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Created in 2016, Ace’s large scale installation Nayaano-nibiimaang Gichigamiin: The Five Great Lakes (2016) is even more historically poignant today, as we witness in 2025 the demise of a continuous 355 year history of the Hudson Bay Company‘s presence in North America. Although the economic relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Hudson Bay Company is a longstanding and troubling colonial and trade history, these unique blankets also carry with them an important significance, as they are deeply entrenched into the history and culture of the Anishinaabeg peoples of the Great Lakes. These signature wool blankets once carried with them important signs and semiotics, as they quickly became assimilated into the material culture. They were highly prized as gifts and even worn as regalia for important ceremonial and treaty gatherings. The red blanket was even fashioned into winter military coats for the British military stationed in the Great Lakes region, while the green blanket was revered by tribes on the West Coast. For many Indigenous nations in North America, these blankets were often decorated, altered and even embellished with a beaded or quilled blanket strip and took on an even greater cultural and spiritual significance.

With the future production and availability of these blankets now in jeopardy with the impending demise of the Hudson Bay Company, they will forever be a significant sign-post and mnemonic time capsule of the past.

Station Gallery (Whitby, Ontario): Catalogue for Nayaano-nibiimaang Gichigamiin: The Five Great Lakes (2016)

Ojibwe Cultural Foundation (M’Chigeeng, Manitoulin Island): Catalogue for Nayaano-nibiimaang Gichigamiin: The Five Great Lakes (2016).