Prince of Rupert's Land

Few Canadians realize that Canada's early destiny was steered by a swashbuckling cavalier.

Prince Rupert, circa 1641-42, when he was about 23 years old. Painting by Gerrit van Honthorst.

National Portrait Gallery

Prince Rupert, right, with his brother, Charles Louis, in a 1637 painting by Anthony Van Dyck.

Bridgeman Art Library

Prince Rupert, circa 1670, when he was about 51 years old and became the first governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. Portrait from the studio of Sir Peter Lely.

National Portrait Gallery

Rupert's Land in 1670, shown in green, covered the entire Hudson Bay drainage area.

Matthew Yathon

Author and historian Carolyn Harris specializes in the history of royalty.

Courtesy of Carolyn Harris

By Carolyn Harris

Most Canadians will know Prince Rupert as the name of a port city in British Columbia.

And some may be familiar with the Rupert’s Land of history. This was the name given to a large swath of land that formed the Hudson Bay drainage area. This land, which consists of much of modern-day Canada, once belonged to the “Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson's Bay.”

The governor was Prince Rupert, a seventeenth-century adventurer who came from the royal courts of Europe.

Carolyn Harris, a Canadian historian who specializes in royalty, spoke with Canada’s History to fill in some of the blanks about Prince Rupert and his place in Canadian history.