The Hudson’s Bay Company was one of the most influential and largest companies in the world. It contributed greatly to the physical, economic, and political development of Canada. The company expanded from the Artic shores to the docks of San Francisco and westward all the way to Hawaii. Much of modern day Canada is a result of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The company traders kept the American colonist from pushing north. In addition, the company’s sale of company territory to Canada let the country fill their northern and western boundaries. As a result of this sale three of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s former trading posts became provincial capitals Fort Garry in Winnipeg, Fort Edmonton, and Fort Victoria. It was the desire of the beaver pelts that drew the traders from the Hudson Bay and the St. Lawrence towards the Rocky Mountains and to the shores of the Pacific. The hunt of the beaver turned into the pursuit of a nation. “As the modern explorer Eric W. Morse noted in his classic study of the fur trade canoe routes: “the beaver, by its defencelessness, no less than by its value, was responsible for unrolling the map of Canada. The company’s workers also introduced to Canadian settlers the art of sheep farmi

With the arrival of the Scottish Orkneymen in the 1700s opened many windows of opportunity for the Hudson’s Bay Company overseers. The Orkneymen were recruited from the islands off of Scotland. Their reputation for uncomplaining servitude plus the fact that they were used to laboring in the conditions that the Hudson’s Bay provided, because it was very similar to their homeland, they were also cheaper to hire than Englishmen and more dependent than Irishmen made them ideal workers for the Hudson’s Bay Company. They were given free room and board which meant that since they were making six pounds a year and a two pound bonus they had no where or need to spend their money which meant that after a few years they could return to their homeland and be able to settle down and spend their money however they wish. They often brought home the Indian women that they fell in love with which diversified the country and a small college was founded to school the Orcadians and the Indians offspring. Due to the fact that the Orcadians started a school for their Indian children the English officials in charge of the Hudson’s Bay Company no longer wanted to hire the Orcadians and sent out an order that said that Orcadians will no longer be paid by this company. Many of the Orcadians left the Hudson’s Bay area after this but the ones who remained often remained as slaves. Samuel Hearne, an English worker for the company noted that “the Orknetmen are the quietest servants and the best adapted for this country that can be procured. Yet they are the slyest set of men under the sun and their universal propensity to smuggling, and clandestine dealings of every kind, added to their clannish attachment to each other, puts it out of the power of any one Englishman to detect them.”

The Hudson’s Bay Company proved to be one to the most influential companies in the shaping of modern day Canada. It defined Canada’s borders and established many flourishing capitals.

The Orcadians were not the only people who interacted with the Hudson’s Bay Company the Indians were also a major asset to the Englishmen. The English thought that the Indians were savages and that “the only good Indian was the stout chap willing to go along with that inevitable tidal wave of empire” Both the Indians and the