“Hey! That’s a Cowichan sweater!” a woman calls out to me from across a laneway in downtown Vancouver. “It’s gorgeous,” she says, nodding approvingly at the hand-knit zip-up I’m wearing as our paths meet, wooly grey clouds softening the low winter sun.
I’m not surprised she knows the pedigree of my vintage sweater. Its heavy-gauge yarn, spun from undyed sheep’s wool, is knit into wide bands of driftwood and cream, punctuated with earth-brown orcas flanking an eight-point snowflake—on front and back. Classic Cowichan.
I share this anecdote with Ron Rice (hereditary name Wush’q), executive director of the Victoria Native Friendship Centre. The VNFC manages an Indigenous-led initiative called Knit (Wutth’els), which Rice hopes will help Cowichan sweaters like mine become recognized for their heirloom value.
The fair-trade program launched last October includes an online boutique where customers can confidently purchase genuine Cowichan sweaters. Names, bios, and photos of nearly a dozen Coast Salish knitters are proudly displayed on Knit’s pages.
Providing living wages to the knitters is only one of the new initiative’s aims, Rice says. He believes it’s important—to both Cowichan Tribes and Canadians in general—to elevate the sweater, which was first knit in the early 1900s, from utilitarian to sacred status.
“This is about reconciliation,” he says. “This is about the icon. This was Canada’s gift to Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip when they came to visit in the ’70s. This is something that Canada has been very proud of for a very long time. And I think we can get back to that place.”
As a kid growing up in qathet Regional District alongside the Salish Sea, I coveted Cowichan sweaters (even more than a pair of North Star runners). They had a cachet of cool. And they were warm. Ideal for logging in mist-wrapped rainforests or fishing in wind-whipped waters, the wool’s lanolin naturally water-resistant, keeping dampness at bay.
To comprehend the Cowichan sweater’s evolution, it’s important to understand its origins. All those decades ago, I thought the shawl-collar sweaters, knit in the round with only one seam across the shoulders, were rooted in Indigenous tradition. It wasn’t until Rice told me that knitting was taught to girls in residential school by English, Irish, and Scottish nuns that I began to appreciate the deeper story and fraught history entwined with every stitch. “The girls took to it very quickly because they were already blanket weavers and basket weavers,” Rice says.
Cowichan sweaters became a source of income, albeit a precarious one even for business-minded knitters like Sarah Modeste (Ts’esthaut), who also owned a wool-processing mill.
“To me, knitting is a part of life,” Modeste says in The Cowichan Sweater: Our Knitted Legacy. The 2023 documentary, streaming on CBC Gem, was written and directed by Mary Galloway, an actor who is also the granddaughter of the late Cowichan chief Dennis Alphonse. “If I didn’t know how to knit, we wouldn’t have anything to eat in the house,” Modeste continues. “I used to watch my grandmother knit sweaters…. She’d sell it, and then the next day, there would be groceries on the table. So knitting is part of life for the Native people.”
But that lifeline, linked to wool from shorn sheep (also introduced by Europeans) that graze the land spread out along the Cowichan Valley and beyond, has become frayed. The only wool mill on Vancouver Island shuttered years ago. Now knitters rely on yarn from Alberta or New Zealand. Wool prices keep increasing.
Then there’s labour. It takes an experienced knitter 24 to 35 hours to make a sweater, Rice says. VNFC buys them for $500 each and sells them for around $895. Still not a living wage, he acknowledges, though Rice is optimistic that with the right partnerships, they can put more money into the hardworking hands of knitters.
In addition to the British Royal Family, the iconic sweaters were gifted to U.S. President Harry Truman and singer Bing Crosby.
But the artisans are getting older. “Some of the youngest knitters are in their mid- to late 60s,” Rice says. “The life expectancy of an Indigenous person—you know, these people are 10 years away from the culture dying with them.” Part of VNFC’s mission is to attract younger people to the craft and help them understand the importance of the Cowichan sweater’s legacy.
Kari McLay, who consults for Knit, is doing her part to ensure its survival. The Cowichan sweater, she says, “is near and dear to my heart.” Her late grandfather owned Cowichan Trading, a retail store that has held court on Government Street in Victoria since 1947. It’s closing at the end of December. “An end of an era,” McLay says, recalling the sweaters’ popularity in the 1970s and ’80s, particularly with American, European, and Japanese buyers. “We couldn’t sell them fast enough.”
In addition to the British Royal Family, the iconic sweaters were gifted to U.S. President Harry Truman and singer Bing Crosby. Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, current PM Justin Trudeau, and his son Hadrien have all been photographed wearing Cowichan sweaters.
McLay is boosting the Cowichan sweater as a modern luxury item, selling a small collection in her Victoria boutique, Tulipe Noire. She’s also bringing sweaters to an international audience. Like to Old Stone Trade, an online boutique based in New York, which sells small-scale artisanal goods, including Cowichan sweaters sourced through Knit. The names of the knitters are posted alongside photos of their work. Last July, company founder Melissa Ventosa Martin, who also sells at trunk shows, was featured wearing a Cowichan sweater in The New York Times.
I tell McLay about the faded fabric hang tag inside my sweater, which was given to me by a friend who inherited it from a relative in San Diego. It reads: Genuine Cowichan Indian Knit / Hand Spun / Wool 100% Laine, accompanied by a serial number. She confidently states that if her grandfather were still alive, he could ID the knitter from the handiwork alone.
Rice says something similar. Although it’s typical to see motifs such as thunderbirds, orcas, and other fauna, there’s not necessarily a connection to a family clan or crest. Every sweater is a unique story written in wool. I can’t help wonder who made mine, pulling the soft yarn through their fingers and whipping it over and under the needles hundreds of times over days and nights, perhaps while teaching the next generations to knit. Passing down stories. Sharing laughter. Infusing good intentions into the sweater for its wearer.
And I understand why Rice says that through this passing down of knowledge and tradition, the Cowichan sweater “has become sacred over three generations.” Now when another person admires mine, I won’t share where it was discovered or who gave it to me. Instead, I’ll share its origin story, the one that goes back three generations.
