From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   The Hudson's Bay Company is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading   
   business for much of its existence, it became the largest and oldest   
   corporation in Canada, and now owns and operates retail stores across the   
   country. The company's namesake    
   business division is Hudson's Bay, commonly referred to as The Bay.   
      
   After incorporation by English royal charter in 1677, the company functioned   
   as the de facto government in parts of North America for nearly 200 years   
   until the HBC sold the land it owned (the entire Hudson Bay drainage basin,   
   known as Rupert's Land) to    
   Canada in 1869 as part of the Deed of Surrender, authorized by the Rupert's   
   Land Act 1868. At its peak, the company controlled the fur trade throughout   
   much of the English- and later British-controlled North America. By the   
   mid-19th century, the company    
   evolved into a mercantile business selling a wide variety of products from   
   furs to fine homeware in a small number of sales shops (as opposed to trading   
   posts) across Canada. These shops were the first step towards the department   
   stores the company owns    
   today.   
      
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson%27s_Bay_Company   
      
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