Born in Montreal in 1933, James K. Hugessen was educated at Oxford University and McGill University. After graduating with a B.C.L. from McGill in 1957, he was called to the bar in 1958 and entered private practice. From 1962 to 1974 he was an adjunct professor in McGill’s Faculty of Law. In 1972 he was appointed as a justice of the Quebec Superior Court. In 1983 he became a judge of the Federal Court of Canada, Appeal Division and retired in 2008. After his retirement, he was appointed as a deputy judge of the Federal Court. His other appointments have included the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organization and the Supreme Court of the North-West Territories. A visually-disabled person, he served as the chair of the federal Task Force on Access to Information for Print-Disabled Canadians. In 2009, as a result of his outstanding judicial career and long term service to McGill’s Faculty of Law, he was given the F.R. Scott Award for Distinguished Service.

Richard Black Huestis was a merchant in Wallace, Nova Scotia, and a boat-builder; many of the ships built in Wallace were sent to either Newfoundland or Great Britain. Sometime around 1861 he moved to Amherst, Nova Scotia, where he took over his father-in-law's farm, and was also a prominent merchant.

Chartered 1670 by King Charles II as "The governor and company of adventurers of England, trading into Hudson's Bay."; Known as Hudson's Bay Company.; In 1821 the Northwest company of Canada (formed 1773-74) was merged into the Hudson's Bay company