Black River Trading Company

Black River Trading Company opened its doors in 2006 but its roots go way back.  We have been travelling the globe for well over 35 years looking mostly for handcrafted things.  In that time, we've travelled to about 40 countries (Latin American, African, Middle Eastern & Asian) and found countless interesting art and craft forms in many different media.  The store is a mix of so many things from all those trips.  As a result, you simply will not find a better quality, larger or more diverse collection of hand crafted things under one roof anywhere else in Canada. 

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Previous to Black River Trading Company we ran a wholesale business for about a decade selling to retail outlets from coast to coast...tough business that was...work all the time for no gain at all.

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During the nineties we operated an interesting retail venture (known as "Foreign Lands") doing fund raising for international development groups on university and college campuses coast to coast.  While trying to make a living from it, we also raised about $500,000.00 for groups such as Amnesty International, Cuso, Oxfam, etc.  This was a monumental lot of work but it worked well for a few years.  Ultimately that business was destroyed though for the University administrations kept increasing the rents to the point where it became impossible to simultaneously make a living from it while funding the NGOs.