When researching English ancestors, one might think of the Hudson Bay Company .. maybe French ancestors as well .. but Scottish?

Yes!

HBC is tied to much of the early history of both Upper and Lower Canada, as well as the North West Territories ..

My own Cadieux ancestors were fur traders with HBC ..

The year 1688 marked the beginning of HBC .. and as early as 1702, men from the Orkney Islands of Scotland were recruited .. as indentured workers (paid to work for a pre-determined number of years) ..

The Orkney Archives, at Stromness contain some of these contracts ..

The main HBC archives are maintained by the Manitoba government, and are online .. everything you need to know about using them is found here ..

The Manitoba Archives’ HBC material includes a collection of biographies of those connected with the HBC and the North West Company (which it took over) ..