Working with wool

the long version

This book tells the story of British Columbia's Coast Salish people and their traditional hand-woven blankets and hand-knitted Cowichan sweaters. The author shows how the story of the sweater and its knitters reflects the history of the Coast Salish people in twentieth-century Canada. The knitters experienced grinding poverty, destructive racism, government paternalism, and cultural appropriation, but they battled back, using their sweaters to survive and to disprove the stereotypes that excluded them from the mainstream society and economy. It speaks of the heart and soul of many people, their lifeblood and passion.