#hudsons-bay-company

#hudsons-bay-company

McLoughlin, the Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company's fort in Vancouver, Wash., receives more attention than any other figure. Long does a good job in revealing McLoughlin's personality, his reactions to crimes, and his advocation of crime penalties. Parts of this information will be new to many readers. Similarly, the author's treatment of the murders of the Whitmans and the later hanging of five American Indians for that crime also includes material fresh to most readers.

Two of Canada's wealthiest families have cleared the final hurdle on the road to buying and donating the royal charter that created the Hudson's Bay Co. Ontario Superior Court Judge Peter Osborne gave the shuttered retailer permission Thursday to sell the 355-year-old document to holding companies belonging to the Thomson and Weston families for $18 million. The families plan to donate the charter immediately and permanently to the Archives of Manitoba, the Manitoba Museum, the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Que., and the Royal Ontario Museum.

In all 16 artists' secondary market records were broken over the four-session sale, which began mid-afternoon and went until the late evening. Heffel vice-president Robert Heffel, who shared auctioneering duties with his brother and the auction house's president David Heffel, allowed himself mere minutes between the latter sessions. It was time well spent, with Heffel taking in over C$31m ($22.1m).

The discovery of 255 ancient characters, which spell out the Lord's Prayer in Swedish, is a significant finding that highlights a connection between early Scandinavian workers and Canada.