My parents formed Sky Flight, Inc. for their Big Timber, Montana airport business. Sky Flight initially provided fuel and repair services for transient aircraft, sales of new and used airplanes, pilot instruction, and charter services. The company grew with contracts to provide aviation services to the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service. The Forest Service hired the application of chemicals from airplanes, and the company soon began providing chemical application services to farms and ranches. Several companies were formed under the corporate banner as the corporation's business expanded. Big Timber Farm Supply was a farm store and implement dealership. Yellowstone Air Service was formed around a larger twin-engine airplane for air ambulance and charter services. TAMREC was an equipment and truck leasing and rental company.

Yellowstone Air Service continued as a company after the initial airplane was sold, and eventually, the company was sold. That company name remains the airport services operator in Livingston, Montana. In its early days, Yellowstone Air Service offered several fishing charters to lakes in Canada. My father returned with a Hudson’s Bay point blanket from one of those early trips. Point blankets were initially part of the North American fur trade. By 1700, wool blankets accounted for over 60 percent of the goods traded for furs. The Hudson’s Bay Company was granted a royal charter, allowing them to establish a monopoly in the fur trade across Canada and the northern part of the United States. Boise, Idaho, where we lived for a decade, was originally a Hudson’s Bay fur trade post.

The blanket my father brought home from Canada bore the traditional Hudson’s Bay pattern of four stripes, green, red, yellow, and indigo, on a white background. The indigo stripe often appears to be black on modern point blankets. Additionally, point blankets have short black lines woven into the edge just above the stripes. The point lines indicate the size of the blanket. In the fur trade days, blankets of 2.5, 3, 3.5, and 4 were the most common sizes. Today, the blankets are most commonly found in 3.5, a twin bed size, 4, a double bed, 6 (queen), and 8 (king). My father’s was a 4.

As long as he was in the flying business, the blanket was part of the emergency supplies he carried in whatever plane he flew in the winter. I don’t know what became of that blanket. I am nostalgic when I visit Hudson’s Bay stores, and I have thought of purchasing a point blanket, but such a purchase never became my priority.

I am thinking of point blankets these days and wondering if the iconic Hudson’s Bay blankets will soon become a thing of the past. There was a time when Hudson’s Bay stores, often known simply as The Bay, were located across Canada. The last time I was in one of their flagship stores was in 2006 when we shopped in the large Winnipeg store. On Monday, the company will begin liquidating all but six of its stores. Whether or not the remaining six stores in Ontario and Quebec will remain open depends upon the company obtaining financing.

According to the CBC, customers rush to purchase point blankets at the stores. The remaining inventory is expected to sell out long before the June 15 final business day for the liquidating stores. The company has been selling blankets since 1779, and it now appears that the run will end in 2025.

Hudson’s Bay Company has a checkered history. The monopoly was originally a mechanism for people not living in Canada to extract wealth from the territory. The principal investors were from England and sought profits from trading with Indigenous people. The company has gone through various investors and is owned by NRDC Equity Partners, a USA investment firm.

There are many reasons why the company has been forced to liquidate its assets. Brick-and-mortar department stores have been struggling for decades. Competition from online stores has cut profits and forced the closure of iconic department stores, including Sears and Marshall Fields. Another factor in the failure of Hudson’s Bay Company has been uncertainty around US tariffs and the bourgeoning trade war between the US and Canada. No one wins in trade wars, and it makes sense that a cross-border company might be among the victims of the current trade war.

Among the stores to be liquidated is the six-story department store at Granville and Georgia in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, just 40 miles from our home. The Bay has occupied a store at that location since 1914. It will be a significant change for the city. I won’t be rushing across the border to shop. They may have already sold out of point blankets, and there will be no discounts on any remaining stock. In addition, Pendleton Woolen Mills still sells wool point blankets with the Hudson’s Bay stripes. Interestingly, the Pendleton blanket is sold as a “Glacier Park” blanket, which seems fitting since Glacier is on the border with Canada and is joined with Canada’s Waterton Lakes National Park. And for people who aren’t sticklers for the exact stripe pattern, Bemidji Woolen Mills sells a three-stripe blanket that looks similar without the green stripe.

I have a warm Bemidji blanket that I enjoy pulling over my legs on cool evenings as I sit and read. It was a gift from Lakota friends. Other blankets and quilts we have received over the years have been given away in the Lakota tradition. We have been their stewards for a while and have sought opportunities to pass them on when appropriate. One trade blanket with its own story is appropriate for us to keep. The story of how blankets and quilts became important symbols for Native American tribes is a story for another day and another journal entry.

I’ll probably keep my eyes out for point blankets when I shop in thrift stores. I may one day find one, though it seems less likely now that new blankets will soon not be available.