Hudson Bay High Sea

The open waters of Hudson Bay connected a vast northern drainage basin with Atlantic shipping through Hudson Strait. Henry Hudson explored the bay in 1610 aboard Discovery, seeking a route towards Asia. The ship wintered in James Bay, but in June 1611 mutineers set Hudson and several companions adrift; their fate remains unknown.

Commercial ventures later gave these waters a different purpose. Nonsuch reached the bay in 1668 and traded for beaver pelts, helping lead to the formation of the Hudson's Bay Company. Its royal charter of 1670 granted a trading monopoly across the watershed known as Rupert's Land.

River-mouth posts became meeting places where Indigenous trappers exchanged furs for imported goods, and ships carried the pelts to Europe. France challenged the English claim through military expeditions before abandoning its claim under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Across the wider bay, navigation was therefore tied to seasonal ice, inland river trade and the competition of empires over access to northern produce.