Tucked away in a corner of the second floor at the Hudson’s Bay Company’s historic downtown Calgary store stood one of several small armies of bare mannequins awaiting their fate.

One of them seemed defiant over Hudson Bay’s demise: Someone had arranged the fingers on its left hand on Saturday such that it was flipping the bird.

The same mannequin was slightly less vocal on Sunday, its left hand now forming an upturned fist, as if trying to goad someone into a fight.

But there was no more fight left in HBC.

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With no one to save the company after it sought protection from creditors on March 7, its liquidation sale concluded at closing time on June 1.

What was once the oldest retailer in North America shut its doors for good after 355 years and one month in operation, leaving some 8,300 people out of work and causing further economic ripples through the retail sector.

At lunchtime on Sunday, the third floor of the downtown Calgary location had already been shut down earlier and was no longer accessible. The second floor was pretty much picked clean, with one lonely pair of sky blue men’s shorts hanging from a rack amid a sea of empty store fixtures heading for a second life at some other retailer.

On the main floor, shoppers scoured through the last remaining items of women’s clothing and jewelry in one corner of the store, while more people milled around at the other corner, where many olds books and other items previously used for staging were being sold at discount prices.

HBC’s liquidation marked the sad end to an enterprise whose charter was granted by King Charles II on May 2, 1670, establishing The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England, trading into Hudson’s Bay.

And what an adventure. Over the ensuing centuries, what was more commonly known as the Hudson’s Bay Company — or to generations of shoppers, simply The Bay — would end up shaping the people and economy of what is now........

© Calgary Herald