Moose Factory Buildings, Moose Factory, Ontario

Founded in 1673 on traditional Môsonîw Ililiw (Cree) lands, Moose Factory is the second oldest Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) post in what is now Canada. Originally called Moose Fort, today the national historic site consists of a staff house, built in 1847-50, and a powder magazine, built in 1865-66.

Shortly after the company’s founding in 1670, Pierre-Esprit Radisson, an HBC employee based at Fort Rupert, and Charles Bayly, Governor of the HBC in North America, travelled to the area to trade with the Ililiw. In 1673, the HBC established a permanent post there, calling it Moose Fort. The Ililiw played an important role in the survival of the post. In addition to trading furs, they supplied necessary provisions and labour. The traders remained dependent on Indigenous Peoples for knowledge and food supplies throughout the 1700s.

The post was established at a time when keen competition existed between the London-based HBC and French-Canadian fur traders. With its strategic location on an island near the mouth of the Moose River, it was in a position to intercept furs that might have been traded in Montréal. In 1686, it was captured by Pierre de Troyes, on orders from the governor of New France, and renamed Fort Saint-Louis. The post exchanged hands between the English and the French several more times until 1713, when it was finally ceded to the English by the Treaty of Utrecht.

The Hudson’s Bay Company did not reoccupy Moose Factory until the early 1730s. After a fire, it was rebuilt on its present location in 1735. By the 1770s, relying on the expertise of the Ililiw, it was supplying inland posts built to compete with the North West Company. In the early 19th century, it became the headquarters for the HBC’s Southern Department. After the two companies merged in 1821, Moose Factory became a supply point for posts inland as far as Lake Timiskaming on the Ottawa River watershed.

The staff house was constructed in the mid-19th century to provide shelter for the doctors, ship captains, clerks, and secretaries that came to Moose Factory from Great Britain to work on five-year work contracts. This two-storey building was constructed using traditional British ship-building techniques: horizontal squared logs were pinned together using steel spikes, then the joints between the timbers were chinked with oakum, a tar and jute fibre mixture used for caulking seams in wooden ships. Clapboard siding provided additional weatherproofing. The powder magazine was initially used to store gunpowder, and was built away from the main settlement to avoid fire.

In the early 1930s, the completion of the Timiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway to Moosonee, across the Moose River from Moose Factory Island, ended the isolation of Moose Factory and began its transition from a fur trade post to a settled service-type economy. The staff house continued to be used as a residence until 1977, when it was transferred to the Province of Ontario. In 1979 and 1980, archaeological excavations on the grounds of the staff house revealed over 40,000 artifacts, representing the centuries of trade between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations, as well as the lifestyles of the HBC employees at the staff house.