Hudson's Bay ("the Bay") was a Canadian department store chain that was the flagship brand of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), which is the oldest company in North America, and currently undergoing dissolution. The first department store opened in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The chain mainly served Western Canada at first, however, achieved a national footprint with the acquisition and conversion of the Freimans, Morgan's, Simpsons, and Woodward's department stores in the latter half of the 20th century.
Its headquarters and flagship store were located at the Hudson's Bay Centre in Toronto from 1974 until relocating its headquarters to the Simpson Tower in 1978, and converting the adjacent Simpsons flagship store into the Bay flagship store in 1991. Historical buildings including the former Henry Morgan Building in Montreal and the Bay Building in Vancouver were also flagship stores for the Bay. The flagship stores in Edmonton, Winnipeg, and the Hudson's Bay Centre store closed in the early 2020s due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[8][9][10]
HBC filed for creditor protection in March 2025, and began liquidating all but six Hudson's Bay stores in Ontario and Quebec.[11] The remaining stores, however, began liquidating in April 2025 after failing to find a buyer to keep them afloat,[12] and all stores were closed by 1 June 2025.[13][14] Canadian Tire acquired HBC's intellectual property, including Hudson's Bay.[15]
History
Early history
The diversification of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) became necessary with the decline of fur trade in the latter half of the 19th century, and the Deed of Surrender in which ownership of the North-Western Territory and Rupert's Land was transferred from HBC to the newly established country of Canada in 1870.[16] The first Hudson's Bay Company store opened in 1881 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with an inventory consisting of dry goods, groceries, and hardware.[17] HBC reorganized into fur trade, lands sales, and retail divisions in 1910.[18] With the guidance of a director from the British department store
Flagship stores
Hudson's Bay operated five flagship stores in four provinces. These flagship stores were in multi-storey historic buildings in the downtowns of Canada's largest cities. The largest, the Toronto store building on the southwest corner of Yonge Street and Queen Street West, was converted from Simpsons in 1991. Considered the flagship of the chain, it occupied 750000 sqft, while a fifth of previously occupied space was converted to the Canadian Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store in 2015.[69] Hudson's Bay Company sold the building to Cadillac Fairview, which owns the adjacent Toronto Eaton Centre, in 2014 and entered into a leaseback agreement through at least 2039. Conversely, the Ottawa store on Rideau Street occupied 335000 sqft and was the smallest flagship that remained in a landmark building; it was converted from Freimans in 1973.
Hudson's Bay previously operated a store in the Hudson's Bay Centre, at the intersection of Yonge Street and Bloor Street at the east end of the Mink Mile in Toronto, opened in 1974 and succeeded the Winnipeg location to become the flagship store of the chain (despite being actually smaller in size than the former), until being replaced as the chain's flagship by the Queen Street West store in 1991.
Store format
The Room and West End Shop
The Room was a luxury boutique that was found in selected Hudson's Bay locations, which featured a curated selection of women's apparel from upscale brands such as Balmain, Emmanuel Ungaro, Halston, Gianfranco Ferre, Giorgio Armani, Moschino, and others.[87] Nicholas Mellamphy is the vice-president and buying director of The Room.[88] Its namesake at the Yonge & Queen location in Toronto was established in the 1930s as the St. Regis Room, dating back to its time as a Simpsons store. It underwent a major renovation in 2009 by the design firm Yabu Pushelberg, with an increase to 21500 sqft in floor space, and expanding its stock from around 12 brands to 70 (including more "moderately-priced" options). The $5.3 million renovation was positioned by Brooks as part of a plan to increase the Bay's focus on high-end fashion; there were also plans to expand The Room as a featured department at other flagship locations.
Brand identity
Logo
The Hudson's Bay Company wordmark was written in Blackletter script before 1965.[101]
Lippincott & Margulies designed the "folk-friendly" 1965 Bay logo, which features a stylized yellow "B" that was previously seen on the header of Hudson's Bay Company's royal charter from 1670. Morgan's stores in Quebec featured a logo with an "M" stylized similarly to the "B" from 1969 until they were rebranded as the Bay in 1972.[35]
Lipman designed the 2013 Hudson's Bay rebranding campaign; it restores the Hudson's Bay Company's heraldic achievement, redrawn by Mark Summers. The wordmark is used on all public-facing materials,[35] and has been compared to the typeface used by British fashion house Burberry
See also
- List of Canadian department stores
External links
References
- From expansion to contraction: A brief history of HBC Toronto Star, 4 September 2021^
- Ann M. Carlos, Frank D. Lewis. Commerce by a Frozen Sea: Native Americans and the European Fur Trade University of Pennsylvania Press, 6 June 2011^
- Leora Schertzer. The Bay's last days: Iconic Canadian retailer closes Sunday