The article examines English colonial and commercial expansion in the Canadian North, in the Hudson Bay region, from the late 1660s to the conclusion of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. The principal instrument of this expansion was the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), which nominally acquired vast territories (approximately one third of present-day Canada) under the terms of its royal charter of 1670. However, the HBC, during the period under consideration, devoted itself almost exclusively to the fur trade with Indigenous peoples at trading posts on the shores of Hudson Bay, situated at the mouths of major rivers that served as the principal communication routes for the inhabitants of the interior of the North American continent. From the outset the company enjoyed extensive connections not only in mercantile circles but also in government, and received substantial support from both the crown and the court. During this period the shores of Hudson Bay became a theater of intense rivalry between the English and the French, who likewise sought to exploit the region’s fur resources. The study elucidates the role and place of the region in contemporary Anglo-French competition and traces the specific dynamics of events on the bay’s coastline during the War of the League of Augsburg and the War of the Spanish Succession. Particular attention is devoted to Anglo-French negotiations at various levels, where issues concerning Hudson Bay were repeatedly raised. The article notes that the relatively small scale of clashes between representatives of the two colonial powers on the shores of the bay stood in sharp contrast to the intensity of the debates that these confl icts provoked in Europe between English and French diplomats. At the same time, the outcome of skirmishes and engagements in the region had little direct impact on the course of the diplomatic negotiations. The fate of the Hudson Bay littoral depended instead on developments in the principal theaters of war and on the broader vicissitudes of European high politics. At the same time, the resources and connections of the HBC, which vigorously defended, promoted, and foregrounded its own interests, played a signifi cant role.