HBC Royal Charter welcomed in ceremony at Manitoba Museum

By Ian Bickis A 356-year-old document that granted the Hudson’s Bay Co. control over roughly one-third of Canada is now in public hands. The HBC Royal Charter was unveiled Thursday at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg in a ceremony that was both a celebration of the new life of the document and a reflection on the troubled legacy it created. “In 1670, a king, sitting across the ocean, claimed authority over our lands,” said Ovide Mercredi, former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. “Through the so-called right of discovery, vast territories were granted to the Hudson’s Bay Company, …