BAY TRIPPERS

Way back in 1610, Henry Hudson, commissioned by the Dutch East India Company to find a northwest passage to China, was the first Western navigator to discover the bay that now bears his name. During his exploratory voyage (1610-1611), Hudson and his crew spent a miserable winter locked in the ice after which his crew mutinied and set him and his son adrift in a rowboat in James Bay, at Hudson Bay’s southern end. It’s a part of history that’s long fascinated me.

Today, Hudson Bay is an almost forgotten sea as far as the nautical world is concerned. A handful of merchant ships supply the Cree and Inuit communities along its coasts from July to October. Cree and Inuit fishermen and hunters also occasionally move along the coast aboard their 24ft freighter canoes. But sailing for fun is considered to be more an expedition than a pleasure sail. According to our research, the last boats to cruise the east coast of Hudson Bay under sail were the trading schooners of the Révillon