CAA Manitoba Summer 2018 | Page 58

by the way white building on otherwise empty tundra, was erected in 1684 as one of the first fur-trading posts of the Hudson’s Bay Company. While its significance in Canadian history is often sidelined—perhaps due to its remote location at the mouth of the Hayes River—it played a huge role in opening up western North America. Until the mid-19th century, everything entering the west from Europe travelled through York Factory. A visit today is as entertaining as it is edifying. Take a peek at colonial life during Manitoba’s fur-trading heyday York FactorY, an expansive 58 Summer 2018 CAA mANITOBA inside the pristine main building. Here you’ll find 100,000 historical artifacts ranging from cannon balls, clay pipes and square nails to fine china and cast iron stoves. The neighbouring cemetery houses hundreds of mostly unmarked graves of traders and members of the Cree First Nation who once lived at the post and its surrounding settlement. The complex remained a working Hudson’s Bay Company outpost until 1957 and you can still find some area elders who lived in and worked at the factory. —Karen Burshtein The It Factory