Rare blankets made from fur of extinct woolly dog on display at North Vancouver museum | 24CA News

For 1000’s of years, the Salish woolly canine resided on B.C.’s southwest coast, offering their homeowners with companionship — and hair. 

Now, blankets woven from the fur of this extinct canine are on show on the Museum of North Vancouver till early July.

The woolly canines had been part of Coast Salish tradition that was erased throughout colonization, says the museum’s Indigenous cultural programmer Senaqwila Wyss. 

“It’s time to share their story now, as it’s been pretty silenced for so long,” mentioned Wyss, who’s from the Squamish (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh) First Nation.

The canines — which date again 1000’s of years — had been small- to medium-sized with white fur of a woolly texture, considerably resembling the modern-day breed of the Spitz, in line with Wyss. 

The canines, identified for his or her calm temperament, lived in longhouses or different varieties of dwellings with their homeowners and normally had their very own beds. 

“They were really our best friend, companion. They would be the only animals coming into our homes.”

According to a 2020 examine, their eating regimen consisted virtually totally of seafood fed to them by their homeowners. 

The woolly canine inhabitants diminished when colonizers made contact and launched cheaper sheep’s wool from the Hudson’s Bay Company.

By 1900, that they had just about disappeared, with just a few uncommon sightings on reserves as much as 1940. 

“It was through colonization that we were forced, rather than really making a choice to change our lifestyle,” mentioned Wyss. 

Friendship and wealth

Just as a lot as these canines offered companionship, they performed an essential position within the native tradition and financial system. 

Once a 12 months within the spring, the canines had been sheared. Their fur was then cleaned and used to make uncommon and treasured ceremonial robes, usually combined with different supplies like mountain goat wool, feathers, and plant fibres, in line with the museum’s web site.

“This was one of the forms of our wealth, our weaving,” mentioned Wyss. 

“As Salish people, we had a really strong connection to the woolly dogs.”

The museum will exhibit two of those blankets alongside different woolly canine paintings by Salish artists, together with Chase Gray, Sarah Jim, and Eliot White-Hill. 

Wyss started engaged on this exhibit about two years in the past when she found the museum had a woolly canine hair blanket in its archives that hadn’t been displayed publicly in over a decade.

The second gown on show is on mortgage to the museum by textile collector Terrence Loychuk. Wyss mentioned Loychuk was researching woolly canine hair and located the blanket in a thrift retailer in Langley.