At the old perfume counters on the ground floor of Hudson’s Bay department store in Winnipeg, Canada, a trade dripping with symbolism took place.
The 39th “governor” of Hudson’s Bay—North America’s oldest company and one of Canada’s most iconic—accepted two beaver pelts and two moose pelts from a native leader in exchange for the building, the company’s property. once Canadian flagship.
The ceremony took place a year ago when Hudson’s Bay, the company once chartered to found the colony that became part of Canada, gave away its 60,000-square-foot, six-story downtown building to a group of First Nations. But what seemed like an act of atonement has become a subject of intense debate as the value of the building and the cost of its transformation have become clearer: was this a real gift or an empty one?
The building’s donation has drawn attention to the evolving relationship between Hudson’s Bay and the indigenous people of Canada, as well as their central role in a country’s history based on the fur trade between them and the company.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and others who attended the ceremony praised the transfer of the building as an act of reconciliation between Canada and its oppressed indigenous people. But with the feel-good effects of the ceremony fading, the details of the deal raise questions about economic justice as Canada works to reconcile with its indigenous communities.
The indigenous owners aim to turn the sprawling building into a multi-purpose building for their community, including restaurants, a rooftop garden, and a healing center offering Western and traditional medicine.
In 2019 valuers commercial real estate said the building was worth nothing – or even less, as encoding alone would cost up to 111 million Canadian dollars ($8 million).
The company declined to comment on this article, issuing a blanket statement that did not address the details of the transfer.
For generations—at least for non-native customers—no visit to the downtown area was complete without a stop at the ornate, neoclassical monolith of the bay that sprawls across the choicest blocks of the shopping district.
So the handover was a powerful act, especially for the likes of Darian McKinney, 27, one of two Native architects tasked with transforming the building. Like many Native Canadians, Mr. McKinney never went to the store, even though he grew up in Winnipeg.
In addition to not being able to afford to shop at the Bay’s, he also knew that native people often felt unwelcome; from his grandparents he knew of a not-too-distant past when they couldn’t leave reserves to visit towns without a pass from a so-called Indian agent.
“If you could even afford to shop in the bay,” he said, “you felt like you didn’t fit in.”
In some parts of Canada, the pass system remained in place into the 1940s.
“The environment in downtown Winnipeg was rooted in the exclusion of Native people,” said Reanna Merasty, 27, the other Native architect who worked on the building’s makeover.
The building’s new owners, the Southern Chiefs’ Organization, which represents 34 First Nations in Manitoba, want it “towards a space for economic and social reconciliation” for their community in Winnipeg, home to 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.
For now, the gargantuan building is mostly empty, with naked mannequins, a poster of Justin Bieber in Calvin Kleins, and dusty signage: “Store Closing. Everything must go” – recalling the final days of the department store.
By the 20th century, Hudson’s Bay had reinvented itself from fur trader to modern day retailer, opening department stores in downtown shopping areas. But nearly a century after opening, the Bay’s Winnipeg store closed in 2020, a victim of the pandemic and online shopping.
In 2020, only two of the building’s six floors were still in use, and the main restaurant, the Paddlewheel, had closed years earlier. Hudson’s Bay, which had been trying to get rid of the building for years, tried to give it to the University of Winnipeg, but the university declined due to repair and maintenance costs.
Hudson’s Bay, owned since 2008 by American real estate magnate Richard Baker, was saddled with a worthless building that – labeled as a heritage building in 2019, against the wishes of the company – it could not abort, but for which it was obliged to continue paying taxes.
But then the Southern Chiefs’ Organization approached Hudson’s Bay with an offer to take over the building and turn it into a center for Native living, the organization’s head, Grand Chief Jerry Daniels, said.
“It’s very appropriate because it’s the Indigenous people who really built Hudson’s 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 motivation behind it.
“The fact that the Hudson’s Bay corporation exploited our community, took all of our community’s resources and money, and then left this monstrosity of a problem downtown and just abandoned it — it’s the personification of colonialism,” he said . Niigaan Sinclairan assistant professor of Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba who is a member of the Anishinaabe First Nations.
Inseparable from the European colonization of Canada, Hudson’s Bay was founded in 1670 to support the fur trade in Rupert’s Landa territory equivalent to about a third of Canada today.
King Charles II had claimed the area as England’s property and given it to his cousin Prince Rupert, who became the company’s first head, or “governor.” Hudson’s Bay enjoyed exclusive rights to exploit and colonize the area until the land was sold to the newly incorporated country of Canada in 1870.
With trading posts in remote parts of Canada, Hudson’s Bay relied on native trappers for the beaver pelts and other natural resources that made up its business, but many natives say their ancestors were under-compensated.
Without the indigenous people, the business would never have flourished as it relied on the indigenous people’s knowledge of their ancestral lands and the existing relationships between different indigenous communities.
“Hudson’s Bay Company’s wealth was rooted in Indigenous land, 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.”
Grand Chief Jerry Daniels said his organization had obtained $110 million in Canadian dollars from government sources, including loans, grants and tax breaks, and was seeking funding for the remainder. He also said he hoped Hudson’s Bay would provide assistance.
The 39th “Governor” of Hudson’s Bay, Mr. Baker, declined an interview request for this article, instead sending a statement by email. “The Southern Chiefs’ Organization fully owns and operates the building, with oversight and control over all aspects of its future development,” he said, adding that the company supported the Indigenous organization’s vision for the building.
But there is widespread skepticism in Winnipeg that the makeover can be completed without significantly more financial backing. In addition to the University of Winnipeg, both the provincial utility company, Manitoba Hydro, and the Winnipeg Art Gallery had turned down the acquisition of the building, citing they were too expensive.
Hudson’s Bay jumped at the chance to get rid of a building “that wasn’t worth anything in the first place,” and the government isn’t backing the costly rebuild of the building “with enough money to really do it right,” said Wins Bridgman , a Winnipeg-based architect who has worked with Indigenous groups, including the Southern Chiefs.
“Then we wonder why somehow it doesn’t work,” he said.
“Beware of what people give you and why they give it to you.”