Keeping Hudson's Bay charter 'wasn't meant to be': Manitoba Museum CEO

CBC

08-08-2025

The Manitoba Museum might have one of the largest collections of Hudson's Bay artifacts, but its CEO isn't bitter the defunct retailer's crown jewel isn't destined for her institution.
There will soon be a new home for the 355-year-old royal charter that birthed the Bay, giving it extraordinary control over a vast swath of unceded lands — and enormous influence over settlers' early relations with Indigenous Peoples.
It will wind up at the Canadian Museum of History, pending court approval of a plan to let the Weston family buy the charter and donate it to the Gatineau, Que., organization.
"I'm glad that it has ended up at a museum. I think that's important," said Dorota Blumczynska, CEO of the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg.
"But I'm not going to sugarcoat the fact that we had certainly hoped that it would be in Manitoba and that it would be in
the Manitoba Museum."
The document became available after the Bay filed for creditor protection in March under the weight of tremendous debt. To recover whatever cash it could for creditors, it liquidated all of its stores and hatched a plan to put its most prized possessions — 1,700 art pieces and 2,700 artifacts — on the auction block.
Before an auction could begin, the Westons swooped in, pitching the Bay on a $12.5 million purchase of the charter and immediate donation of the document.
Prior to the announcement, historians and Indigenous communities were worried the charter would wind up on the wall of a deep-pocketed private collector, taking the historic document out of public view and perhaps, the country.
Many thought the charter was best suited for a public institution and named the Manitoba Museum as an ideal home.
After all, a 1994 donation from the Bay gave it 27,000 items linked to the business, including furnishings from the company's former head office in London, England and a birch bark canoe from the early 20th century.
The charter is "a very complimentary piece to all the stories that we share about the Hudson Bay Company at the Manitoba Museum," Blumczynska said.
"If it could have been here, that would have been wonderful, but it wasn't meant to be," she said.
A purchase wouldn't have been "in the realm of the possible" because the Manitoba Museum has "limited means."
It didn't even try to court donors to make a purchase on its behalf because Hudson's Bay moved so rapidly from creditor
protection to complete collapse, she said.
"We didn't have the means really to very quickly respond in order to activate donors to try to put together a bid," Blumczynska said.
Archivists have 'mixed feelings' about plan: association
Another possible home for the charter might have been the Archives of Manitoba, which holds the Hudson's Bay Company Archives.
They're comprised of Bay maps dating back to 1709, videos, audio recordings and so many diaries, letters and research notes that the textual records alone take up more than 1,500 linear meters of shelf space.
Asked about the proposed plan for the charter, Manitoba government spokesperson Glen Cassie said, "at this time, it would not be appropriate for the province to comment."
He referred The Canadian Press to Anna Gibson Hollow, president of the Association of Canadian Archivists.
She said archivists have "mixed feelings" about the Westons' plan. They're relieved it involves housing the charter in a
Canadian heritage organization but are a bit disappointed it's not destined for the Manitoba archives, which are "more than equipped to preserve and provide access to the charter."
Yet there are many reasons why the Canadian Museum of History will be a fitting alternative.
It has roots dating back to 1856 and a collection so expansive it traces Canada's history from the dawn of human habitation to the present — a span of some 15,000 years.
Plus, it's a Crown corporation, so the donation will make the charter "effectively the property of the people of Canada," the Westons said in a June letter they sent the Bay pitching the plan.
The donation comes with a stipulation that the charter be shared with other museum and Indigenous groups across the country.
The document has seldom been seen by the public. It long resided at the Bay's Toronto head office before being recently moved to a secure facility as it awaited auction.
It was temporarily loaned to the Manitoba Museum in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic reduced opportunities for public viewing.
Blumczynska said her museum would "absolutely welcome it back."
"We look forward to when it's going to be able to visit Manitoba and Manitobans again," she said.
She would also welcome any other Bay artifacts donors want to buy from the company's eventual auction because the museum's collection is always growing.
"We certainly look at the HBC collection, not as something that is static, but rather as something that we continue to try and understand better and fill out the gaps [with] the collection that may still be in the hands of Canadians and who generously want to give to the public," she said.