Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee activist and historian Julian Bond identified the "Master Narrative" of the civil rights movement in these terms:

The Hudson’s Bay Company first established The Beaver as a staff publication in the 1920s. By the 1930s, it had become a fully fledged magazine that served Canada’s broader public. In 1994, Canada’s National Historical Society acquired the magazine from HBC. Finally, in 2010, the magazine name officially changed to Canada’s History and the Beaver’s reign came to an end.