#arnprior

Given how much my family loves the blanket (great for on the couch), I decided that on my regular trips to the local thrift store I'd watch for blankets - long shot of course, presumably they'd seem them and put them in the auction, or otherwise try to get appropriate value for them. It looks like I was right about it being a long shot - the $15 wool blanket I found is Canadian made (did you know that despite being a Canadian icon the Hudson's Bay blankets are not? It makes sense when you think about it, I just never did). I of course looked it up online to see what I could find out about it.

I got very lucky. The Arnprior museum had created a presentation on the mill (which used to be a significant, and good, employer in the town) and it's up on Digital Museums Canada. This new blanket (which I'm going to want to replace the binding on, because in between me buying it, and now it drying from me hand washing it, the bindings have 100% fallen apart at the fold line - it was only threatening in the store) predates 1979, and is likely at least from the 1960's based on the tags. The mill stopped making the blankets in 1979, and the company was either acquired, or merged with another company forming a third company in 1962. As far as I can tell, either at that time or at 1967 when "[t]he divisions were amalgamated" the labels started including the name of the larger company.

The mayor has breached the Arnprior, Ont., code of conduct after penning an opinion letter to residents about systemic racism, says the town's integrity commissioner.

In his letter titled "My Opinion" and sent to local mailboxes in January, Mayor Walter Stack argues why he doesn't believe systemic racism exists in his town after hearing "input from both sides on the topic."

The letter follows a CBC Ottawa series on racism in the Ottawa Valley, where Black and Indigenous people and people of colour (BIPOC) shared their experiences with racism and called on local leaders to do something about it.

In one story, Stack told CBC he doesn't believe there's systemic racism in Arnprior and suggested racist incidents there are isolated — which prompted petitions calling for the town to apologize.

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Arnprior Water Tower