Fields (department store)

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This article is about the Canadian chain of department stores. For the shopping centre in Denmark, see Field's.

For the now-defunct chain of department stores in the Midwestern United States, see Marshall Field's

Fields is a brand of Canadian discount department stores owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, with 137 locations in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Yukon, and Northwest Territories.

The first Fields store was established in Vancouver in 1948. In later years, Fields established a subsidiary chain of hardware stores called Marshall Wells, and in 1976, it acquired majority ownership of the Zellers chain. Zellers would reverse the takeover a few months later and make Fields and Marshall Wells into its subsidiaries, all of which were acquired by HBC in 1978. Marshall Wells was sold by HBC in 1985.

In contrast with the much larger stores, the Fields division is intended to be a small format, extreme value retail chain for rural and urban Canadian communities. Hudson's Bay Company has announced an aggressive expansion strategy for Fields, adding 19 new stores in 2006, with another 40 locations planned for 2007. New stores feature the successful Field's "Mini Mart" concept, a new format that will also be rolled out to existing stores.