The Manitoba Museum may be one of the largest collection of Hudson’s Gulf artifacts, but its CEOs are not bitter, the crown of the faulty retailer is not lucky for its organization.
Soon there will be a new house for the 355-year-old Royal Charter, which gave birth to the Gulf, giving it extraordinary control over a huge self-interest of the unaccounted land-and a huge impact on the initial relations of those settling with indigenous people.
This will air to the Canadian Museum of History, a plan approval of a plan to buy charter to the Weston family and donate it to Getino, Q, Organization will be pending.
“I am glad that it has ended in a museum. I think it is important,” said Dorota Blumszinska, CEO of Manitoba Museum in Vinnipag.
“But I am not going to sugarcane the fact that we certainly expected it to be in Manitoba and it would be in the Manitoba Museum.”
The document became available after the Gulf filed by Bay for creditor protection in March under the weight of tremendous loan. To recover whatever cash can be done for creditors, it has liquid all its stores and planned to place its most prized property on the auction block – 1,700 art pieces and 2,700 artworks -.
Before an auction began, Weston picked the Gulf at a purchase of $ 12.5 million and the immediate donation of the document.
Prior to the announcement, historians and indigenous communities were worried that the charter would air on the wall of a deep -pocket private collector, take the historical document out of the public view and perhaps, the country.
Many thought that Charter was best suited for a public institution and named the Manitoba Museum as an ideal home.
Finally, a 1994 donation from Bay gave it a 27,000 items, which included the former head office of the company in London, England and a birch from the early 20th century from a birch bark canoe.
Blumczynska said, “Charter is a very important piece for all stories that we share about Hudson Bay Company in the Manitoba Museum.”
“If it could have happened here, it would have been amazing, but it did not mean to be,” he said.
A purchase is not “within the scope” because the Manitoba Museum has “limited means”.
He said that the donors were not tried to do in court to shop on their behalf as Hudson’s Gulf fell so fast due to the creditor conservation.
Blumskinska said, “We did not really have to answer very quickly so that the donors could be activated to try to keep the donors together.”
Another potential house for the charter can be the archives of Manitoba, which holds Hudson’s Bay Company Archives. They are rich in dating, video, audio recording and so many diaries, letters and research notes in 1709, taking more than 1,500 linear meters of text record shelf space alone.
When asked about the proposed plan for the charter, the Manitoba government spokesman Glenn Kaisi said, “It would not be appropriate to comment for the province at this time.”
He referred to Canadian Press to the President of Ana Gibson Hall, the Association of Canadian Archives.
He said that there are “mixed feelings” of the archives about Weston’s plan. They are relieved that it includes charter housing in a Canadian heritage organization, but a little disappointed, it is not lucky for the Mainitoba Archives, which are “equipped to reach and provide the charter.”
Yet there are many reasons that the Canadian Museum of History will be a suitable option.
Its roots are back dating back in 1856 and is a collection, so it detects the history of Canada from the morning to the present – a period of some 15,000 years.
In addition, it is a crown corporation, so the donation charter will be “effectively assets of the people of Canada”, Weston said in a June 1 letter that he sent the bay while pitching the plan.
Donation comes with a condition that the charter is shared with other museums and indigenous groups across the country.
The document is rarely seen by the public. It lived in the main office of Bay’s Toronto for a long time, before it was recently taken to a safe facility as it was waiting for auction.
It was temporarily lended to the Manitoba Museum in 2020, but The Covid-19 epidemic reduced the opportunities to view public.
Blumczynska stated that his museum would “welcome back exactly.”
“We look forward when it is going to be able to visit Manitoba and Manitobans again,” he said.
She will also welcome any other bay artifacts that want to buy from the company’s final auction as the collection of the museum is always increasing.
“We definitely look at the HBC collection, not something that is stable, but something that we try and understand better and fill the gaps and fill the collection that can still be in the hands of the Canadian people and who wants to give to the public with generosity,” he said.
“Every year, descendants or families who sometimes discover things in their basement or in their atix or collection, reach the museum for assignment of an artifacts and then donate it.”
This report of Canadian Press was first published on August 8, 2025.
Tara Deschamps, Canadian Press
