It was located on the west bank of the Churchill River to protect and control the HBC's interests in the fur trade.

[3] The cannon were massive, some weighing as much as 2,500 kg (5,500 lb), built to fire nine, eighteen and 24-pound balls.

Three French warships of the expedition, led by Jean-François de La Pérouse, captured the Prince of Wales Fort in 1782.

The French partially destroyed the fort, but its mostly-intact ruins survive to this day.

Thereafter, its importance waned with the decline in the fur trade although the post was refounded a little way up the river.

Opposite the fort across the mouth of the Churchill River is Cape Merry Battery.

[6] A series of journals written by explorer Samuel Hearne on a journey from Prince of Wales Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean was published by the Champlain Society in 1911.

[7] Charles Tuttle's 1885 book Our North Land describes the fort at that time.