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IN QUEST OF FUR.
A LONG TRADITION ENDED HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY - .
CHANGE
FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT ARDROSSAN.
JUNE 16th 1932
This afternoon Mr. P. Ashley Cooper, Governor of Hudson's Bay Company, and Mr. C. Chadwick Brooks, secretary of the company, who had flown from London, attended a luncheon on board the company's steamer
NASCOPIE in Ardrossan Harbour.
The NASCOPIE sails to-morrow morning for Montreal, and thence to the company's fur
trading posts in the Arctic to collect furs from the traders.
In previous years she returned to Ardrossan with her cargo of furs, but the company has now arranged to ship the furs each year to London by the regular liners.
The departure of the NASCOPIE tomorrow will therefore be the last sailing of a
Hudson's Bay Company's steamer from this country, and it was to mark this special
occasion that Mr. Cooper paid his visit to-day.
The Nascopie, of 2,600 tons gross register, was built at Newcastle in 1912.
She is a shelter deck steamer with freeboard, and her length is 285-ft., with a sheered bow
in the form of an ice-breaker and strengthened in the fore part internally and externally.
She is specially suitable for navigating the ice-fields during her three months' voyage
each year round the trading posts in the Arctic.
The luncheon yesterday, was attended by representatives of shipping, county, and
municipal interests.
Mr. ASHLEY COOPER. Who welcomed the guests, said that on March 30, 1668,
The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England, Trading into Hudson's Bay,
purchased for ?290, their first vessel, the NONSUCH, a ketch of about 50 tons.
On June 3 of that year she set sail-with 42 souls on board carrying the British flag to the
shores of Hudson Bay. Since that date the company's ships had left these shores regularly
with supplies of merchandise, &c., for the fur trading posts, returning with cargoes of fine
furs. With modern improvements in communication and transport it was no longer
necessary for them to send a ship from this side, and to-day, therefore, they broke with a
tradition which was 265 years old.
USE OF THE AEROPLANE
His present visit marked a definite link between the old and the new. He had just arrived
from London by aeroplane and last year during a visit to some of the 230, fur posts
operated by the company in the far north of Canada, the first time a governor of the
company had visited the North-West Territories.
He had been able to accomplish by aeroplane-in a matter of days what would have required
the same number of months by the old methods. That was why he regarded the aeroplane
as a, permanent part of the company's equipment.
Referring to the world crisis, he said the Hudson's Bay Company had not escaped without
trouble, but they did not despair, for the old company had survived many crises more
serious than those occasioned by falling prices, and he believed the present crisis would
pass.
Speaking of the disappearance of their London shipping interests, he said that during the
War the company organised large shipping services, and from 1915 to 1919 the goods
transported exceeded 13,000,000 tons.
Besides passengers and troops, by December, 1919, there were 286 vessels loading under
their organisation, with an aggregate deadweight tonnage of 1,158,000.
Ten ships were lost by enemy attack, but the company's vessels occasionally had there
revenge.
Mr. Cooper, in conclusion wished Captain Smellie, the officers, and crew ?Godspeed " on
their voyage.
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