| A large stretch of territory in then-Western Canada, given to the Hudson's Bay Company for commercial development by England's King Charles II in 1670; it covered parts of what is now Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nunavut, and western Ontario. It became a "fur rush" venue; many forts were built as trading centers. There would also develop a competing company, Québec's North West Company. Almost two centuries after its founding, the government of the new Dominion of Canada, via Queen Victoria, purchased Rupert's Land, wanting to expand the nation's borders toward the Pacific Northwest (rather than risk the chance of the United States, new owners of a Russian land called Alaska, swallowing up the region); the Manitoba Act of 1870 carved two new entities out of Rupert's Land: the Northwest Territories and Manitoba - but not without some flak: the Red River Rebellion. | 
