North West Company

North West Company
Company typePrivate
IndustryNorth American fur trade
Founded1779; 245 years ago (1779)
FounderBenjamin Frobisher, Joseph Frobisher, Simon McTavish, Robert Grant, Nicholas Montour, Patrick Small, William Holmes, George McBeath
Defunct1821; 203 years ago (1821)
FateMerger
SuccessorHudson's Bay Company
Headquarters
Montreal, Lower Canada
Area served
United States territory, New Spain, Russian America, British Canada

The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in the regions that later became Western Canada and Northwestern Ontario. With great wealth at stake, tensions between the companies increased to the point where several minor armed skirmishes broke out, and the two companies were forced by the British government to merge.