The Hudson's Bay Company embarked upon a policy of fortifying its coastal factories in 1718. The stone fort at Churchill, Fort Prince of Wales, was the most elaborate example of this policy. Construction began in 1732 and continued for the next four decades. It was destroyed by a French attack in 1782. The photograph shows a partially reconstructed fort now open to visitors at Churchill, Manitoba.
As Canadian traders established post after post in the West the results were felt at Hudson Bay posts such as York Factory where the supply of furs dropped by half. In response the Company stuck with its policy of encouraging Indians to journey to the coast to trade but Factors such as James Isham advised the Company's Governor and Committee to carry the competition with Canadian traders inland. In 1754 Anthony Henday was sent on a mission, similar to that taken earlier by Henry Kelsey, to encourage the Blackfoot to come to trade at York Factory. Henday's journal reported on circumstances as far west as present day Alberta. He concluded that inland competition was necessary to overcome the entrenched traders of the St. Lawrence trading system and to permit Indians in the interior to bypass the Cree who were jealously guarding their role as intermediaries. No change in policy was made however, since the outbreak of the Seven Years' War severely limited the ability of the MontrÄal-based traders to compete. The final fall of Quebec in 1759 put a temporary end to the St. Lawrence-based western trade and it appeared that the fur resources of the western interior would pass unchallenged into the hands of the Hudson's Bay Company.
