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The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was founded in 1670. It is Canada’s oldest company. It started as a fur trading company. Much later, it got involved in retail. It owns 239 department stores in Canada and the United States. These stores include Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks OFF 5th.

This article is a plain-language summary of the Hudson’s Bay Company. If you are interested in reading about this topic in more depth, please see the full-length entry, Hudson’s Bay Company.

Steele Narrows Battle, at Loon Lake, 95 km north-east of Lloydminster, scene of the last shots fired in the North-West Resistance on 3 June 1885.

The business cycle is a term used to describe the ups and downs of the economy over time. A business cycle consists of a repetition of four phases — expansion, peak, contraction, and trough — that is often called the boom-and-bust cycle. Most often a measure of change in a country’s gross domestic product (GDP), the business cycle is a tool used by investors and business managers to analyze the performance of the economy and to make spending and investment decisions. Though business cycles cannot be predicted, forecasting when an economy will expand or contract and knowing when key turning points have arrived is important for consumers and business. The wave pattern of a business cycle can be measured in length from peak to peak, or trough to trough, in terms of months and years. On average, cycles last just over 7 years, though there is no definitive time frame for how long they usually last.

The Battle of Batoche, 9–12 May 1885, was the last major action of the North-West Resistance. Under the leadership of Louis Riel, Métis and their First Nations allies were defeated by government troops.

The Manitoba Act provided for the admission of Manitoba as Canada’s fifth province. It received royal assent and became law on 12 May 1870. It marked the legal resolution of the struggle for self-determination between people of the Red River Colony and the federal government, which began with Canada’s purchase of Rupert’s Land in 1870. The Act contained protections for the region’s Métis. However, these protections were not fully realized. As a result, many Métis left the province for the North-West Territories.

Rooster Town was a largely Métis community that existed on the southwest fringes of suburban Winnipeg from 1901 until the late 1950s. While there were numerous urban Métis fringe communities on the Prairies and in British Columbia, their history has been relatively forgotten. (See also Métis Road Allowance Communities.)

The Great Lone Land: A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America, by William Francis Butler, appeared 1872 in London.

The Red River Resistance (also known as the Red River Rebellion) was an uprising in 1869–70 in the Red River Colony. The resistance was sparked by the transfer of the vast territory of Rupert’s Land to the new Dominion of Canada. The colony of farmers and hunters, many of them Métis, occupied a corner of Rupert’s Land and feared for their culture and land rights under Canadian control. The Métis mounted a resistance and declared a provisional government to negotiate terms for entering Confederation. The uprising led to the creation of the province of Manitoba, and the emergence of Métis leader Louis Riel — a hero to his people and many in Quebec, but an outlaw in the eyes of the Canadian government.

The Northwest Territories (NWT) entered Confederation in 1870 after Canada acquired Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory from the Hudson’s Bay Company. The smaller territory now known as the NWT is what remains after the creation of several other provinces and territories out of the original 1870 lands.

Alberta joined Confederation along with Saskatchewan in 1905, when the two new provinces were created out of a section of the Northwest Territories.

The colony of British Columbia was founded in 1858 in response to the Fraser River Gold Rush. (See also The Fraser River Gold Rush and the Founding of British Columbia.) The colony established representative government in 1864 and merged with the colony of Vancouver Island in 1866. In May 1868, Amor De Cosmos formed the Confederation League to bring responsible government to BC and to join Confederation. In September 1868, the Confederation League passed 37 resolutions outlining the terms for a union with the Dominion of Canada. The terms were passed by both the BC assembly and the federal Parliament in 1871. The colony joined Canada as the country’s sixth province on 20 July 1871. The threat of American annexation, embodied by the Alaska purchase of 1867, and the promise of a railway linking BC to the rest of Canada, were decisive factors.

New Brunswick became one of the founding members of the Dominion of Canada on 1 July 1867 when it joined Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec in Confederation. Arthur Hamilton Gordon, the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, helped organize the Charlottetown Conference (1–9 September 1864), where a federal union of British North American colonies was first discussed. By 1865, however, a majority in the New Brunswick legislature had swung against it. Albert Smith defeated pro-Confederation premier Samuel Tilley in a snap election that year. But the Fenian Raids in 1866 fueled New Brunswick’s sense of insecurity and increased support for Confederation. After Tilley’s party won another election in 1866, the legislature voted 38–1 in favour of Confederation.

Québec became one of the founding members of the Dominion of Canada on 1 July 1867 when it joined New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Ontario in Confederation.

Ontario became one of the founding members of the Dominion of Canada on 1 July 1867 when it joined New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Québec in Confederation.

Saskatchewan joined Confederation along with Alberta in 1905, when the two new provinces were carved out of the Northwest Territories (NWT).

Nunavut — meaning "our land" in the Inuit language Inuktitut — entered Confederation in 1999 as Canada's third territory and newest member of the country.

Yukon entered Confederation in 1898, after a gold rush boom led Canada to create a second northern territory out of the Northwest Territories (NWT).