Port Nelson, Manitoba

"August 15, 1612 Captain Thomas Button seeking for a harbour on the west coast of Hudson's Bay in which he might repair damages incurred during a severe storm, discovered the mouth of a large river which he designated Port Nelson, from the name of the master of his ship whom he buried there.

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.

[4] 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.

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.

[5] A Hudson's Bay Company post was established in 1682 in a context of intense local competition, both from the French Compagnie du Nord (intent on the Hayes River) and from a group of independent New England traders.

Another setback was the necessity to completely redesign the harbour because the fast flowing Nelson River was building up silt on both sides of the wharf.

[1] 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.

[1] In 1989 Parks Canada began the York Factory Oral History Project which included compiling stories by Swampy Cree Elders.