Talk:Hudson's Bay point blanket

Earlier discussion

Please help with this discussion...he is wrong and I am right.

the stripes in the traditional, orginal blanket is red, green, yellow and .....I say black, he says indigo (BLUE).

this is a steak dinner.

Look at HBC's web page: (http://www.hbc.com/hbcheritage/faq/pointblanketfaq/#7)

What colours have the blankets been made in?

Point blankets were traditionally made in plain red, white, green or blue fields with single bars of deep indigo near each end. In the fur trade era white was by far the most common colour, with bars in indigo, red, or blue. The multistripe pattern was introduced in 1798 and became very popular - so much so that it is sometimes known as "traditional".

The "Pastel Tones" - in sky blue, violet, reseda (green), gold and rose - were introduced in 1929. Designed to fit in with more modern décor they were tone-on-tone and featured bars and points in a deeper shade. These were joined by the mid 1930s by the "Imperial Tones" - Coronation Blue (Royal blue with red bars and points), Harvest Gold (with indigo) and Highland Heather (Royal purple with off white) - and the "Deep Tones", which included Coraline (vermilion red), Pine Green, Cranberry and Caramel. Hbc has an image in our photo collection of the Saskatoon store in 1939 and there are about 20 -25 different colours offered. Most of these colours were out of production by the 1960s. Today blankets are produced in the following colours:

   * Multistripe
   * Brown Stripe - four stripes in shades of brown (introduced in 2000 as the Millenium pattern)
   * White with black bar
   * Scarlet with black bar
   * Green with black bar
   * White with blue bar

Hudson's Bay Company is from Canada

This article, about Canadian heritage, and a Canadian company, appears to be written from an American point of view. US currency, references to US importers, and a whole bunch of irrelevant US POV. The company itself mentions the quintessentially Canadian characteristics on this site: http://www.hbc.com/hbcheritage/history/blanket/

Anyway I see this is listed as "low importance" but I think we can do a bit better here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.148.129.210 (talk) 06:29, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I totally agree, checked the Bay website and put in current Cdn prices. I love my Bay blanket, it was a high school grad present. Very special. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.1.204.190 (talk) 21:21, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Linking to bed sizes

I appreciate this astute use of hypertext, but the bed sizes in the linked article are all over the map, and it might be easier to list the actual sizes in this article instead. Kortoso (talk) 19:48, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

From the HBC site []:

• Twin: 3 1/2 points 60” x 86”
• Double/Full: 4 points 72” x 90”
• Queen: 6 points 90” x 100”
• King: 8 points 100” x 108”

Kortoso (talk) 19:50, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

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US retailers

Is the list of US retailers accurate? I checked LL Bean, for example, and of the 22 blanket styles it sells, only this blanket is remotely similar to Hudson's Bay point blanket. As you can see, although it is similar, it is not the same; moreover, the description states "a new take on the timeless trapper blanket: expertly made in the USA". Mindmatrix 15:26, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Agreeing with Mindmatrix that the list of US retailers needs updating. Currently the text says:

The official licensee allowed to import Hudson's Bay Blankets into the United States for commercial sale is Woolrich Inc. of Pennsylvania. Four U.S. retailers as of 2012 sell the blankets to consumers: Woolrich, L.L.Bean, Getz's Department Store in Marquette, Michigan, and Johnson Woolen Mills.

However, I'm not able to find anything to substantiate this. And the info is as of 2012. It's almost 2024, and 12 years later I wonder if any of this is accurate, or if it should just be removed from the article. - Dyork (talk) 15:38, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Controversy

I thought there was some controversy surrounding these blankets. That they are seen by some as symbols of Canadian colonialism. That these very blankets might have been used to spread disease among the indigenous peoples. Perhaps someone might look into it and add something to the article, to either confirm or debunk it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.89.182.19 (talk) 08:13, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

There is some association with spreading smallpox, whether intentionally or not. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/unreserved/uncovering-the-complicated-history-of-blankets-in-indigenous-communities-1.5264926/the-complicated-history-of-the-hudson-s-bay-point-blanket-1.5272430 and https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/hudson-s-bay-point-blanket . Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:42, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion

@Moxy, great work, this was a nice read. I recommend explaining in the lead why they're called "point blankets", this was the first thing I wondered and the answer is kind of buried. Cheers, MediaKyle (talk) 11:26, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

we can do this Moxy🍁 15:07, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

This is was really hard to do without plagiarizing all the sources. Moxy🍁 05:04, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria - what do you think...this up to par for a GA run? Moxy🍁 02:48, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

Getting there, but I'd consider whether some of those further reading entries would be better positioned as sources in use... Nikkimaria (talk) 03:25, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes...lets look....sorry for all the edits...very hard to not keep explain more, Any one have access to Harold Lee Tichenor books.....

• The Blanket: an Illustrated History of the Hudson's Bay Blanket (HBC/Quantum Press, Toronto, 2002)
• The Collector's Guide to Point Blankets (Cinetel, Bowen Island, 2003)

Moxy🍁 05:04, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

ok think mainly done....lets other fix what i missed - Moxy🍁 06:19, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria, why did you remove all of the access-dates, publishers, and the like? Please add them back. I spent a lot of time formatting these references. The parameters are absolutely needed, that's why we have them. Thanks, MediaKyle (talk) 10:29, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

ok ..... Going to a step away I can't stop..... Feel there's so much information out there we could write a book. Let me know what you think of the sources and of course please help with my stupid grammar problems.... If you guys think this is an easy GA pass perhaps we should go for it. I don't really care if the articles I've worked on are assessed as GAs or FAs because it makes no difference to our readers....for me it's always been that FA and GA labeling really provides stability for an article over time. Moxy🍁 22:35, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

I think it would be worth nominating this for GA. I've had a good experience with all of my GA reviews so far, generally they result in a better article. And don't you want some little green icons to slap on your userpage? I'll give it another read and do some copyedits and such. MediaKyle (talk) 22:57, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

Hi MediaKyle, that's not correct - access dates are only required if the publication date is unknown per WP:CITEWEB, and publishers aren't required at all for periodicals. We've now got a lot of unnecessary clutter in the references, and correspondingly a lot of inconsistency. Those items should be re-removed. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:02, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

Well, what you see as unnecessary clutter I see as essential information to aid our readers in understanding where the facts in the article came from. Wikipedia is a reference work, and the most important part of this article is the references section, and it should be as informative as it can be. Access dates are beneficial, even if not strictly required, to indicate to readers when the sources were checked by editors. I've never encountered an editor indiscriminately removing access dates... I really don't think this is something we need to worry about. MediaKyle (talk) 00:07, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

It wasn't indiscriminate. But what we do need to worry about is having a consistent format, so if what you describe is your preference, please apply that consistently throughout. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:20, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

@Moxy, I was going through the oldest diffs of this article for curiosity and I found this website: https://pointblankets.com/ ... Apparently it was created by Harold Tichenor. Have you seen it? It's not in the article anymore, might be good for an EL. There's also contact info for him on there, could ask for a PDF of his books ;-) -- MediaKyle (talk) 00:17, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

yes I've been using this for reference quite a bit... Luckily he references his references so I've been using those. I'm in no rush for ending to get done did you just my next obsessive article I'm working on.... Let me email him through my alma mater and see if you can provide me with some things. Moxy🍁 00:23, 7 April 2026 (UTC)