Other Crap

Urban legend: "In accordance with a requirement of their original Royal Charter, the Hudson's Bay Company of Canada makes annual payments of elk and beaver pelts to the Queen of England. " Status: False, but with an interesting back story:

• "Actually, the Hudson's Bay Company's original charter did call for them to provide two elk heads and two beaver pelts to royalty, but only when said royalty came to the Rupert's Land area of Canada, not as an annual payment. This "tradition" has been observed on three occasions when royalty travelled to Canada, all of them in the twentieth century: a visit by King George VI in 1939, and visits by Queen Elizabeth II in 1959 and 1970. On the last occasion, however, the queen was not presented with any heads or pelts but with live animals, which she donated to a Winnipeg zoo. "