Hudson’s Bay Stores Have Closed, But You Can Discover its History on This 80-km Trail
The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) has shut down the iconic Canadian department stores for good. This store closing is the end of an era for a corporation older than Canada. Though we’re a long way from the days when HBC fur traders crossed landscapes and waterways, intrepid backpackers can still step into that history by hiking British Columbia’s HBC Heritage Trail.
Stretching nearly 80 kilometres, the HBC Heritage Trail crosses the Cascade Mountains between the towns of Tulameen and Hope. At its western end, it plunges through towering groves of old-growth cedars, Douglas Fir and hemlocks. To the east, the trail climbs across the high and dry Tulameen Plateau, high peaks and passes giving way to wildflower meadows and wide-open views of the Similakmeen Valley.
Along the way, over a dozen well-built backcountry campsites provide refuge for weary hikers. Built by trail stewards from the Hope Mountain Center for Outdoor Learning (HMCOL)—a nonprofit outdoor education group based in Hope—most have easy access to water, pit toilets, ample spaces for tents and bear caches. Connections with other trails and a few logging roads also offer the option of shorter loop and section hikes for those unable to tackle the full trail in one go.
“Experiencing the HBC trail allows people to better understand the history of the land on which they recreate,” said Megan Turner, the HMCOL’s Program Director. “It has and continues to be an exciting project, inspiring a great many wonderful volunteers from near and far to help conserve and preserve this important piece of history.”
Along with the amenities noted above, many of the campsites have well-curated interpretive signs that explore the trail’s history.
That history began in 1846 with the signing of the Oregon Treaty, which formally established the 49th parallel as the border between the United States and Canada. It also granted the United States control of the lower Columbia River, cutting the HBC off from port facilities in Fort Vancouver, near modern-day Portland.
By this point, the HBC had already been operating for more than 150 years. First established in 1670, it was granted rights to “sole trade and commerce” in a vast swath of land around Hudson’s Bay, known at the time as Rupert’s Land. During that time, the HBC established a fur trading empire that spanned from York Factory, its first outpost, located in the northeastern corner of modern Manitoba, to nearly every corner of what would become Canada. By the late 19th century, the company had shifted from operating trading posts to running a network of shops across the young nation, selling furs and home goods.
However, before that could happen, the HBC needed to establish a new trade route between the West Coast and the rest of the country. The company assigned Alexander Caulfield Anderson the task. Over the course of three years, he employed Indigenous guides to explore the area. Eventually, he met a Similkameen Chief named Blackeye, who introduced Caulfield to a series of hunting and trading routes that had been used for generations by Indigenous nations. A particularly stunning stretch of meadow hiking on the eastern end of the HBC trail is now known as Blackeye’s Plateau.
While the relationship between the Hudson’s Bay Company and Indigenous nations around this trail is remembered as one of collaboration, the same cannot be said about the HBC’s broader impact on Indigenous peoples.
“It can start with Indigenous hunters, whose sustainable methods of trapping were exploited by HBC traders for a profit,” explained writer Melissa Gismondi in a Canadian Geographic piece on the complicated role that Indigenous peoples played in the HBC story.
The company was the forerunner of British colonization. Trading posts spread smallpox and other diseases. Their network of forts and trading posts became some of Canada’s first towns and cities. They also served as the launching point for what would become the large-scale dispossession of Indigenous peoples from their lands and communities to establish what we now call Canada.
By 1848, the HBC’s trail across the Cascades was in full use. Camps were established about a day’s travel apart, many at the same sites where the backpacker camps now stand. Horse trains, some with as many as 400 animals, would trek back and forth across the trail through the spring, summer and fall.
A coveted item on many of these trips was the grizzly bear pelt. According to historical records, nearly 4,000 grizzly bear hides were shipped out of the North Cascades between 1827 and 1859, hundreds of which were transported via the HBC Brigade Trail. This hunt was the first step in a long process of hunting, habitat degradation and human pressure that drove the North Cascade grizzly population to the edge of extinction.
Today, the Hope Mountain Center works with conservation groups and scientists to monitor grizzly sightings along the trail.
“The most recent confirmed sighting reported was in June 2023 in the Conglomerate Flats area [of the HBC trail]—an area commonly known as grizzly habitat,” Turner explained. “Our HBC Trail logbook also has unverified reports at the Sowaqua and Deer Camp areas.”
The discovery of gold along the Fraser River in the late 1850s sparked a rapid transformation in the region’s economy. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the fur trade started to disappear. Not long after, more direct mule roads were cut to link the gold fields to the coast and the HBC trail was largely abandoned by the 1860s.
For nearly a century, the trail sat unused, slowly being reclaimed by the forest. But, in the 1960s, members of the Okanagan Historical Society and the Okanagan Similkameen Parks Society set out to find the old trail. This work continued for decades, and the modern version of the HBC trail was completed early in the fall of 2021.
The HBC Trail was one of the company’s last great explorations, coming at the end of the company’s 200 years of westward expansion. In 1870, a few years after the trail fell out of use, the HBC signed the “Deed of Surrender,” transferring Rupert’s Land to the newly established Dominion of Canada.
Colonization meant that the same Indigenous nations that the HBC relied on as guides and trading partners now faced an onslaught of settlers. Instead of trading furs, the HBC began to supply the goods these settlers needed. These frontier shops evolved alongside Canada, eventually becoming the department stores that many of us know today. With the HBC closing most of its operations, it leaves behind a long, complex and often challenging history. For modern-day explorers, the HBC Trail presents an opportunity to walk through it.
“Harley Robert Hatfield, who rediscovered the HBC Trail in the late 1960s, shared the sentiment that ‘history should be learned through the soles of our feet,’” said Turner. “This is exactly what the HBC Trail offers its users: an opportunity to share in its human history.”
