‘Not meant to be’: Manitoba Museum reflects as Bay charter heads elsewhere

By Tara Deschamps The Manitoba Museum might have one of the largest collections of Hudson’s Bay artifacts, but its CEO isn’t bitter the defunct retailer’s crown jewel isn’t destined for her institution. There will soon be a new home for the 355-year-old royal charter that birthed the Bay, giving it extraordinary control over a vast swath of unceded lands — and enormous influence over settlers’ early relations with Indigenous Peoples. It will wind up at the Canadian Museum of History, pending court approval of a plan to let the Weston family buy the charter and donate it to the Gatineau, Que., organization. “I’m glad that it has ended up at a museum. I think that’s important,” said Dorota Blumczynska, CEO of the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg. “But I’m not going…

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