More from the Five Ringed Circus
Now I know that the Winter Olympics have nothing whatsoever to do with Sailing, but the onset of the Winter Olympics mean that Summer Olympics are just around the corner, and it's very important and salutary to learn (if you haven't already) what complete ocean going shits many of those associated with the Olympic Games can be. Not all of them of course, but the Olympic Games have a habit of spawning greed and venality and many in and around the movement have come to regard the games as their very own rich cash cow.
The Bay is the former Hudson Bay Company whose fur trading, from the late 17th Century, opened up of much of this vast country. The company, now American owned, is still a major retailer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson
The Cowichan are a nation of First Peoples who populate a corner of Vancouver Island. Nation means whanau, and First Peoples are what in our politically incorrect past we might have called Red Indians. The Cowichans' ancestors would have traded, fed, sheltered, and done other things which I won't mention, with earliest Hudson Bay fur traders.
The First Nations taught the settlers how to survive in the frozen wastes, and the Europeans repaid their kindness by introducing such skills as weaving and knitting. You would imagine that, with the passing of 300 or so years, a certain amount of goodwill and trust might have been established.
Today, the Nation are justly famous for a great Canadian icon - the boldly patterned knitted natural wool sweaters which are prized by tourists, a staple of First Nation handiwork, and provide much of the Cowichans' income. I think they are rather expensive and not quite to my taste but clearly there are other views.
So it is unsurprising that, when the The Bay - official clothing suppliers for the Olympic Games - started to design the Official Olympic Collection their attention was drawn to the famous Cowichan sweater. Nothing could be more Canadian or more suitable to wear while watching the Giant Slalom?
The Bay sent it's team of designers and negotiators to visit the Cowichan, and to learn all there was to learn about knitting the sweaters - the wool, the patterns and designs, the stitching, and all the little tricks and secrets that only knitters know about.
Then what did The Bay do? You guessed it - they took all this intellectual property to China and gave the contract for a gazillion sweaters to the the lowest bidder, the proverbial and euphemistic Great China Sweater Sweatshop Corporation.
The Cowichan saw red. "You're ripping us off us", they said. "No we're not" said The Bay "We're not selling Cowichan Sweaters, they're Cowichan-type sweaters".
Now British Columbians are like Kiwis - they can spot an arsehole, or a rort, at a thousand paces. Such was the public outrage that The Bay and their minders, VANOC -The Vancouver Olympic Committee - seeing themselves on a public relations hiding to hell, thought better of their perfidy and invited the Cowichan to talk.
Now I know that the Winter Olympics have nothing whatsoever to do with Sailing, but the onset of the Winter Olympics mean that Summer Olympics are just around the corner, and it's very important and salutary to learn (if you haven't already) what complete ocean going shits many of those associated with the Olympic Games can be. Not all of them of course, but the Olympic Games have a habit of spawning greed and venality and many in and around the movement have come to regard the games as their very own rich cash cow.
The Bay is the former Hudson Bay Company whose fur trading, from the late 17th Century, opened up of much of this vast country. The company, now American owned, is still a major retailer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson
The Cowichan are a nation of First Peoples who populate a corner of Vancouver Island. Nation means whanau, and First Peoples are what in our politically incorrect past we might have called Red Indians. The Cowichans' ancestors would have traded, fed, sheltered, and done other things which I won't mention, with earliest Hudson Bay fur traders.
The First Nations taught the settlers how to survive in the frozen wastes, and the Europeans repaid their kindness by introducing such skills as weaving and knitting. You would imagine that, with the passing of 300 or so years, a certain amount of goodwill and trust might have been established.
Today, the Nation are justly famous for a great Canadian icon - the boldly patterned knitted natural wool sweaters which are prized by tourists, a staple of First Nation handiwork, and provide much of the Cowichans' income. I think they are rather expensive and not quite to my taste but clearly there are other views.
So it is unsurprising that, when the The Bay - official clothing suppliers for the Olympic Games - started to design the Official Olympic Collection their attention was drawn to the famous Cowichan sweater. Nothing could be more Canadian or more suitable to wear while watching the Giant Slalom?
The Bay sent it's team of designers and negotiators to visit the Cowichan, and to learn all there was to learn about knitting the sweaters - the wool, the patterns and designs, the stitching, and all the little tricks and secrets that only knitters know about.
Then what did The Bay do? You guessed it - they took all this intellectual property to China and gave the contract for a gazillion sweaters to the the lowest bidder, the proverbial and euphemistic Great China Sweater Sweatshop Corporation.
The Cowichan saw red. "You're ripping us off us", they said. "No we're not" said The Bay "We're not selling Cowichan Sweaters, they're Cowichan-type sweaters".
Now British Columbians are like Kiwis - they can spot an arsehole, or a rort, at a thousand paces. Such was the public outrage that The Bay and their minders, VANOC -The Vancouver Olympic Committee - seeing themselves on a public relations hiding to hell, thought better of their perfidy and invited the Cowichan to talk.
As Yahoo.sports.com reported:-
Hwitsum (the boss knitter) said the deal will likely see Cowichan sweaters sold in the Hudson's Bay Company's Olympic superstore in downtown Vancouver and in an aboriginal pavilion set up during the Games.
What it would involve is introducing an authentic Cowichan sweater into the Olympic experience," Hwitsum said in an interview.
She said the company had suggested Cowichan knitters incorporate the design used on the official Olympic apparel, but the knitters want to use their own traditional patterns. They are, however, open to the idea of incorporating the Olympics into their sweaters.
I'm too polite to suggest any Olympic images they might wish to incorporate in the relatively few sweaters the Cowichan will sell.
Face may have been restored to the Cowichan nation and the company nimbly averted the worst of a public relations disaster but, in reality, it's taken time to reach this compromise and knitting time is running out. And the customers will be too distracted to consider the relative merits of the genuine article or it's cheap Chinese rip off.
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