Facade of the Hudson’s Bay Company (Photo by By Nic Zaraza –  CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=102470275)

Dear Readers, the hotel that we’ve stayed in for the past twenty years (Cambridge Suites) is right opposite ‘The Bay’ – the quintessential Canadian department store. But last week we heard that the company has finally gone bust. As the company is descended from the original Hudson’s Bay Company, which was founded in 1670, this was the oldest company in North America, and one of the oldest continually operating companies in the world.

For a while, it looked as if ‘our’ branch, at Yonge and Adelaide, would be one of the six branches allowed to survive, but the company has been run into the ground by a series of idiotic financial decisions, followed by the pandemic dealing it a final blow. There is nothing like the footfall in central Toronto that there was pre-pandemic, and so much business has now moved online that paying a trip to ‘The Bay’ to buy clothes or cutlery or even a stripy blanket became a thing of the past. It was really sad to see the empty shelves when we walked through earlier this week, and the whole place is due to be shuttered by mid-June. As our preferred route on the underground PATH goes right through the store we are particularly miffed.

I can’t help wondering what will happen to all of the staff who worked at The Bay, some of them for many years. And because of the need to pay creditors, many of the historical artifacts from the original Hudson’s Bay Company will be sold to private collectors, because museums can’t afford to pay as much. This includes the original Charter from 1670.

Hudson’s Bay Point Blanket (Photo By Danielle Scott – Canadian WarmthUploaded by Skeezix1000, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15703058)

And so, as we’ve seen, nothing lasts forever (though 355 years was a pretty good run). I fear that the area where we usually stay will become something of a desert, with people rushing through to the subway but not lingering to browse or eat or spend the time of day. Ah well. Let’s see how things turn out.