Newman details in his compulsively readable Empire of the Bay, the Company, in gathering its tens of thousands of furs year in and year out, essentially held in trust all of what is now northern and western Canada, a huge region of “the Canadian subcontinent.” As, of course, befits a business entity.Īs Peter C. Not out of patriotism to Great Britain or to the still-nascent nation of Canada, not out of altruism, but simply for profit. And, in doing this, held the line against American incursions.

There was a simple reason why none of this happened.įor just under two hundred years, the Company had a monopoly on fur trade in and rule over an area of North American that eventually grew to be ten larger times the size of the Holy Roman Empire and covered one-twelfth of the Earth’s surface.

Senate went so far as to pass a resolution to pay $6 million for the area they now occupy.) That at least four western Canadian provinces - Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia - would instead be American states today.That the entire Pacific Coast from southern California to the far tip of Alaska would now be U.S.The map of North America today - with much of the United States-Canadian border lying along the 49th parallel - might easily have been very different.Īmerican “manifest destiny” didn’t have to stop where it did but could have turned northward in the mid-19th century with a couple likely results:

Empire of the Bay by Peter C. Newman