Sir John A. Macdonald had entrusted talks with the HBC to two of his most valuable ministers, George-Étienne Cartier and William McDougall, to achieve the deal which saw Rupert’s Land’s 3.9 million sq. km become part of Canada. The price? It was only $1.5 million in 1869 dollars. Cartier and McDougall, with an assist from the British government who pressured the HBC to make the deal, had delivered for Canada.
To appreciate the importance and size of the purchase, consider that large parts of Quebec and Ontario, then Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories were eventually created from what had been Rupert’s Land.
The stage was now set for Macdonald of Kingston and his government to unite this far-flung and new nation from Atlantic to Pacific with a band of steel, the CPR.
But that’s for another day.[caption id="attachment_1577078" align="alignleft" width="234"]
Rupert's Land[/caption]Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.