The Hudson's Bay Company was incorporated into English Royal Charter by Charles II in 1670. Its first and most important trade was fur, acquired with the help of indigenous trappers from the region. The Company's trading posts became the basis of official governance of large areas of northern America before the advent of the United States and the Dominion of Canada. 

In 1934, Sir Patrick Ashley Cooper, Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company and Director of the Bank of England, undertook an extended tour of the eastern Arctic on behalf of King George V. He read a message from the king to the Inuit communities he visited, which is recorded in a volume in the Royal Library. Gifts were exchanged, and Cooper may have been given this tusk for presentation to the king on his return.