Artworks and Artists
A Minor Sport in Canada

A Minor Sport in Canada,
Boyer, Bob
acrylic and oil on cotton blanket
188 x 221 cm; overall with attachments: 208 x 240 cm


The Painted Blankets Series addresses both political and personal issues. In A Minor Sport in Canada the blanket represents trade blankets and, by extension, the trade relations on the Northern Plains during historic times.Many observers have noted that the key reference in Boyer's Painted Blanket Series may be the most devastating colonizing force of all - disease. European-introduced diseases such as smallpox swept across the continent and decimated the Aboriginal populations. Thousands upon thousands of people died during these epidemics. The blankets, a valued trade commodity, were often the unsuspected carrier of disease. The epidemics contributed to the weakening of the communities' cultural fabric, making them more dependent upon and susceptible to Euro-Canadian and American societies.