Hudson's Bay Company Department Store

10230 Jasper Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta

By: Ryan Krawchuk 

This icon in the heart of downtown has been there for as long as I can remember. I can remember going there with my mother to buy my school clothes and supplies. The Hudson’s Bay Company Department Store is a three-story stone and granite building occupying an entire city block on the corner of Jasper Avenue and 102 Street NW. It holds a special significance to Edmonton because of its connection with the Hudson’s Bay Company (H.B.C.), without whom Edmonton would not have existed.

In 1795, the City of Edmonton was first established as an H.B.C. fort, and the growth of the city was nearly directly linked to the growth of the company. The H.B.C. Company built its first store outside the fort on Jasper Avenue and 98 Street in 1890. The current building is actually the third incarnation of that location. The Hudson's Bay Company Department Store building’s large size was a reflection of the popularity and importance to the community. The department store operated from 1939 to the store closure in 1984.

On November 14, 1939, a crowd of over 20,000 men, women, and children (nearly a full quarter of the city’s population) gathered to celebrate the opening of the fourth store that the H.B.C. company had built in the city. The visitors to the build would have been treated to the smooth lines of black Quebec granite and Manitoba Tyndall limestone cladding the walls. Over each entrance, hand-carved ornamental murals depicting scenes from the history of Canada’s most famous trading company. When the front doors opened, guests rushed in as if they were “entering the city's fairgrounds on a summer afternoon," reported the Edmonton Bulletin. Few people who joined the "clamour and pushing and laughter and good-humour" came to see the architecture or even a new retail store, they came to be a part of something much bigger, an addition to the community that would stand the test of time.

The Hudson's Bay Company Department Store was designed by the Winnipeg architectural firm of Moody and Moore, founded only three years prior. This firm was one of the first to introduce the Moderne style to the province of Alberta. The firm designed the H.B.C. Stores (both new buildings and additions) in Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, and Winnipeg among others. The building was built by the Calgary firm of Bennett and White Construction Company of Calgary for a staggering one million dollars.

In 1955, a north addition was added to the building, designed by the architectural firm of Kelvin C. Stanley and Company. Kelvin C. Stanley went on to design, among other buildings, the 1957 Edmonton City Hall. Stanley later became Director of Structures for Expo 67 and Chief Architect for the federal Department of Public Works in Ottawa.

Today, still standing regally as a landmark in our downtown core, the building has been reused by a branch of the University of Alberta.