area c.1 232 250 km²/476 000 sq mi. Inland sea in Northwest Territories, Canada; connected to the Arctic Ocean via the Foxe Basin and Channel, and to the Atlantic Ocean by the 800 km/500 mi-long Hudson Strait; maximum length c.1600 km/1000 mi, including James Bay (S); maximum width c.1000 km/650 mi; slowly becoming shallower; generally ice-clogged (but open to navigation mid-JulyOct); rocky E shore, fringed by small islands; explored by Henry Hudson (1610) during his search for the North-West Passage.
Hudson Bay (French: baie d'Hudson) is a large, relatively shallow body of water (1.23 million km²) in northeastern Canada. A smaller offshoot of the bay, James Bay, lies to the south. The IHO lists Hudson Bay as part of the Arctic Ocean. On the east it is connected with the Atlantic Ocean by Hudson Strait, and on the north with the rest of the Arctic Ocean by Foxe Channel (which is not considered part of the bay) and Fury and Hecla Strait.
The Eastern Cree name for the Hudson and James bays is Wînipekw (Southern dialect) or Wînipâkw (Northern dialect), meaning muddy or brackish water.
History
Hudson Bay was named after Henry Hudson, who explored the bay in 1610 on his ship the Discovery. On this fourth voyage he worked his way around the west coast of Greenland and into the bay, mapping much of its eastern coast. The Discovery became trapped in the ice over the winter, and the crew survived onshore at the southern tip of James Bay.
Sixty years later the Nonsuch reached the bay and successfully traded for beaver pelts with the Cree. This led to the creation of the Hudson's Bay Company, which bears its name to this day. The British crown awarded a trading monopoly on the Hudson Bay watershed, called Rupert's Land, to the Hudson's Bay Company.
During this period, the Hudson's Bay Company built several forts and trading posts along the coast at the mouth of the major rivers (such as Fort Severn, Ontario, York Factory, Manitoba, and Churchill, Manitoba). Due to a change in naming conventions, Hudson's Bay is now correctly called Hudson Bay.
Geography
Waters
Hudson Bay has a salinity that is lower than the world ocean on average. This is caused mainly by the: 1) low rate of evaporation (the bay is ice-covered for much of the year), 2) the large volume of terrestrial runoff entering the bay (about 700 km³ annually; the Hudson Bay watershed covers much of Canada, with many rivers and streams discharging into the bay) and the annual melt of sea ice provides a significant source of fresher water to the surface layer (about three times as much as the rivers), and 3) limited connection with the larger Atlantic Ocean (and its higher salinity).
Shores
The western shores of the bay are a lowland known as the "Hudson Bay Lowlands" which covers 324,000 km².
Islands
There are many islands in Hudson Bay, mostly near the eastern coast.
Coastal communities
The coast of Hudson Bay is extremely sparsely populated. Some of these were founded in the 17th and 18th centuries by the Hudson's Bay Company as trading posts, making them part of the oldest settlements in Canada.
Some of the more prominent communities along the Hudson Bay coast are:
Puvirnituq, Quebec Churchill, Manitoba Rankin Inlet, NunavutMilitary development
Not until the Cold War was there any military significance attributed to the region.
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