A blanket in canada is more than a simple item of clothing or a piece of furniture. It has a rich and complex history, serving as an essential trade item, a symbol of colonialism, a carrier of disease, and much more. This space is dedicated to unpacking the many meanings a blanket holds within our culture, from history and art to pop culture and commerce.

When HBC set off on its first trading expeditions into Hudson’s Bay, blankets were already a popular and valued trade item among the Indigenous peoples of Canada’s West Coast. They were a major source of warmth for both everyday and ceremonial use, and they had become a marker of quality, shaped by Indigenous demand and strategies.

The Best Blankets to Keep You Warm in Canada

Blankets were worn by Indigenous Peoples, Metis, and European settlers as outerwear robes or shawls, and were often transformed into capotes—hand-made wrap coats. These coats were used by fur traders, trappers and voyageurs throughout the fur trade era. By the late 1700s, tailors were employed at all of HBC’s major posts to construct capotes from trade blankets.

Point blankets were identified by a series of short black lines, or “points,” woven into the selvage edge of each blanket. These points—about 4 inches (11 cm) in length —identified the finished blanket’s overall size and allowed merchants to grade each pair of blankets based on their sizes. The stripes on a point blanket also had specific meaning, though their exact significance was lost as the blankets were shrunk and the pattern became more uniform.