I felt badly about the recent death rattle of Hudson’s Bay. The company sought protection from its creditors. An ancient store with its origins in the 17th century is going under. It was actually founded in May of 1670. The problems of The Bay, as it is commonly called, stem from the fact it owes a billion dollars. That will drive you to seek protection.

I was only through the doors of a Hudson’s Bay store once in my life and that was in Toronto, but I still feel a loss in all of this. There is still an emotional attachment even though I know there is no Hudson’s Bay store on Water Street or on West Street in Corner Brook. There is a connection between “old business” and me. I wrote some years ago about how I felt at the fire that burned down Bowring Brothers in St. John’s. I watched that store go up in smoke with firefighters throwing chesterfields out through the top widows and it saddened me in my soul because a symbol of plenty in our community had been laid low. There was also a connection because my grandfather had worked there, looking after Bowring’s horses and had been to the ice one spring on their vessel The Eagle. He was ship’s carpenter. Bowrings was also so much a part of our history.

When an old store closes its doors, I always feel bad. It is a spiritual thing and has something to do with the signposts of life and with commerce and family. Water Street of the 1950s and life in St. John’s in general was filled with stores like Bowrings, Ayre and Sons and The London, New York and Paris. They were magical. They represented having things or even wanting things. They were places of expectation.

There were also lesser places like Parker and Monroe and Woolworths and The Sweet Shop and McMurdos that were all part of downtown St. John’s life. They were all from a time when most good things were downtown and could be bought over the counter or looked at through the front window. They were part of the seasons, especially Christmas. Malls were yet to come our way.

I remember a time when the department stores of St. John’s employed full-time ‘window dressers’. They were responsible for presenting the store and its wares through the front window display. That seemed to happen in all the department stores downtown. A few years ago, my wife and I were in London. England and the front windows of the stores on Oxford Street were magnificent. It was a real art form. I’ll bet they had whole teams of window-dressers.

Somewhere along the way that changed, and we moved away from stores that were “bricks and mortar” as the new expression goes. You no longer have to leave the comfort of your house to buy something. On-line purchases have burst on the scene like a giant wave. I live in a quiet part of Conception Bay and on a weekday I bet half the vehicles that traverse our road are Purolator or UPS trucks. That isn’t a complaint because my own family is a big fan of on-line shopping. It is so easy, and you don’t need parking.

The passing of Hudson’s Bay does give me pause. I am not well versed in economics to know if the fall of The Bay could have been avoided. There is a sense that it reflects how things work and a new economic reality. That reality includes me and people like me continuing to shop online while a company that came to Canada a couple of hundred years ago for the fur trade fades away.

You can contact Jim Furlong at [email protected]