Founded in 1670, back when Canada was pronounced ‘Kanata,’ the beaver was the King of the predators and the British and French mocked each other with slurs like: “Aha, you have a funny accent!’ A small HBC rose to become what it has been for more than three centuries: a Canadian beacon, a symbol of national pride, and as of late a company who sold out to an American dandy with a few billions burning a hole in his pant pocket.

When the world is your oyster,’ said new HBC owner Jerry Zucker after the $1.5 billion purchase, ‘you can get bored of oyster juice pretty quickly.’ When asked what the fuck he meant Zucker replied, ‘I decided to start buying history! I am a genius!’ When pressed to stop smoking marijuana on interviews, Mr. Zucker further explained, ‘Now that I own the HBC group, I am officially changing its place in history, and I am writing myself in it.’

After asking Mr. Zucker for a few tokes of what was obviously good cannabis; he continued, ‘they spread insatiably far and wide and without mercy; they were the Starbucks of your early nation. But its history is a sleeper; there are no car chases and nothing ever blows up good. I am going to change all that.’ After a few minutes, it all started making sense. ‘That’s some good shit, Sir,’ said this reporter.

Throughout its history, HBC represented Canada as a mosaic of overpriced wet, smelly furs to just overpriced clothing today. ‘That’s great and good, but I thought for example, what if HBC employees travelled through Canada in helicopters as early as the 1700’s? That makes sense to me, I always wanted to be live in the 1700’s and I AM a certified pilot. I have tons of changes in mind, like why didn’t fur traders use machine guns? They are awesome! If they had used them they would have fought competition off more easily. If that had been the case, then maybe I would not have been able to buy HBC now. Woah, chicken and the egg man, chicken and the egg…’

Watch for HBC’s revised history to hit HBC’s books section as early as this summer.

–This and all Newsbriefs have been published at the University of Toronto’s satirical newspaper The Toike Okie, and/or the even more twisted BruckNews e-zine.–