Hudson's Bay Company Point Blanket

The absolute peak of Canadian design comes in the form of an unassuming blanket. The Hudson's Bay Point Blanket. Hudson's Bay Company, the oldest corporation in North America, and nearly the oldest in the world, has an incredible history, that you can read about here. I'm proud to call this store Canadian–and just about as Canadian as a store could possibly get.

Starting off as a fur trading business in 1670, the company began trading their now iconic blankets to First Nations people in exchange for beaver pelts. 

Centuries later, these minimalist blankets, striped with the primary colours have become an often overlooked, but no less important Canadian symbol and inspirational design. They continue to be sold by the same company that introduced them. 

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Some other products inspired by the point blanket:

Anundshög

Just about five minutes into the countryside around Västerås, there is an ancient Viking burial site. It's called "Annundshög" and there are a bunch of old Swedish kings buried there... The graves are all set up to form the shape of Viking longboats (as can be seen above), but one king was buried and then covered with a huge mound of dirt. This king must have been special to have so much dirt piled on top of him (kind of ironic) and it's pretty awesome to look at today.

There's really something special about standing on such an ancient site... It kind of makes me feel small in the entire scope of history.