Photo: Facebook / Kamloops History

The Bay moved into its location at Seymour Street and Fourth Avenue in 1957. The building would later house the Kamloops Daily News, and the lot will soon become home to a performing arts centre.

From a fur trading fort that laid the foundations for a modern-day city to a major retail player, the Hudson's Bay Company has been an established presence in Kamloops for more than 200 years.

But those deep roots could be unceremoniously severed if the company's plan to liquidate its Aberdeen Mall department store is realized.

After revealing severe financial struggles through a court filing for creditor protection, Canada’s oldest company unveiled a restructuring plan Friday that would see only six of its 80 Hudson’s Bay stores remain open — all of them in Ontario and Quebec. The remainder would begin liquidation on Monday.

The closure of the Aberdeen Mall store would mark the end of a very long era. The Hudson’s Bay Company set up shop in Kamloops in 1821, when the fur trading giant merged with its rival, the Montreal-based North West Company.

As part of the merger, HBC took over a North West post established in 1812 by David Stuart and Alexander Ross near the confluence of the Thompson rivers.

HBC built a new fort northeast of the river junction after the initial structure, located near the foot of Mount Paul, was found to be in poor repair. But by the late 1820s, the fort was struggling due to a marked decrease in the local beaver population.

Early crisis averted

In her book The Mighty Company: Kamloops and the Hudson’s Bay Company, prolific archivist Mary Balf said George Simpson, then the governor of HBC, visited Kamloops in 1828 while investigating navigable waterways.

Balf noted the “initial excellent fur returns from the district had very drastically diminished” due to over-trapping and the establishment of rival posts elsewhere in the region.

But Archibald McDonald, who was in charge of the Thompson River Post at the time, smooth-talked his way out of a potential closure. Balf wrote that he was "able to dissuade Simpson from his intention to abandon the post as unproductive.”

The Kamloops post was kept open, used as a stopping point for brigades and a feeding and breeding ground for horses that would take traders east through rugged terrain.

The location also became a key link in the communication system of the company’s posts.

To the North Shore

In 1842, a new fort was constructed northwest of the Thompson River confluence under the direction of John Tod.

Timber was floated down the North Thompson River to build the structure, which was located on a point of land between present-day Fort Avenue and the Henry Grube Education Centre.

The fort was said to have included 15-foot palisades and two bastions.

HBC is credited with establishing modern agriculture in the area in the mid-19th century, cultivating grasses for those horses and importing cattle for beef and dairy production. Company men later found success planting potatoes, peas, carrots, onions and melons, among other crops.

By the 1860s, gold had been discovered in nearby Tranquille Creek and the fort had to adapt to meet the needs of a new growing population. A replacement post was built in 1863 on the south bank of the Thompson River on Mission Flats.

Downtown shopping

HBC built a retail shop on Victoria Street in 1880. In 1894, the store moved further east to a two-storey brick building near First Avenue.

In 1912, The Hudson’s Bay Company storefront moved again, this time to the southwest corner of Victoria Street and Second Avenue.

The company remained there until 1957, when it moved into a new building constructed at Seymour Street and Fourth Avenue.

It cost about $750,000 to build the 45,000-square-foot palace, lauded in the Kamloops Daily Sentinel as being “one of the most modern department stores in the Interior of B.C.”

An ad in the Sentinel noted the store boasted a housewares department and a sporting goods department, also selling gardening supplies, furniture and appliances.

A quarter-century after the move, the two-storey building at Second and VIctoria was destroyed in a fire.

More than 40 years in mall

In 1979, The Bay announced it would be moving out of downtown Kamloops, joining Woodward’s as anchor tenants at the yet-to-be-constructed Aberdeen Mall.

As reported in The Kamloops News, Aberdeen Mall’s general manager promised the $30-million mall “would not be the death knell of the downtown,” although concerns to the contrary swirled among business owners and some on city council.

Aberdeen Mall opened its doors in 1981, and that's where The Bay has remained ever since.

The building at 393 Seymour St. sat vacant for a dozen years before the Kamloops Daily News moved in. It was purchased by the city and torn down shortly after the newspaper closed in 2014.

The lot is now slated to become home to the Kamloops Centre for the Performing Arts, with groundbreaking for that project expected sometime this year.

The Hudson’s Bay store in Aberdeen Mall was closed for half of last year due to strike action, reopening in June after a mediator helped hammer out a deal.

Liquidation at the store, which employs more than 30 people, is expected to begin on Monday.

On Friday, the store's union representative called news of the impending closure "absolutely devastating — not only for our members, but for the entire city of Kamloops and the surrounding area."

Photo: Castanet

A striking worker outside the Hudson's Bay Company store at Aberdeen Mall in January of 2024.