Winnipeg's the Bay Downtown: A Destination Worth Visiting

It's been a slice...this PR Fundamentals class. A slice of R and A and C and E. And finally we were able to put all the slices together and come up with a whole PR plan. My plan's focus was our downtown Bay store.

I am passionate about our country, about our province and beautiful city of Winnipeg. I truly enjoyed working on a PR plan for Winnipeg's downtown Bay store. It's a beautiful historic building built in 1926, but it is in need of some TLC. Hudson Bay Company (est. 1670) is a company that is part of Canadian history - a company I hope will be around forever.

http://www.tecumsehs.com/clothing.htm

 

Researching about the Bay made me fall in love with the department store. They have a wonderful website and great programs and products in place. I especially love their Hudson Bay Collection and wish I could afford to make a Genuine HBC Point Blanket Capote. The Bay offers opportunity to learn about the traditional art of making a capote in a workshop setting. How cool is that?!

I've visited the HBC gallery at our Manitoba Museum numerous times. The Nonsuch ship is a treasure and the HBC gallery is outstanding! We are fortunate to have the bulk of HBC historical items in Winnipeg, and there is so much of it that our museum only showcases about 5% of it. I highly recommend checking out our world-class museum.

Winnipeg is also headquarters for the $60 million worth of HBC archives. In fact, the Hudson's Bay Company Archives became part of the United Nations "Memory of the World" project in 2007 under UNESCO.

Photos provided by the Hudsons’ Bay Company Archives, Manitoba Archives

Earlier this year Winnipeg received yet another HBC treasure.
An HBC Heritage film returned from England. This film is part of a two-hour silent film called "Romance of the Far Fur Country" (that's us!). The film was commissioned in 1920 for the Hudson Bay Company's 250th anniversary. The first showing was in May 1920 in Winnipeg's Allen Theatre which we now know as the Metropolitan (another wonderful heritage building recently renovated and opened here in Winnipeg). It was then shown in movie theatres across Canada. Now it's been digitalized, and I am hoping to view it one day.

There is just so much more I could say! My PR plan only shows a small portion of the magnificent department store. I sure hope Winnipeg's Bay store is able to work some PR magic and keep the customers coming. After all, with so many stores coming from other countries (Ikea and Target), we need to support our uniquely Canadian businesses.

Here's the final Strategic PR Plan assignment.
Winnipeg's the Bay Downtown: A Destination Worth Visiting

http://www.akpool.co.uk/postcards/224644-postcard-winnipeg-manitoba-blick-auf-d-hudsons-bay-company

Thanks for a wonderful 12 weeks, Samantha and all classmates.

(one more item on my wishlist -a 2012 limited edition stocking, handmade in Canada by a Metis Craftsperson - found on their facebook page, and here for $275)