Near the old perfume stalls on the ground floor of the Hudson’s Bay department store in Winnipeg, Canada, an iconic trickle-down sale took place.
The 39th “Governor” of Hudson Bay – North America’s oldest company and one of Canada’s most iconic – received from a local leader two beaver pelts and two pelts elk in exchange for buildings, companies Canada’s one-time flagship.
The ceremony took place a year before Hudson’s Bay, the company once hired to establish the colony became part of Canada, give Its closed six-story, 600,000-square-foot downtown building is dedicated to a group of First Nations. But what appeared to be an act of reconciliation has become a subject of fierce debate as the value of the building and the cost to convert it become clearer: Is this a real gift or a gift? empty?
The building’s gift has focused attention on the burgeoning relationship between Hudson’s Bay and the indigenous peoples of Canada, as well as their central role in the history of a nation founded on trade. fur sales between them and the company.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and others attending the ceremony hailed the transfer of the building as an act of reconciliation between Canada and its oppressed indigenous people. But with the ceremony’s good effects fading, the details of the agreement are raising questions about economic justice as Canada works to reach reconciliation with its indigenous communities.
The indigenous owners wanted to turn the sprawling structure into a multi-use building for their community, including restaurants, a rooftop garden, and a healing center that combines Western and traditional medicine.
In 2019, commercial real estate appraiser the building said worth nothing — or even less, because putting it on the code alone cost 111 million Canadian dollars ($82 million).
The company declined to comment for this article and issued a joint statement that did not detail the handover.
For generations – at least for non-native customers – a visit to the city center would not be complete without a stop inside the neoclassical, monolithic The ornate decor of the Bay is spread across the most beautiful blocks of the shopping district.
So the transfer is a powerful move, especially for the likes of Darian McKinney, 27, one of two indigenous architects tasked with transforming the building. Like many other Indigenous Canadians, Mr. McKinney has never been to a store, even though he grew up in Winnipeg.
In addition to not being able to afford to shop in the Bay, he also knows that locals often feel unwelcome; From his grandparents, he learned of a not-so-distant past when they couldn’t leave the reserve to visit cities without the passport of a so-called Indian agent.
“If you can even afford to shop in the Bay,” he says, “you will feel like you don’t belong here.”
In some parts of Canada, the pass system remained in effect until the 1940s.
“The environment in downtown Winnipeg is rooted in the exclusion of indigenous people,” said Reanna Merasty, 27, another indigenous architect working on the building’s renovation.
The building’s new owner, the Southern Chiefs Organization, representing the First 34 Nations in Manitoba, envisions making it a “into a space for economic and social reconciliation” for their community in Winnipeg, which has Canada’s largest urban Indigenous population.
The organization is still struggling to raise 20 million of the $130 million Canadian dollars it says is needed to renovate the building.
Currently, the giant structure is mostly empty, with naked mannequins, a poster of Justin Bieber in Calvin Kleins, and dusty signage – “The store is closed. Everything has to go” — recalling the last days of the department store.
In the 20th century, Hudson’s Bay reinvented itself from a fur trader into a modern retailer, opening department stores in downtown shopping areas. But nearly a century after it opened, the Bay’s Winnipeg store closed in 2020, a victim of the pandemic and online shopping.
By 2020, only two of the building’s six floors are still in use, and its main restaurant, Paddlewheel, closed years earlier. Hudson’s Bay, which has sought to get rid of the building for years, tried to give it to the University of Winnipeg, but the university refused because of the cost of repairs and maintenance.
Owned since 2008 by American real estate mogul Richard Baker, Hudson Bay is stuck with a worthless structure – designated as a heritage building in 2019, contrary to the wishes of the company – it cannot be demolished but must continue to pay taxes.
But then the Organization of Confederate Chiefs approached Hudson Bay with an offer to take over the building and turn it into a hub for Indigenous life, said the organization’s head, Grand Chief Jerry Daniels. said.
“That’s quite fitting, because it was the natives who actually built Hudson Bay,” said Mr. Daniels. “And that’s the story that needs to be told, that we really built this country.”
But others were more critical of the deal and the motives behind it.
“The reality is that the Hudson’s Bay company exploited our community, took all the resources and money they could get from our community, then left this monstrous problem at the center. city, leave it alone – that is colonialism personified,” he said Niigaan SinclairAssistant Professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba, is a member of the Anishinaabe First Nations.
Inseparable from the European colonization of Canada, Hudson Bay was founded in 1670 to exploit the fur trade in Canada. Land of Ruperta territory about one-third the size of present-day Canada.
King Charles II claimed the territory as British and gave it to his cousin Prince Rupert, who became the company’s first head, or “governor”. Hudson’s Bay had exclusive rights to exploit and occupy the territory until it was sold in 1870 to the newly founded nation of Canada.
With trading posts in remote parts of Canada, Hudson’s Bay relies on native trappers for beaver skins and other natural resources that make up the company’s business, but many natives say their ancestors were not properly compensated.
Without Indigenous Peoples, the company would never have thrived, relying on Indigenous people’s knowledge of their ancestral lands and existing relationships among various Indigenous communities. .
“The wealth of the Hudson’s Bay Company is rooted in Indigenous lands, Indigenous labor, Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous governance,” said Adele Perrya professor and expert on colonialism at the University of Manitoba.
In recent years, Ms. Perry said, Canada has been forced to “recognize that the core of Canada as an entity is a colonial project.”
Mr. Daniels said his organization has received C$110 million from government sources, including loans, grants and tax breaks, and is seeking funding for the rest. He also said he hoped that Hudson’s Bay would be supportive.
The 39th “Governor” of Hudson Bay, Mr. Baker, declined an interview request for this article, instead sending a statement via email. “The Southern Chiefs’ Organization fully owns and operates the building, with oversight and control over all aspects of its future development,” he said. that the company supported the Indigenous organization’s vision for the building.
But there is a deep skepticism in Winnipeg that its renovation could be completed without significantly more financial support. Besides the University of Winnipeg, both the provincial agency, Manitoba Hydro and the Winnipeg Art Gallery also refused to take over the building because it was too expensive.
Hudson Bay jumped at the opportunity to get rid of a building that “wasn’t worth it in the first place” and the government didn’t support the building’s costly conversion “with enough money to actually do it right, ” said Wins Bridgman, a Winnipeg native. -Architect who has worked with Indigenous groups, including Southern Chiefs.
“Then we wondered why it didn’t work,” he said.
“Be careful what people give you and why they give it to you.”
