sent a naval force to Hudson Bay to capture or destroy the fort. In 1690, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville tried but was driven away by a larger English ship. In 1694, d'Iberville returned and captured York Factory with a show of force. He renamed it Fort Bourbon. English forces returned the next year and retook the fort from its small French garrison. In 1697, d'Iberville won the Battle of Hudson's Bay, the largest Arctic naval battle in North American history. The French force won in the naval battle with three English warships and again captured York Factory - D'Iberville had laid siege to the fort in such a way as to give the appearance of having a much stronger force. York Factory was held by the French until 1713, when it was returned to the British in the Treaty of Utrecht. At that time, the HBC again placed its northern headquarters at York Factory, at the mouth of the Hayes River. Between 1788 and 1795, the company constructed a square bastion fort of stone and brick at York Factory. The fort was known as The Octagon” because of the octagonal shape of the area enclosed. The choice of material was poor, however, as the stone and brick could not stand up to heaving permafrost, and in 1831, the stone fort was razed. The three-story center section of the current compound was completed that same year, with the two-story wings finished within the two years that followed. During its first century, the depot operated by drawing First Nations traders to the post, rather than sending its own traders out into the field. Its position at the mouth of the Nelson allowed access by canoe from the watersheds of the Saskatchewan and Red rivers. In the late 18th century, the centralized nature of the Hudson's Bay Company's operation from the depot began to become a disadvantage against the more nimble voyageurs of the North West Company. They operated by traveling among the First Nations on the vast water network of lakes and rivers. In response, the company began sending out its own traders from the depot and eventually established inland posts, first along the Saskatchewan River, and then stretching as far as the Oregon Country. Twice annually from 1821 to 1846, brigades known as the York Factory Express traveled overland to Fort Vancouver, headquarters for the HBC's Columbia Department. They brought supplies