But people don't shop there anymore. They shop online. Still that real estate will be worth a lot of money. They got taken over and the new owners sold crappy stuff from China that was expensive but looked nice. Then it would fall apart. I did get a nice duvet cover from there.

I never heard of Simon's before.

I do expect some U.S. surprises over the next 2-3 months, translating unexpected bankruptcies because the flummoxing of cash flow caused by this wacko tariff war that Trump started will hit any consumer company with marginal cash flow problems hard. Suddenly, the money is not coming in but the bills for rent, utilities, salaries, suppliers, maintenance continue apace.

in distress. They can buy them cheap.

https://canadaehx.com/2020/12/26/the-indigenous-and-the-hudsons-bay-company/

The Indigenous And The Hudson’s Bay Company

Podcast at link

…

The proclamation of giving all the land that drained into the Hudson Bay completely ignored the rights of the Indigenous who lived in those areas, effectively taking their land with the vast majority never realizing it. The signing of this decision across the Atlantic in 1670 would have long lasting consequences to the Indigenous that exist to this very day…

…

The aforementioned Simpson would write in 1821 that the Indigenous, quote:

“must be ruled with a rod of iron, to bring and to keep them in a proper state of subordination.”

…

(Hudson bay blanket)
is an object of beauty, a collector’s item that belongs to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s history. It is for many Indigenous peoples, still viewed as a trade item that once contained the gift of disease.”

//


Stolen land/stolen labor
NOW Toronto

https://nowtoronto.com › news › reparation-land-and-justice-for-indigenous-peoples-is-long-overdue

Reparation, land and justice for Indigenous Peoples is long overdue
When the Hudson's Bay Company started buying and exporting fur pelts, it created such a demand in Europe that the most commonly trapped creature,

indigenous people like they did in Winnipeg.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/wehwehneh-bahgahkinahgohn-thebay-winnipeg-transformation-1.7213774#:~:text=The%20Southern%20Chiefs

are particularly genocidal. Don't know if there is actual documentation of that (at one point I read something having to do with documentation existing and the British but I can't remember exactly right now and can't remember if blankets were involved) or if something like..... smallpox was just trending in killing off indigenous people and Hudson's Bay workers decided to give blankets instead of beads because old world diseases would transmit better that way, since they were coming from Europe and we're worn all over a person's body and traded again and again amongst the various peoples. Sick. But I don't know how. I've forgotten what I once knew.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/unreserved/uncovering-the-complicated-history-of-blankets-in-indigenous-communities-1.5264926/the-complicated-history-of-the-hudson-s-bay-point-blanket-1.5272430

The complicated history of the Hudson's Bay point blanket

Stephanie Cram · Posted: Sep 06, 2019 11:02 AM PDT | Last Updated: July 2, 2020

…
"That would have been very much against the interests of the Hudson's Bay Company to release a lethal disease among the people who are supplying their furs and buying their goods."

But even though Hackett never found proof in historical documents, he can't guarantee it never happened, considering he has heard oral history referencing similar practices.

"We know for instance in the 1700s that the British certainly purposely transmitted smallpox during the Seven Years' War at Fort Pitt, which is now Pittsburgh," said Hackett.

"And I'm wondering if there isn't some conflation of these things … and again, that's not me saying that it hasn't happened [in Canada] or that it isn't valid."

Whether or not the Hudson's Bay Company transmitted smallpox with blankets, that narrative continues to appear in contemporary art produced by Indigenous people.

… more …

Horrid.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1862_Pacific_Northwest_smallpox_epidemic

1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic

The 1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic was a smallpox outbreak that started in Victoria on Vancouver Island and spread among the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and into the indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau, killing a large portion of natives from the Puget Sound region to Southeast Alaska. Two-thirds of British Columbia natives died—around 20,000 people.[1] The death rate was highest in southeast Alaska and Haida Gwaii—over 70% among the Haida and 60% among the Tlingit. Almost all native nations along the coast, and many in the interior, were devastated, with a death rate of over 50% for the entire coast from Puget Sound to Sitka, Alaska, part of Russian America at the time.[2] In some areas the native population fell by as much as 90%.[3] The disease was controlled among colonists in 1862 but it continued to spread among natives through 1863.[2]

While colonial authorities used quarantine, smallpox vaccine, and inoculation to keep the disease from spreading among colonists and settlers, it was largely allowed to spread among indigenous peoples. The Colony of Vancouver Island made attempts to save some natives, but most were forced to leave the vicinity of Victoria and go back to their homelands, despite awareness that it would result in a major smallpox epidemic among natives along the Pacific Northwest coast. Many colonists and newspapers were vocally in favor of expulsion. The situation in the Puget Sound region was similar, with newspapers encouraging settlers to get vaccinated, but with little effort towards protecting natives. Most papers supported removing natives. The effect of the epidemic in the Puget Sound area is not well documented and it appears it did not spread south beyond the Chehalis people of the Chehalis River area.[2]

Some historians have described it as a deliberate genocide because the Colony of Vancouver Island and the Colony of British Columbia could have prevented the epidemic but chose not to, and in some ways facilitated it.[3][4] According to historian Kiran van Rijn, "opportunistic self-interest, coupled with hollow pity, revulsion at the victims, and smug feelings of inevitability, shaped the colonial response to the epidemic among First Nations"; and that for some residents of Victoria the eviction of native people was a "long-sought opportunity" to be rid of them; and, for some, an opportunity to take over First Nation lands. At the time, and still today, some natives say that the colonial government deliberately spread smallpox for the purpose of stealing their land.[5][6]

… more …

Last edited Sun Mar 9, 2025, 07:06 AM - Edit history (2)

At least the public school I was at in the 1970s showed a film of indigenous getting mowed down by settler guns. That always stuck with me. So will this.