Shoppers look for pieces of history at Hudson’s Bay stores

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Empty shelves and idle escalators greeted shoppers Monday as they poked through Hudson’s Bay stores looking for bargains and perhaps a piece of history.

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In Edmonton, some racks at two Bay locations were picked clean as a mere handful of older men and women took advantage of 40%, 50%, 60% and even 70% discounts.

The company’s wool blankets with green, red, yellow and indigo stripes on a white background were largely sold out. The blankets were first crafted in the mid-19th century.

“It’s a crying shame,” shopper Susan Carpenter said. “It’s going to be a big loss.”

Carpenter, who is originally from Montreal, said her grandmother used to work as a telephone switchboard operator at a store in Quebec’s largest city. Carpenter also worked there during the Christmas season in 1971.

“It was a big deal,” she said. “It still, to me, is a big deal.”

Hudson’s Bay Co., the country’s oldest retailer, is seeking to fully liquidate its shelves, putting thousands of jobs in jeopardy at 80-plus stores across the country.

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A hearing at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ended on Monday without a final decision on whether it will allow the company to liquidate the $315 million of inventory it has left.

Amanda Valette, a shopper in Edmonton, said when she was a baby, her mother used to drop her off at the in-store daycare while she shopped in the 1960s.

She said while it’s sad to see the store go, it was time because the prices had become too expensive.

“People don’t go to a department store to spend $300 on a blouse,” she said.

In downtown Vancouver, a small group of customers waited outside for the Bay’s six-storey flagship store to open. Among them was Julie Bagyan, a brand loyalist for more than 35 years.

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She said Hudson’s Bay was the first department store she encountered after moving to Canada from the Philippines in 1988.

“My best memory is when they’d have sales on Boxing Day, and I lined up for that because I’d get good discounts on the branded items that I like to buy,” said Bagyan.

Inside the store — the B.C. flagship among 16 branches in the province — it appeared to be business as usual. But neither the elevator nor escalators were working, leaving customers to trudge up six flights of stairs to reach the menswear section at the top.

Historian Stephen Bown says losing the Bay is the end of an institution that has existed since 1670 — nearly 200 years before Canada was born.

“It’s an architectural (and) physical portal into understanding the whole past,” said Bown, author of The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson’s Bay Empire.

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No company has been more deeply entwined with Canadian history, for better and worse, he said. It’s a point more poignant of late as U.S. President Donald Trump has openly mused about annexing Canada and turning it into America’s “51st state.”

When the border between Canada and the U.S. was being settled, Bown said, Hudson’s Bay Co. provided a “legal and cultural foundation” for Great Britain’s argument against the United States’ belief it was the country’s right to control North America.

“In one sense, back then it prevented us from becoming the 51st state, although it would have been more like the 46th state at the time,” said the Canmore, Alta.-based author.

Nevertheless, the company’s downfall means Canada would be losing an artifact that precedes its existence, Bown said.

“Without a visible reminder of the fact that it existed, I’m afraid that it might get lost.”

— With files from Aaron Sousa and David Boles in Edmonton, Brittany Hobson in Winnipeg and Nono Shen in Vancouver.

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