin Weinhold. Together, words and images convey both the beauty of, and threats to, work-nature relations. Cathy Clinton-Ratt and Julia Clinton are a Cree mother and daughter from the Lac La Ronge Indian Band who participated in the Work-Life in Canada project. Both held strong connections to Robertson Trading. For nearly 60 years, Robertson Trading sustained the livelihoods of Indigenous people in the region through fur trade and buying their craft work. Even after it closed in December 2023 (six months after our team visited the community), it still operated as a town bank and, importantly, housed hundreds of unique Indigenous artworks and traditional craft items collected since its inception. Cathy's moose hides and beadwork were sold and displayed at Robertson Trading for decades, and back in the day, she worked out of the craft co-operative just down the street. Julia learned traditional hide making and beading skills from her mother and also worked at Robertson Trading for many years. On June 4, 2025, Robertson Trading burned down in one of the many wildfires that tore through the area. Wildfires are a natural occurrence in the boreal forest, but their frequency and spread in recent decades has been unprecedented. Indigenous communities are especially affected. In June, La Ronge and nearby communities received a mandatory evacuation notice. The fire destroyed the store's entire collection of handcrafted items, including some of Cathy's work. As former manager Scott Robertson put it: "The building was just a building, but the loss of the remaining contents - hundreds of pieces of Indigenous art and historical artefacts - is catastrophic ... the beaded moosehide jackets and moccasins, the birch bark baskets, the antler carvings, the original paintings, etc., represent thousands of hours of handwork done by talented Indigenous artists and craftspeople, and are absolutely irreplaceable." That these items cannot simply be remade tells us that work is more than effort exchanged for a paycheque. It carries tradition, memory, identity and meaning - the stuff that social life is made of. The loss of Roberston Trading highlights how meaningful work is enmeshed in a web of social-natural relations threatened by climate change. Grand Manan Island in New Brunswick, another of our project sites, further illustrates the threat to this web of work-life. Weir fishing - a sustainable practice of guiding fish into trap nets - has been practised for hundreds of years in Atlantic Canada. While it declined significantly by the 1980s, some could still make a go of it. Jeff Foster, a participant in our project, was one of those people. He knew everything about herring - not just as a resource to make a living on, but as a species with unique traits and behaviours. When Martin Weinhold first photographed him in 2016, his weir fishing business was in full swing. A couple years later, Jeff turned over the fishery to his sons, happy to see a tradition continued. But in 2023, Jeff's sons reluctantly told him there were neither herring nor mackerel in their nets. A combination of warming waters and overfishing, especially by larger purse seiner operations, had greatly depleted the stocks. For a while, Jeff's sons had been able to keep the family weir going by working side jobs. But by 2024, when the Work-Life team visited Jeff, he was heartbroken. His sons had switched to seasonal work with the lobster industry, which itself had only become an option as lobsters moved further north due to warming waters. What's more, the weirs Jeff had built for a larger fish operation were being sold off to a lobster outfit. Since then, the family has made the difficult decision to take down the family weir at the end of this year's season. It will be the last time that they work together as a family at sea, and it spells the end of a specific story of who the Fosters are and where they belong. In a 2018 paper, the ILO asserted that"a good future for work requires a stable and healthy environment." The question is what "good" means. Government policy tends to focus on things that can be easily quantified, like wages and hours of work. Our research reinforces that people and communities are attached to work in deeper ways, and that economic and social viability are enmeshed in the inevitable connections to nature that all forms of work depend on. Primary research shows that climate and employment policies often remain mutually blind to each other. However, when we view work as "the fundamental interface between society and nature," we understand how essential this relationship is to building an equitable future where people are able to do decent work. This means ensuring that the policies and principles of a just energy transition are applied to all forms of work, not just green jobs, and that the stories of working people serve as important evidence in this endeavour.
