Founded on May 2, 1670, The Hudson’s Bay Company has existed for over 350 years and has played a massive role in Canada’s history.
Even the city I live in, Edmonton, was originally a Hudson’s Bay Company fort over 200 years ago.
A lot of men have had their hand in shaping the company a, but few have had as much of an impact as the man they called The Little Emperor.
He led the HBC for four decades and in the process brought efficiency and economy to the company during a transitional time.
But his policies also greatly harmed Indigenous traders, turning them from partners to subordinates.
I’m Craig Baird, this is Canadian History Ehx and today we are getting into our canoe time machine and journeying back to the fur trade days to share the story of Sir George Simpson!
By the time George Simpson was born in Dingwall, Scotland around 1792, the Hudson’s Bay Company had already been operating for over 120 years.
For much of that time, it had enjoyed a monopoly on the fur trade in present-day Canada.
It controlled the region known as Rupert’s Land, which stretched for 3.2 million square kilometres around Hudson Bay, from Nunavut to the Rockies.
The company’s success during that first century came from its partnership with the Indigenous Peoples who served as guides for the Company’s explorers going deep into the interior and acted as intermediaries with other Nations located deeper in the continent.
You’ll remember this fact from the stories of Henry Kelsey and David Thompson, both of which I covered in 2024.
While the Hudson’s Bay Company was detrimental in changing power dynamics among the nations and unknowingly spreading diseases it was a mutually beneficial relationship for both parties.
In the 1790s, the North West Company emerged on the scene as a major rival to the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Unlike the Hudson’s Bay Company, which waited for the Indigenous to come to their forts, the North West Company built their forts in the interior along waterways to cut off the trade to Hudson Bay.
This forced the Hudson’s Bay Company to change how they did business.
It also created growing animosity between the two companies that eventually erupted into war.
But we will get to that.
So, let’s jump back to the subject of today’s episode, young George Simpson, whose life began half a world away from the shores of what would become Canada.
We don’t know the exact date of his birth, nor who his mother was.
Born around 1792 in Dingwall, Scotland, he was an illegitimate son to George Simpson Sr., a Scottish solicitor.
George Sr. seemed to want nothing to do with his new son and the young George was raised by two aunts and paternal grandmother.
Simpson was educated in Dingwall but when he turned 16, his formal education ended and in 1808, he joined his uncles in London to work for their sugar brokerage firm.
At the company, Simpson learned accounting, office management and record keeping. The young lad didn’t know it at the time, but this apprenticeship, which lasted ten years, would serve him in the coming decades.
Simpson likely knew of the Hudson’s Bay Company by this point, but he wouldn’t have thought his future would be invariably linked with it.
Everything changed in 1812, when his uncles made a business decision that altered the course of Simpson’s future forever.
Andrew Colville’s father had made a small fortune as a slaveholder and sugar planter. When he died, Andrew inherited the fortune and invested it in a sugar brokerage called Wedderbum and Company.
When Andrew saw his brother buy into the Hudson’s Bay Company, he did the same.
By 1812, Andrew was a board member with the Company, and looking to expand his sugar brokerage firm, and he merged it with the company owned by George Simpsons’ uncles.
That was the first step towards Simpson’s new future.
The second took place that same year, but half a world away.
By the time the two sugar companies merged in England, the Hudson’s Bay Company was engaged in the Pemmican War against the North West Company.
It began in 1812 when Red River Colonists arrived in present-day southern Manitoba. Unequipped to live there, the settlers nearly starved despite being helped by Indigenous Peoples and North West Company traders in the area.
Among the supplies given to the settlers was pemmican, a calorie rich food made from bison meat, fat and berries. It was a vital component to the fur trade because it kept for months, even years, was highly nutritious and easy to carry.
Fur traders would eat pemmican rather than hunt, making expeditions more efficient.
One bar could fill a man’s stomach…or close to it.
It was the fur trading equivalent of Elven Lembas Bread. [BEAT]
By 1814, the Red River Colonists provisions were extremely low. This led to the Pemmican Proclamation issued by Red River Governor Miles MacDonell, to stop the Metis from exporting pemmican out of the area to the Hudson’s Bay Company or North West Company.
Lord Selkirk, a majority shareholder in the Hudson’s Bay Company, quickly arranged for the Company to get the Pemmican it needed but the North West Company was out of luck.
The North West Company simply ignored the proclamation and Governor MacDonell was forced to enforce it.
Things escalated on June 19, 1816, when the Battle of Seven Oaks was fought between the two companies. The Metis took sided with the North West Company, and they won the battle.
This was the climax of the Pemmican War. By 1821, both companies saw declining profits and looked to resolve matters.
A merger seemed to be the likeliest outcome.
But before that could happen back in England Andrew Colville took under his wing a young man who became his protégé, George Simpson
And he was to travel to North America to begin his new life with the Company.
George Simpson had impressed Andrew Colville and under his tutelage Simpson fathered a daughter in October 1815 with a woman named Maria, and then a second daughter named Isabella around 1819.
In a trend that would be repeated over and over throughout his life, Simpson had little to do with his children, or their mothers once they became inconvenient to him.
Family wasn’t an anchor and with a merger on the horizon, Colville sent Simpson on a mission to learn what he could about the North West Company.
Simpson left England on March 4, 1820, and reached New York City one month later. From there, he took a journey to Montreal, arriving on April 28. He stopped briefly to meet with Hudson’s Bay Company officials and then left for his first journey into the interior of present-day Canada.
On May 28, 1820, he reached the North West Company’s Fort William, present-day Thunder Bay, where he presented a letter from Lord Bathurst, the Lord President of the Privy Council in England, calling for an end to the violence between the two companies.
Despite talks of mergers and resolutions, hostilities were escalating once again.
(PAUSE – MUSIC TRANSITION)
Earlier in 1820, while leading a Hudson’s Bay Company expedition into the Athabasca Country, fur trader Colin Robertson was taken prisoner by Samuel Black of the North West Company. This was related to his capture of Fort Gibraltar five years earlier. Robertson was able to escape and fled to the United States.
Since Robertson couldn’t command the Athabasca campaign, Simpson was tapped to take over and he quickly accepted.
On July 30, 1820, he left for his new position as the factor-in-chief of the Athabasca District. With him were 12 canoes navigated by 78 men. Despite the 1,600-kilometre distance he had to travel to the interior, and despite the size of their party, Simpson insisted on speed.
It became his hallmark while with the Hudson’s Bay Company.
He was the fur trading equivalent of the dad who refused to stop on a road trip.
Like George Costanza, George Simpson was obsessed with making good time.
Now remember there were no roads and at the time conflict was afoot so as the party headed to the Grand Rapids area of modern-day Manitoba, Simpson expected an ambush like the one that had captured Robertson.
He had everyone armed to the teeth and sent scouts ahead to watch for anyone who might be lurking in the bushes.
No ambush came, and Simpson was able to continue his journey into the Athabasca region.
By the time he reached Cumberland House, in eastern Saskatchewan, he had to bring on new men because half of his group was too fatigued from the fast pace.
On Sept. 20, 1820, he arrived at Fort Wedderbum, today known as Fort Chipewyan on the shores of Lake Athabasca. The journey took 52 days, averaging over 30 kilometres a day. Typically, such a journey would take 70 days or more.
Simpson wintered at the fort and almost immediately had an aura of someone who was highly efficient and expected complete obedience from those around him.
As part of his quest, he had a new Fort Wedderbum built that was better fortified with stables and a fishery.
While in Athabasca, Simpson married Elizabeth Sinclair, the daughter of Chief Factor William Sinclair and an unnamed Indigenous woman. Before long, Simpson didn’t feel that the marriage was working for him, so Elizabeth was given over to Rober Miles, Simpson’s clerk in Athabasca.
So much happened at the fort including Simpson’s brush with history.
A British expedition arrived looking for supplies led by Sir John Franklin. A quarter century later, Franklin disappeared with his two ships and crew in the Arctic.
I covered that tragic story in early 2023, so be sure to check it out.
I said it before, and I will say it again, all Canadian history is connected and I’m here to guide you through the multiverse.
On May 26, 1821, Simpson left the fort to journey back east.
By now he had solidified himself as the unquestioned leader of the district.
He had eliminated waste and pushed the men under him to do more in less time.
Those who worked for him may not have liked his dictatorial leadership style, but the Hudson’s Bay Company loved it.
And it couldn’t have come at a better time for Simpson because what everyone thought was going to happen, happened.
The North West Company and Hudson’s Bay Company merged in July 1821.
As this happened, Simpson was on his way to Norway House on the north shore of Lake Winnipeg for the first meeting of the two merged companies.
This is where Simpson was made the Governor of the Northern Department of the Hudson’s Bay Company. It stretched west of Hudson Bay to Oregon and covered one-third of North America.
There were kings in Europe with empires a fraction the size of what Simpson controlled now.
But taking over the department was going to be no easy task.
The Northern Department was in shambles after 25 years of competition with the North West Company.
The beaver had been hunted to near extinction, there were too many forts sapping profits, and settlers in the Red River area still needed help to survive.
With his new appointment Simpson was on his way to York Factory, which sat near the coast of Hudson Bay.
It was built in 1788 and replaced an earlier fort that had been built almost a century earlier.
York Factory was the most important fort for the Hudson’s Bay Company and served as the northern headquarters of the company.
It was of such high importance that the boats going into the Canadian interior were called York Boats, because they all eventually wound up at York Factory.
At his new headquarters, Simpson had a large task ahead of him.
Not only did he have to fix the Northern Departments problems, but the merger brought together two workforces who had literally been at war with each other only months earlier.
Simpson had to make them a cohesive unit, and he had to find efficiencies to increase the profits for the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Forts were going to close; traders, clerks and others would lose their jobs.
The upper ranks of the company would benefit thanks to shares in the company, while the lower ranks worried about their future.
In the autumn of 1821, Simpson embarked on a tour of his territory.
He visited forts, met workers, and determined who would stay and who wouldn’t.
Like a colonial time, human resources consultancy firm specializing in employment-termination assistance.
He headed out on his tour as winter dawned, which Simpson seemed to relish. Typically, travel in the winter was done in dog sleds with an enclosed sleigh.
But Simpson often stepped out of the enclosed sleigh to journey on foot with snowshoes.
No one at any of the forts knew he was coming, and that was how Simpson liked it. Unannounced visits allowed him to see how forts typically ran. At each fort, while meeting with everyone, he introduced them to his system of economy and regularity to increase the efficiency of the fur trade.
Anyone who didn’t like the new system, or couldn’t adapt to it, was out.
When he returned east in 1822, Simpson sent reports to London and received high praise from the governors of the company for his dedication to the job and the new systems he was implementing.
He made another inland journey in 1823, likely to see if forts were following his orders, and then returned to York Factory.
In August 1824, Simpson left York Factory to take his longest trip yet,
He traveled all the way to Fort George in the interior of present-day British Columbia.
It was one of the most important forts for the North West Company after it was established in 1807 by Simon Fraser and named in honour of King George III.
Today, we know it as Prince George.
The entire trip took Simpson only 80 days to accomplish by horse and canoe.
To cover the 1,500 kilometres, Simpson averaged 20 kilometres per day.
On the journey with Simpson was his new wife, Jane Klyne, the daughter of French-Canadians. When she arrived at Fort Vancouver, their child James Keith Simpson was born.
Like his previous relationships, Simpson soon tired of his family and left them.
In March 1825, Simpson returned to York Factory.
On the trip, his somewhat callous nature became clear. At one point, his manservant Tom Taylor was separated from him on a hunting trip.
Simpson spent about half a day looking for him and then decided that Taylor was on his own and he left him behind.
Taylor meanwhile ended up lost in the forest and spent the next 14 days finding his way back, with no equipment, to Swan River Post in present-day Manitoba.
Simpson wrote in his diary a few days after reuniting with Taylor,
“They had no other clothing than their trousers and shirts, having parted from us in the heat of the day, so that they were now exposed to the chills of the night, without even the comfort of a fire.”
Simpson leaving his manservant to die in the woods didn’t seem to bother the directors in London, because in 1825 they appointed Simpson as the Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada.
One year later, Simpson married again, this time to Margaret Sinclair. He seemed to be fond of her and said she was a great consolation to him on his journeys.
This relationship lasted four years, and produced one son, George Stewart Simpson, in 1827.
She accompanied him to Fort Vancouver in 1828, a journey that was mostly by canoe and covered 8,000 kilometres in what is likely the longest canoe journey ever taken to that point.
During the trip, Margaret became pregnant with their second child and on the journey back to Fort Edmonton, her pace was much slower than Simpson’s.
Rather than wait, Simpson left her at Fort Edmonton where she gave birth to John Mackenzie Simpson on Aug. 29, 1829.
By then, Simpson was long gone, and she never saw him again.
Margaret later married the oarsman on Simpson’s canoe, Amable Hogue, and had a quarter century marriage with him before he died.
You’ve probably noticed a pattern by now.
Simpson meets, marries and leaves, if bored or inconvenienced in the slightest.
During his life in Canada, George Simpson was known for having many country wives.
Fur traders often formed these relationships with Indigenous women to help them trade. With an Indigenous wife, a European fur trader gained access to First Nations trading networks. In return, the European husband gave the woman stability and prestige among her people.
At least for a time.
For every decades-long loving relationship like David Thompson and Charlotte Small, there were dozens of country marriages that ended as soon as the fur trader went back east.
Too often, they left their wife and children, never to see them again.
This was the case with George Simpson time and again.
Over the course of his life, he had 11 children with at least seven women.
When Simpson grew tired of family, he simply passed them on to someone else.
He treated his wives as little more than property.
If you were promoted by Simpson, there was a chance you also received a former wife as a gift.
Yet in a terrible bit of hypocrisy, despite having many relationships with Indigenous women, Simpson was disdainful of anyone who legally married an Indigenous woman.
When Colin Robertson, the man captured by the North West Company in 1820, legally married a Metis woman named Theresa Chalifoux, Simpson was extremely angry.
Robertson truly loved his wife, and treated her with respect, but Simpson treated her like an outsider because of his prejudices about the Indigenous Peoples.
Simpson refused to allow any Indigenous wives in his Montreal home to attend parties or come over with their husbands.
Simpson was starting to suffer from ill health and by 1829, he sent in a request to return to England so he could get medical attention and find ANOTHER wife.
The request was approved and on Oct. 21, 1829, he arrived in London. Within months, he married his first cousin Frances Ramsay. She was 18, he was 38.
The marriage was arranged by Frances’ father, and Simpson hoped that it would set an example in the interior of Canada.
He wanted other Englishmen like himself to marry Scottish and English women to settle Canada.
Within weeks, the newlyweds sailed to North America.
Simpson and Frances arrived in Canada in 1830 and journeyed into the Red River area.
For the next three years, Frances had a lot of trouble adjusting to her new home. She felt isolated, with no friends and frequently suffered from ill health. She birthed a son, but he died soon after.
Simpson also had a health scare during his time in the Red River area when he suffered a minor stroke.
He returned to Scotland with Frances in 1833 when he found out she was pregnant again.
He hoped being near modern medicine would help bring a healthy heir. Soon after their arrival, a second child, a daughter named Frances Webster Simpson, was born on Dec. 30, 1833.
Simpson remained in Scotland until 1834 but returned to Moose Factory, while Frances stayed in Scotland for another four years.
During 1834, Simpson inspected the forts along the St. Lawrence River, continuing to find inefficiencies and areas where he could improve things with the company.
He returned to England in 1835.
Simpson had gained a reputation as a highly efficient organizer who could find problems and fix them.
He also ruled with an iron fist, earning him the nickname of The Little Emperor.
His word was law, and he tolerated no insubordination.
But he was described as affable, and his officers loved him.
There was a reason for that.
He ensured they were always given profit shares within the Hudson’s Bay Company.
If you were a member of the lower ranks of the company, like a clerk, you didn’t get anything but your basic wage.
The directors of the Hudson’s Bay Company back in London also loved Simpson.
From 1835 to 1840, the return on profits under his watch were in the range of 10 to 25 per cent.
But those profits came at a high cost.
While liked by officers, Simpson had a very hard line with the Indigenous Peoples.
Prior to Simpson, while the relationship wasn’t perfect, it was much more balanced.
Each side got something, and both sides profited.
The Hudson’s Bay Company couldn’t do what they did without the help of Indigenous People because they were vital to the fur trade. They trapped the animals, skinned them, and brought them to the forts for trade.
Indigenous Peoples needed goods from the company to control their territories against other nations.
Simpson changed that.
He saw Indigenous People as nothing more than savages who benefited from the Company.
In 1822, he wrote that the Indigenous Peoples needed to be subordinate to the Company. He wanted them to be dependent so the company could make higher profits.
Simpson decided that no Indigenous trader could receive ammo or credit from the company unless they proved they worked hard and acted civilized.
He also did away with gift ceremonies which had been an accepted part of the fur trade for centuries.
Done annually in the spring, many on both sides looked forward to them.
He also put limits on the amount of beaver pelts that could be traded, which was partly done to help the species recover from the previous century of unchecked trapping.
Many at the forts gladly accepted Simpson’s orders. One man named George Gladman, stationed at Norway House wrote to Simpson. This quote contains a colonial term, but I have left it as it was written.
“An Indian brought me a Beaver skin the other day. The animal being recently killed, this being against the rule, I slapped his face with it.”
The Indigenous Peoples relationship with the fur trade, and their traditional ways of life, would never be the same again.
Within half a century, many First Nations were near starving, a situation that was used to push the nations from their land and into reservations.
[PAUSE]
Firmly in control of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada, Simpson began to look towards other matters.
In 1838, Simpson embarked on a new trip, this time to Russia where he negotiated with the Russian-American Company.
This company formed in 1799 and despite the name, did not involve the United States at all. The purpose of the company was to establish new settlements in Russian America, now known as Alaska, conduct trade with the Indigenous and carry out an expanded colonization program.
The Russians were beginning to compete with the Hudson’s Bay Company along the Pacific Coast, and there were concerns they would move further into present-day British Columbia.
Simpson’s negotiations were successful, and the Russians agreed to recognize the territory of the Hudson’s Bay Company forts. In return, the Company agreed to supply the Russian forts.
After Russia, Simpson went back to Canada. He stopped briefly in Montreal, then went on to the Red River area and finally Moose Factory.
Following this trip, he once again returned home to London in 1839.
On Jan. 25, 1841, George Simpson was knighted, giving him the coveted Sir in front of his name.
He was at the height of his career. He had a title, the Hudson’s Bay Company under his watch was thriving, and he was respected by everyone around him.
He was approaching 50 and could have thought about retirement.
But he had another adventure to go on.
He was going to circumnavigate the planet.
“I left London for Liverpool.”
That was what Simpson wrote in his journal at the beginning of his epic journey on March 3, 1841.
Five days later, the ship was hit with hurricane force winds that tore the sail to shreds and severely injured seven men.
Once in Montreal, he canoed to Fort Garry, now Winnipeg.
From there, he travelled on horseback to Fort Edmonton. The journey was in the spring when the prairies were blooming during the days. At night, hordes of mosquitoes tormented Simpson and those with him.
By the time he reached Fort Edmonton, Simpson’s party consisted of 19 people, 50 horses and six carts. Each day they typically traveled60 to 70 kilometres.
After Fort Edmonton, Simpson went down the Banff area and travelled through what is now called the Simpson Pass.
This mountain pass sits along the border of Alberta and British Columbia to 2,107 metres, southwest of Banff and is not used for travel beyond some hikers who go through the area.
It was first explored by him which is how it bears his name. Once through the pass, Simpson travelled to the Kootenay River and eventually Fort Vancouver, the headquarters for the Hudson’s Bay Company on the Pacific Coast.
While in Fort Vancouver, he made a decision that had a huge impact on the future. Simpson knew that the Oregon Treaty was being hammered out and there was a high likelihood that it would establish the border between British North America and the United States as the 49th parallel.
Fort Vancouver was very much on the south side of that line, located on the outskirts of modern-day Portland. Simpson wanted control before the treaty was signed, and he chose to transfer the Hudson’s Bay Company headquarters to the southern tip of Vancouver Island.
The fort built there in 1843 was named Fort Victoria.
Over time it grew into what is now known as Victoria, the capital of British Columbia.
Simpson then left Vancouver Island and boarded SS Beaver, the Hudson’s Bay Company steamer, the first ship of its kind to travel along the coast of British Columbia.
On the ship, he went to the Russian port of Sitka, now in Alaska.
After Sitka, Simpson went down the coast to Santa Barbara and on to Hawaii in February 1842.
Where he wintered and met with royalty and generally enjoyed the island paradise.
Once spring arrived, Simpson returned to Sitka, then sailed across the Bering Strait to Okhotsk, Russia. Simpson was not enthused about arriving in Siberia. He wrote of seeing Okhotsk,
“A more dreary scene can scarcely be imagined.”
On horseback he travelled to Yakutsk, nearly 800 kilometres that was covered in 17 days.
Following Yakutsk, Simpson continued his journey to Lake Baikal, located north of the border with Mongolia.
His last stop in Russia was Saint Petersburg where he met Czar Nicholas I.
After a brief stay, he sailed on to London.
Whether he realized it or not, or planned it on purpose, that journey made him the first man to circumnavigate the globe on land and water.
Simpson chronicled his journey in the book An Overland Journey Round The World.
And with the trip done, it was time to return to Canada and continue his work with the Hudson’s Bay Company.
For the rest of the 1840s, inspected forts and traveled back to London when he needed to. While he had made Montreal home, his wife Frances often remained in London.
She eventually moved to Lachine in 1845, following the birth of two more children.
Meanwhile for Simpson, every year seemed to have some grand trip planned.
But all of that was eventually going to come to an end.
Simpson loved travelling. No matter his age, whenever he ventured to the interior t, he felt better. He said,
“It is strange that all my ailments vanish as soon as I seat myself in a canoe.”
But no matter how much he loved travelling; time’s arrow could not be turned around.
By 1850, Simpson was approaching 60 and all his journeys took their toll on him. He had spent three decades venturing out almost every year. Those trips were becoming harder, and his frantic pace was becoming slower.
There was another problem. His eyesight was starting to fail him.
He returned to Montreal and began to spend more time in his lavish mansion along the Lachine Canal.
His home was a place where banquets were held on a regular basis, as Simpson hobnobbed with the city’s elite.
With his growing fortune, Simpson invested in banks, railways, ships, and mines, making him one of the wealthiest men in not only Montreal, but Canada itself.
He and Frances had a fifth child in 1849 but like with the previous births, this was a difficult one.
While there was joy in the house at first, it was mixed with sorrow. Somehow, Frances had contracted tuberculosis.
The illness progressed over the next three years and on March 21, 1853, she died.
Her death greatly impacted Simpson, who fell into ill health and lost weight.
Around him, his friends and relatives were also passing away.
Simpson knew he was in the last phases of his life.
He made plans to take another trip into the Canadian West in 1860, but it was not to be.
Now almost 70, by the time he reached Toronto, he had to turn back.
His traveling days were over.
But he had one last grand plan up his sleeve.
In 1860, in preparation for the visit of the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, to Montreal, Simpson commissioned the building of the Prince of Wales Terrace. Built as a row of nine townhouses in the affluent Golden Square Mile of Montreal, the structure was built with a limestone façade using Greek-inspired architecture.
The structure stood until the late 1950s when it was demolished.
But that last bit of effort sapped the remaining energy that Simpson had in his body. After the summer visit by the Prince of Wales, Simpson’s health collapsed.
He suffered a massive stroke and on Sept. 7, 1860, he passed away.
Simpson left an immense fortune worth upwards of $500 million today.
His will gave money to several organizations, including McGill University.
Other funds went to his children with Frances, little to nothing went to the other children he had fathered across the continent during his life.
George Simpson served as the last link between the old fur-trading days of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the end of that era.
When he joined the Company, the fur trade dominated commerce but by the time he died, Canada was on its way to Confederation.
The man who once controlled 3.2 million square kilometres as a Little Emperor never saw the country he helped build. There are some that even consider him to be a Father of Confederation for his role in early Canada.
Nine years after his death, that huge expanse of land that was once controlled by the Hudson’s Bay Company, transferred to Canada.
From that territory, the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba were formed, along with parts of Ontario and Quebec.
And the current Hudson’s Bay Company, or The Bay, owes part of its survival to George Simpson.
