At Manitoba’s provincial archives, where more than three centuries of Hudson’s Bay Co. history is preserved, there is a time of year they call vellum season.

That’s when the animal-skin parchment treasures of Canada’s oldest retailer – records that include a map from 1709, a vellum-bound book of company minutes starting in 1671, and fur-trade journals written in the dexterous cursive of a pre-digital age – can emerge from their climate-controlled vault.

It happens only when Winnipeg’s desiccating winter air gives way to spring. Then, humidity is high enough to avoid undulations in the vellum that could warp a book cover or stress the ink and paint on a priceless cartograph.

If the conditions aren’t right, “we usually don’t let them circulate,” said Ala Rekrut, manager of preservation services at the Archives of Manitoba, highlighting the meticulous care needed to preserve a collection whose history is deeply entwined with that of Canada.

Here in this government building – where the three-storey HBC records vault is housed in an old theatre space, constructed at odd angles around an immovable stage that once accommodated circus elephants – conservationists are preparing to help care for the oldest item yet, one that has been missing from the collection until now.

The 1670 Royal Charter that founded Hudson’s Bay, granting it a trading monopoly over roughly one-third of what is now Canada, will soon be in public hands for the first time, after centuries tucked away in company boardrooms or storage in Canada and Britain. This month, an Ontario court approved an $18-million joint bid from two of Canada’s most prominent families, the Thomsons and the Westons, to purchase the historic document and donate it to the archives, along with three other institutions: the Manitoba Museum, the Canadian Museum of History and the Royal Ontario Museum.

The decision ended months of uncertainty and speculation across Canada’s cultural sector since The Globe and Mail first revealed in April that the company was considering selling the artifact as part of its insolvency proceedings – one of many assets Hudson’s Bay has been forced to auction off to pay back a portion of its $1.1-billion debt.

“The fear was real that it could have ended up in a private auction, it could have ended up belonging to somebody, and it’s in their house and no one gets to see it ever again,” said Amelia Fay, director of research, collection and exhibitions at Winnipeg’s Manitoba Museum, which holds more than 28,000 Hudson’s Bay artifacts.

When the company, which once controlled all of the territory that is now Manitoba, donated its collection in 1994 – bequeathing the records to the archives at the same time – it held on to the oldest and most prized document, which is why the charter went to auction.

Now, in an unusual arrangement, these museums and archives will share custody of the 355-year-old parchment, collaborate on its preservation, and decide how to present it to Canadians.

“We talk about colonial activities in other places. Do we really claim it as part of Canadian history?” said Kathleen Epp, the keeper of the Hudson’s Bay Archives. The charter, she added, is the record of King Charles II claiming the territory without the knowledge or consent of Indigenous people who lived there. “It’s right there. And isn’t that why we need to preserve it?”

The 2025 collapse of Hudson’s Bay was not the first time the charter’s ownership had been thrown into question by the company’s debts.

After the mayor of London loaned £3,200 to the “company of adventurers” in 1679, he held on to the charter as security. Hudson’s Bay got it back after the loan was repaid, only to use it as security to borrow money again in 1681.

Since then, the charter has faced other perils: the bombing of England during the Second World War, the ravages of time and movement that have cracked the king’s wax seal (it’s held together with pins), and well-meaning conservationists. One applied wormwood that made the lettering blotchy and illegible on one page; another, a vinyl acetate coating that may have led to darkening and discolouration. At times, it was stored loose, before a succession of display cases were built for it in the 20th century.

Before the charter was transferred to Toronto in 1974, a few years after Hudson’s Bay headquarters moved to Canada, executives were sweating over the need to protect it.

“I can’t urge upon you too strongly the importance of taking all proper measures to protect this document,” A.R. Huband, who was then company secretary, wrote in a 1974 letter to a colleague, which Ms. Epp pulled from a manila envelope at the archives. Stressing the need to build appropriate housing for the parchment, he added: “We would look like complete fools if it were lost or damaged by fire, theft, or for any reason whatever.”

Now that its fate is decided, the charter’s first stop is at the Canadian Conservation Institute in Ottawa, which last assessed its condition in 2012.

“Parchment is ultimately a strong, resilient material, though it is susceptible to extremes in relative humidity,” said Monique Benoit, manager of treatment and collection care in CCI’s objects, paper and archeology division. That means climate control will be needed to preserve the charter in the long term as it moves around the four institutions – and possibly elsewhere in Canada, if it is loaned out.

That kind of protection is visible at the Manitoba Archives, where the HBC vault is encased in fire-resistant gypsum covered in a black, bituminous membrane to create an air-vapour barrier. (It looks a bit like the exterior walls are plastered with garbage bags.) Inside on a shelf sits a hygrometer that measures humidity using human hair, which expands and contracts depending on the moisture in the air.

The documents held within are not just a history of the company. They are also among the oldest records in Canada.

Ms. Epp flipped through a book of ships’ movements, pointing to a 1719 entry. A vessel called the Mary arrived in Churchill that September, and wintered there when the ice prevented its return, the entry noted in curling script. On the next page, a note of the date it was “homeward bound” the following year. It’s a climate record from more than 300 years ago, and has been used in research to understand our changing planet.

“A good example of something created for one thing that shows a whole lot of other information,” Ms. Epp said.

Another example is a book with a marbled cover, titled “Indian debts.” It lists transactions at fur-trading posts: purchases of sugar and moose skins, one adept hunter’s delivery of 17 pounds of plovers. Today, these records can also be used to trace the movements of First Nations, Inuit and Métis families over generations, because they list names of Indigenous traders and, often, their fathers. Last September, the archives launched a digital index of those names, currently at roughly 65,000 entries and growing.

Not everyone thinks the charter is so significant. Douglas Sanderson, who is a member of the Beaver Clan from the Opaskwayak Cree Nation and a professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law, points out that the fur trade, and its impact on history, would have existed whether or not a remote sovereign asserted ownership of the land.

“It feels to me that it’s part of this story of Canadian history that’s largely mythical,” Prof. Sanderson said, “and ignores the actual story of the actual people who lived through these events.”

It is unclear when or where the charter will first be on display. There is still work to do: The donation – from David Thomson’s holding company, DKRT Family Corp., and the Westons’ Wittington Investments Ltd. – includes an additional $5-million, partly intended to fund consultations with Indigenous leaders. (The Woodbridge Co. Ltd., another holding company and primary investment vehicle for the Thomson family, owns The Globe and Mail.)

At the Manitoba Museum, where the Hudson’s Bay collection includes many Indigenous artifacts, that is a familiar process. Walking through the collection, Ms. Fay points to a 19th-century cradle bag from the Red River Settlement, wood and ivory carvings, and a hide coat adorned with quill work. But visitors cannot go beyond one doorway, where ceremonial and sacred items are stored and cared for in partnership with an Indigenous elder. The museum is also working on repatriation requests for some items.

The last time Ms. Fay saw the charter was in 2020, when it was loaned to the museum for the company’s 350th anniversary. Hudson’s Bay reviewed the text Ms. Fay wrote for the display. Next time, she said, there will be fewer confines, and wider consultation, in its presentation.

“It sets the foundation for our complicated history with First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples,” Ms. Fay said of the charter. “We really need to consider it, if we are going to go down this path of truth and reconciliation, because we still haven’t acknowledged truth in so many areas.

“This document unlocks the door to that. This is the start of it all.”