Hudson Bay
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In late spring (May), large chunks of ice float near the eastern shore of the bay, while to the west, the center of the bay remains frozen. Between 1971 and 2003, the length of the ice-free season in the southwestern part of the Hudson Bayâ€"always the last area to thawâ€"had increased by about 3 days. |
Hudson Bay (French:
baie d'Hudson) is a large, relatively shallow body of water (1.23 million km²) in northeastern
Canada. It drains a very large area that includes parts of
Ontario,
Quebec,
Saskatchewan,
Alberta, most of
Manitoba, parts of
North Dakota and
Minnesota, and the southeastern area of
Nunavut. A smaller offshoot of the bay,
James Bay, lies to the south. The
IHO lists Hudson Bay as part of the
Arctic Ocean. On the east it is connected with the
Atlantic Ocean by
Hudson Strait, and on the north with the rest of the Arctic Ocean by Foxe Channel (which is not considered part of the bay) and
Fury and Hecla Strait.
Geographic coordinates: 78° to 95° W, 51° to 70° N.
The
Cree name for the bay is
Wiinipekw, "muddy water," a name also used for
Lake Winnipeg.
Hudson Bay was named after
Henry Hudson, who explored the bay in
1610 on his ship the
Discovery. On this fourth voyage he worked his way around the west coast of
Greenland and into the bay, mapping much of its eastern coast. The
Discovery became trapped in the ice over the winter, and the crew survived onshore at the southern tip of James Bay. When the ice cleared in the spring Hudson wanted to explore the rest of the area, but the crew
mutinied on
June 22,
1611.
Sixty years later the
Nonsuch reached the bay and successfully traded for
beaver pelts with the
Cree. This led to the creation of the
Hudson's Bay Company, which bears its name to this day. The British crown awarded a trading monopoly on the Hudson Bay
watershed, called
Rupert's Land, to the Hudson's Bay Company. France contested this grant by sending several military expeditions to the region, but abandoned its claim in the
Treaty of Utrecht (April,
1713).
During this period, the Hudson's Bay Company built several
forts and
trading posts along the coast at the mouth of the major rivers (such as
Fort Severn, Ontario,
York Factory, Manitoba, and
Churchill, Manitoba). The strategic locations allowed inland exploration and more importantly, facilitated trade with the indigenous people, who would bring fur to the posts from where the HBC would transport it directly to Europe (which incidently is a shorter distance than from
Montreal). The HBC continued to use these posts until the beginning of the 20th century.
This land, an area of approximately 3.9 million km
2, was ceded in
1870 to
Canada as part of the
Northwest Territories when the trade monopoly was abolished. Due to a change in naming conventions, Hudson's Bay is now correctly called Hudson Bay. As a result, both the body of water and the company are often misnamed.
Waters
Hudson Bay has a
salinity that is lower than the world ocean on average. This is caused mainly by the: 1) low rate of evaporation (the bay is ice-covered for much of the year), 2) the large volume of terrestrial runoff entering the bay (about 700 km³ annually; the
Hudson Bay watershed covers much of
Canada, with many rivers and streams discharging into the bay) and the annual melt of
sea ice provides a significant source of fresher water to the surface layer (about three times as much as the rivers), and 3) limited connection with the larger Atlantic Ocean (and its higher
salinity).
Shores
The western shores of the bay are a lowland known as the "Hudson Bay Lowlands" which covers
324,000 km². The area is drained by a large number of rivers and has formed a characteristic vegetation known as
muskeg. Much of the landform has been shaped by the actions of
glaciers and the shrinkage of the bay over long periods of time. Signs of numerous former beachfronts can be seen far inland from the current shore. A large portion of the lowlands is part of the
Polar Bear Provincial Park.
In contrast, most of the eastern shores (the Quebec portion) form the western edge of the
Canadian Shield in Quebec. The area is rocky and hilly. Its vegetation is typically
boreal forest, and to the north,
tundra.
Islands
There are many islands in Hudson Bay, mostly near the eastern coast. All are part of the territory
Nunavut. The main group of islands is known as the
Belcher Islands.
The coast of Hudson Bay is extremely sparsely populated. There are only about a dozen villages. Some of these were founded in the 17th and 18th centuries by the Hudson's Bay Company as trading posts, making them part of the oldest settlements in Canada. With the closure of the HBC posts and stores in the second half of the 20th century, the coastal villages are now almost exclusively populated by
Cree and
Inuit people.
Some of the more prominent communities along the Hudson Bay coast are:
*
Puvirnituq, Quebec*
Churchill, Manitoba*
Rankin Inlet, NunavutMilitary development
Not until the
Cold War was there any military significance attributed to the region. In the 1950s, a few sites along the coast became part of the
Mid-Canada Line, defending North America against a potential Soviet attack over the North Pole.
*
Canada Hudson Bay drainageAtlas of Canada,
online version.
