The Hudson ’s Bay Company cover may seem to be a fairly manifest household point , but it ’s perhaps the most singular mantle in the world . The off - whitened woolen pattern with slender stripes of green , ruddy , chicken , and indigo played a vital persona in how modern Canada came to be — and it ’s still for sale today .
The Hudson ’s Bay Company is now a well - known retail chemical group thatclaims to bethe oldest company in North America , and it include Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord and Taylor among its department stores . Butas far backas 1670 , the company , then under royal charter from England , operate as a fur trading business organization , pioneering the geographic expedition and settling of Canada . In many of the further regions , the Hudson ’s Bay Company was the effective government of the immense dominion , and was at one head thelargest landownerin the world , insure approximately 15 percentage of North America .
And it was the striped Hudson ’s Bay Company point blanket that helpedpioneer the way .
According to the prescribed caller history , blankets had been taken to Hudson Bay as trade trade good as far back as1668 . But it was in 1779 that the Companyfirst commissionedthe English textile milling machinery of Thomas Empson in Oxfordshire for “ 30 pair[s ] of 3 points to be strip with four colors ( red , blue , unripe , lily-livered ) according to your judgement . ”
The indestructible and quick blanketwas prizedby the early fur traders , miners , and prospectors . “ I have in my possession,”wrote one such Internet Explorer , “ one of a pair of blankets which I purchase in your depot 30 twelvemonth ago this month … compact north all through the good deal and receive some of the roughest custom that any fabric could possibly live . I could not truthfully gauge how many wads of river crushed rock was dumped onto it and washed in our attempts to find atomic number 79 . ”
But more importantly , the striped mantle proved highly popular with the native inhabitants of Canada . Easier to stitch than bison and seal skins , and much agile to dry out , the cover provided superb insulation during the harsh winter calendar month . Often the mantle were converted into winter coats , known as “ capote . ” As pelt trade increased , it was the striped blanket that oftenpaved the wayfor the early relationships between the company adventurers and the native tribes , and it was often traded for beaver fur fur .
As well as the traditional stripes , the iconic blanket was also known for its “ point ” : a series of thin black job site just above the down stripe . These “ point ” were not , as is sometimes ordinarily believe , an indicator of how many pelts the blanket was worth in trade , but an easy - to - read measurement of how tumid the blanket was . When folded , the lines , or “ points ” would be displayed , easy indicating the accurate size of it of the blanket . The term stemmed from the Frenchempointer(to make threaded stitch on the textile ) . agree to thecompany ’s specific :
As the remunerative pelt patronage expanded into Canada , with an increasing act of trading post , forts , and settlements , the extremely prized percentage point blanket became a primary trading good . Demand was so smashing that production back in England was expand to the A.W. Hainsworth Company in Yorkshire toward the destruction of the eighteenth century . Their wool was known for being well - made and had been used in everything from billiard mesa to the felt on forte-piano hammer . Still made there today , Hainsworth is so prestigious , it wasworn byboth Prince William and Harry at the 2011 royal wedding .
By the 19th century , the Hudson ’s Bay Company had evolved into a vast moneymaking retail empire , often transforming their frontier trading posts into general stores , catering to — as their official account put it—“one that betray for delight and not with skins . ” Today the companionship is one of the oldest subsist in the world , and still conduct the typical colored banding on some versions of its logo .
Despite its iconic status , the blanket is not without arguing . Disturbingclaimshave charge British administrators in North America of using the Hudson ’s Bay blanket to circularise variola major among the native tribes as the British Empire expanded further into Canada . General Sir Jeffrey Amherst , air force officer of the British forces in North America during the Seven Years War , suggested in a alphabetic character to one of his colonel that the deadly lues venerea might be put in to the local population , and the colonel ’s reply put forward the fearsome idea that it could be conveyed in mantle . Butaccording totheir prescribed account , “ Hudson ’s Bay Company had nothing to do with the story of the use of variola as biological war . ” Complicating matters even further , while there was an outbreak of variola in native communities the undermentioned outflow , the disease was already present in those areas before Amherst ’s letters , so it ’s strange if he really go through with the plan or only mention it .
These sidereal day , the distinctive stripe can be found on everything fromiPhone casesto golf balls to beach chair . But the blanket itself is still for sale , see much as it did when the original order were localize in London over 230 years ago , pave the manner for the birth of innovative Canada .
