The story of how our publication evolved from a company newsletter to a national history magazine.

Our magazine turns ninety this year. Like any ninety-year-old, it has seen a lot of changes. Here's a look back on the evolution of what has become Canada's most popular history magazine:

The Hudson's Bay Company launched The Beaver: A Journal of Progess in 1920 as a 250th anniversary project. The journal's mission was to promote pride, loyalty, and camaraderie, especially among city-based retail employees. Although its name reflected the company's northern fur-trading ventures, the first issues were more likely to carry flattering profiles of HBC store managers than to describe life on the trapline.

Our first editor was Clifton Thomas, an American advertising agent. According to historian Peter Geller, “Thomas envisioned the new company journal … as an expression of the burgeoning North American culture of consumption.” Five thousand copies of the first issue were printed and distributed at a total cost of $570.

For the first three years, employees and their families were just about the only readers. Then it went through its first redesign, which was precipitated by a decision to sell the magazine to “those not in the service.” The subscription rate was one dollar a year, a rate still in effect well into the 1930s.

Company employee Robert Watson took over as editor. Watson was a novelist and short-story writer who steered the publication away from its emphasis on corporate publicity in favour of a more literary approach. He asked employees in the North to write about their experiences working in company stores and trading posts. The public, not just employees, began reading about the company's role in opening up the North.

But the journal struggled financially. In 1924, the magazine ceased monthly publication and became a quarterly. It almost ceased publication altogether in 1932, during the depths of the Great Depression. That year, the company's Canadian committee recommended its suspension, citing the $9,000-a-year cost to run it.

However, newly installed HBC governor Patrick Ashley Cooper still believed in the potential of the magazine and gave it another chance. He hired professional journalist Douglas MacKay as editor.

In September 1933, MacKay replaced the original digest format with a standard magazine design. He also changed the masthead to say “A Magazine of the North.” Inspired by photo-driven periodicals like Life magazine, MacKay made The Beaver more visually appealing. Fur Trade Department employees received training on how to take professionallooking photographs. They travelled on company planes and vessels, capturing compelling images of life in northern Canada.

By 1938, the magazine's annual costs had grown to $20,000 (roughly $292,000 in today's terms) — but it was now seen by the company as a valuable public relations investment.

For the next fifty years, the magazine focused on northern life and history. Under three of its longest-serving editors — Clifford Wilson (1939-1957), Malvina Bolus (1958-1972), and Helen Burgess (1972-1985) — the magazine's cover and visual presentation remained basically the same. But the editorial content shifted. While HBC staff continued to write about their Arctic experiences, First Nations people also started writing about their lives. Distinguished anthropologist Margaret Mead graced the magazine's pages, as did a host of professional historians and writers.

The Beaver earned a reputation for bold opinions and insightful research. It was providing an increasingly broad perspective about the history of Canada and the HBC.

By 1987, the company had formally ended its involvement in the fur trade and had shifted its business focus to retail expansion. So, too, the magazine went through another evolution. Editor Christopher Dafoe (1985-1998) oversaw the change from quarterly to bimonthly. He also broadened the magazine's focus. Its masthead announced that it was “Exploring Canada's History.”

More changes followed. In 1994, the HBC donated its archive and artifact collections to the province of Manitoba. It used the tax savings it received to establish the HBC History Foundation, which, among other things, established Canada's National History Society. The society took over publication of the magazine and furthered the mission to promote greater popular interest in history.

Annalee Greenberg joined the magazine as editor in 1998 ,and subsequent editorial staff members have worked hard to keep pace with a changing view of publishing, as well as a changing view of Canada and its place in the world.

Almost a century of new history has been made since the magazine was first launched. Who gets to tell the story, and the tools they have to tell it with, have all changed as well.

It's not easy making history relevant in a future-focused world, and it's still far from profitable. But like HBC governor Cooper back in the 1930s, the History Society believes in the power and potential of this magazine.

Mark Reid, our editor as we enter the twenty-first century, is blazing a bold new trail that will bring our stories to new media and new markets. With this expansion, the time has come again to redefine our publication and claim our place as Canada's History magazine.

This change, like all the others before it, comes with a renewed commitment to providing quality, carefully researched content that reflects the breadth and range of uniquely Canadian stories. And it also comes with a careful consideration and respect for the legacy that has brought us to this place — because, after all, some things simply endure.