 In 1980, it bought a controlling interest in Roxy Petroleum.In the 1980s, sales and oil prices slipped, while debt from acquisitions piled up which led to Hudson's Bay Company selling its 52.9 per cent stake in HBOG to Dome Petroleum in 1981.During his 1927 Arctic trip with A. Y. Jackson, discoverer of insulin Frederick Banting realized that crew or passengers on board the HBC paddle wheeler SS "Distributor" were responsible for spreading the influenza virus down the Slave River and Mackenzie River, a virus that had over the summer and autumn spread territory-wide, devastating the aboriginal population of the north.