All-time Greatest Covers

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It’s been said that you can’t judge a book by its cover. But, judging from these cover selections, readers of The Beaver, now Canada’s History magazine, feel a strong affinity for traditional images and themes associated with the Hudson’s Bay Company.

To mark the centennial of the magazine, we asked readers to help to select the greatest covers of the past century. After several weeks of online voting, the winner is the November 1921 issue.

That issue’s cover features an illustration, titled Unloaded!, of a hunter holding a red HBC point blanket as a pair of deer bound away to safety. Counting down, here are your picks for the top twenty-five covers of all time.

#25

September 1932

#24

April-May 2018

#23

December 1937

#22

Winter 1956

#21

Spring 1964

#20

December-January 2001-2002

#19

October-November 1998

#18

Spring 1975

#17

Winter 1980

#16

October-November 2009

#15

March 1954

#14

Autumn 1955

#13

Spring 1977

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#12

April-May 1990

#11

March 1928

#10

Summer 1968

#9

March 1945

#8

April-May 2014

#7

June-July 1995

#6

March 1923

#5

June-July 1988

#4

December 1941

#3

Autumn 1961

#2

October-November 2008

#1

November 1921

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This article originally appeared in the October-November 2020 issue of Canada’s History.