The now-defunct Hudson’s Bay Company occupied different places in Canadians’ hearts. A staple of every major Canadian city, the Company owned a lot of our most valuable real estate, and sold us a lot of our most treasured holiday gifts. The Bay’s long history of colonial fashions created quite a striking visual brand, recognizable across decades. Frances Ford Coppola was photographed wearing a coat with Hudson’s Bay stripes while filming The Godfather Part II in 1974, but you probably know the stripes from the blanket on the back of your aunt’s couch.

The Hudson’s Bay Company was the oldest corporation in North America. It was founded in 1670, and for many, the colonial history stained every blanket. Though professor Paul Hackett from the University of Saskatchewan said he never found evidence the HBC purposely infected blankets with smallpox during early trade with First Nations people, he also said he can’t guarantee it never happened. Regardless, early trade histories between the first Canadian corporation and First Nations left the blanket fraught with controversy for many: the Hudson’s Bay Company stripes appear often in contemporary works by Indigenous artists, including the work of Rosalie Favell.

The blankets for sale in the HBC’s upcoming liquidation auction aren’t nearly as old as those that may have spread disease in Canada’s establishing years, but some date back as early as 1900. They will help the now-over Hudson’s Bay to repay their creditors, and are only worth about $300-$500 each. More valuable in the auction will be the paintings, some of which are expected to sell for up to $600,000. It’s worth noting that one of these paintings is of “Frobisher Bay”, now known properly as Iqaluit. British “explorers” named the Bay themselves, without a single care for the people who came before them.

There is a quiet poetic justice in the shuttering of the Hudson’s Bay, the undignified segmenting and sale of its parts, a certain symmetry to the colonizers’ chopping and skewing of this land. Canada has outlived the need for its oldest corporation, and I think we should ask ourselves: would running Canada like a business actually do us any good? Even the greatest corporation our country has ever known, the one we built all our trade laws to benefit, was unable to keep up with the ever-changing world.