Early history Port Nelson was named by
Thomas Button who wintered there in 1612.
First expedition (1670) The French explorers and fur traders
Pierre-Esprit Radisson and
Médard des Groseilliers had scouted the area, learning from local indigenous contacts that the Nelson River area had great commercial potential. At the time, much of the focus of early expeditions was on the "bottom of the bay", and a succession of early posts was established near the south end of
James Bay, starting with Charles Fort (
Rupert House) in 1668. This was the closest part of
Hudson Bay to
New France, and could be reached via inland river routes, as was done during
the 1686 French expedition which captured the English posts on James Bay. The Nelson River, meanwhile, provided a route to the western interior of what is now Manitoba. The devastation of
Huronia in the 1640s by the
Iroquois during the
Beaver Wars had decimated a major ally of the French, the Huron, and weakened their fur trade connections to the interior. This had encouraged Radisson and des Groseilliers to explore further into the interior, with the pair penetrating far into the (the Upper Country, geographically interpreted around the
Great Lakes waterways), reaching
Lake Superior via inland routes in 16591660 and making contact with the
Sioux. Radisson, however, had also set his sights on an expedition via the maritime route to Hudson Bay through the
Hudson Strait, and was pursuing English or Dutch financing to do so. The adventurism of Radisson and des Groseilliers had been opposed by the institutional authorities in the colony of New France, leading to their fining and the imprisonment of des Groseilliers following their return from a successful expedition with a fortune in fursfurs which possibly had saved the colony from financial collapse. This set in motion the Frenchmen's association with mariners from the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, including
Zachariah Gillam, who captained the
Nonsuch on the 1668 expedition with des Groseilliers, which led to the establishment of Charles Fort. The
Hudson's Bay Company was formed in 1670.
Charles Bayly was appointed as the first overseas governor of the company in May, and by June a new expedition had been dispatched. This consisted of two ships, the
Wivenhoe (with Radisson and Bayly aboard) along with the
Prince Rupert (captained by Gillam, with des Groseilliers aboard). The convoy reached the western end of the Hudson Strait by August 18, where it split up. The
Prince Rupert proceeded successfully to Charles Fort, whilst the
Wivenhoe sought the Nelson estuary. The
Wivenhoe struggled with fog and poor winds, and was delayed in finding the Nelson. Eventually, in September, it did so, and Bayly was able to go ashore and nail a brass plate of the English royal arms to a tree, thus claiming the territory for England. By this time, however, the local indigenous people had already begun their seasonal migration inland in advance of winter, making it impossible for trading to take place at the estuary. Discouraged, the expedition departed for Charles Fort, having not resulted in even a single seasonal trading operation.
Later expeditions A
Hudson's Bay Company post was established in 1682 in a context of intense local competition, both from the French (intent on the Hayes River) and from a group of independent
New England traders. The New England traders under Benjamin Gillam were focused on the Nelson, but were out-manoeuvred and captured by the French under
Pierre-Esprit Radisson. It was during the period from 1660–1870 – when many
Assiniboine and
Swampy Cree trappers and hunters became middlemen in the Hudson's Bay Company
fur trade economy in Western Canada – that the Cree began to be referred to as "three distinct groups: the Woodland Cree, the Plains Cree, and the Swampy Cree." The Swampy Cree and the Assiniboine used the Nelson River, along with the Hayes River, as the main inland routes to the great inland lake,
Lake Winnipeg. Although the Nelson is much larger, the Hayes was a better route into the interior. Therefore, most of the
Hudson's Bay Company's trade was done from
York Factory on the Hayes, which was built in 1684. In 1694-95
Father Marest recorded "The Assiniboine are thirty-five or forty days journey from the fort [Port Nelson]." "For more than two hundred years, from two to five sailing vessels, on an average, frequently with war ships conveying them, have sailed annually from Europe and America to Port Nelson, or other ports in Hudson's Bay and returned with cargoes the same season via the only available route, Hudson's Straits." When Canada entered the
First World War, it resulted in further material and labour shortages, and more significantly, the loss of political and financial support. The project was able to continue a few more years until 1918 when all work stopped and the site was abandoned. The whole project was greatly criticized by several politicians, the media, which called it a "gigantic blunder", and even the project's chief engineer. The Hudson Bay Railway never reached Port Nelson and its tracks lay abandoned until 1927 when Churchill was chosen to become the northern shipping hub. Construction on the railway was restarted in 1927 and completed in 1929. In 1989 Parks Canada began the York Factory Oral History Project which included compiling stories by Swampy Cree Elders. Flora Beardy, a York Factory Cree woman conducted interviews with fourteen elders, some of whom lived in Port Nelson. ==See also==