Pos­si­bly ”the” most impor­tant his­toric site in North­ern Cana­da is this extra­or­di­nar­i­ly remote, decom­mis­sioned factory/office build­ing, which was the head­quar­ters of the Hud­son Bay Com­pa­ny. As its cen­tral base of oper­a­tions, this white build­ing was for over 100 years essen­tial­ly the cap­i­tal of Rupert Land, which com­prised the major­i­ty of present-day Cana­da! The ini­tial set­tle­ment estab­lished in 1670 was at the mouth of the Nel­son Riv­er just west, and moved to the present and extant site in 1684. Up until 1957 York Fac­to­ry remained a north­ern trad­ing post. Get­ting out there is not a sim­ple affair, but can be done from Churchill as a day trip through Hud­son Bay Heli­copters (see below), for a rather steep price!