Settling Down

	HBC History
	Introduction Trading Getting Around Settling Down Taking Care of Business
	December, 1930 HBC Farm Lands advertisement

The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) played an important role in the settlement and urban development of western Canada. In 1811 it granted a vast estate in the Assiniboine Basin to one of its controlling stock-holders, the Earl of Selkirk (1771–1820). Selkirk was a Scottish nobleman who wished to settle displaced Highlanders on the fertile lands surrounding the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, now the site of Winnipeg. The HBC assumed control of the colony at Red River from Selkirk's estate in 1836 and continued to administer it until Red River joined the Canadian Confederation in 1870.

By the terms of the Deed of Surrender, which came into effect in 1870, the HBC surrendered its territorial rights in Rupert's Land to the Crown. In compensation it was granted blocks of land around its fur trade posts. Some of these posts developed into important cities such as Victoria, Edmonton and Winnipeg. The HBC was also granted almost seven million acres of farm land in the "Fertile Belt" of the southern prairies. Farm land and town lot sales were a major part of their business for some decades.