VISIT TO CANADA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 April 1939, Page 9

VISIT TO CANADA

COMING TOUR BY KING. PRESENTATIONS BY HUDSON BAY COMPANY. WINNIPEG. When his Majesty, King George VI passes through here in May he will be presented with two elk heads and twe black beaver pells in fulfilling the annual obligations of the Hudson Bay Company under its charter dated May 2, 1670. This section of the Charter, in its early English spelling, deals with territory granted it “in free and common Soccage and not in Capite or b> Knightes Service yielding and paying yearly to us our heires and successors for the same two Elks and two Black beavers whensoever and as often as Wee our heires and successors shall happen to enter into the said Countryes Territoryes and Regions hereby granted.” This will be only the second occasion on which the jludson Bay Comoany will have been able thus to fi,’fill its obligations to the Crown. In 1927. two elk heads and two black beaver skins were presented to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. For the royal, visit of 1939, two magnificently branch ed elk heads have been procured without much difficulty. Black beaver are however, now extremely rare and ou' of 16,000 pelts examined only one was found that satisfied the fur graders. Attempts are now being made to matef this skin. The Hudson Bay Company, originally known as “The Company of Adventur ■ ers of England trading in the Hudson Bay,” was granted by its charter of 1670 “sole Trade and Commerce of all those Seas Streightes Bayes Rivers Lakes Creekes and Soundes in whatesoever Latitude they shall bee that lie within the entrance of the Streightes commonly called Hudsons Streightes." The original charter remained unchanged until during the reign of Queen Victoria when it was amended to conform to changing conditions.