Search for "New France"

The fur trade began in the 1600s in what is now Canada. It continued for more than 250 years. Europeans traded with Indigenous people for beaver pelts. The demand for felt hats in Europe drove this business. The fur trade was one of the main reasons that Europeans explored and colonized Canada. It built relationships between Europeans and Indigenous peoples.

(This article is a plain-language summary of the fur trade. If you are interested in reading about this topic in more depth, please see our full-length entry, Fur Trade in Canada.)

When Capt. Jack Deighton and his family pulled their canoe onto the south shore of the Burrrard Inlet in 1867, Jack was on one more search for riches. He had been a sailor on British and American ships, rushed for gold in California and the Cariboo, piloted boats on the Fraser River and ran a tavern in New Westminster. He was broke again, but he wasted no time in starting a new business and building the settlement that would become Vancouver.

 XY Company (New North West Co), named after the marks used to distinguish its bales of goods from those of the NORTH WEST COMPANY, was a product of conflicts between NWC agents (led by Simon MCTAVISH) and NWC winterers, following the company's reorganization in 1795.

Military engineers constructed the first public works, tiny locks, at the rapids on the Soulanges section of the St Lawrence River. These locks were started in 1779 by a British regiment, the Royal Engineers, for Governor Haldimand.

Fisheries drew the first Europeans to what is now Canada, and still sustain large coastal and inland regions.

The Hudson’s Bay Company staked its claim to the northeast corner of Georgia and Granville in 1893. Through changes in fashion, technology and politics — as well as some architectural refinements — it has remained there ever since.