Mackinaw Jackets

Mackinaw Jackets

Compiled by Lawrence Barkwell Coordinator of Metis Heritage and History Research Louis Riel Institute

Mackinaw jackets were invented by Metis women in 1811, when John Askin, an Upper Great Lakes fur trader asked them to design and sew woolen jackets for the army. Madelaine Askin née Pelletier (wife of John Askin Jr.) was the lead designer of the “Mackinac Coat” – designed and made at Fort St. Joseph by Métis women who supported the war effort by supplying the 10th Royal Veteran Battalion with these coats to replace the worn out military coats. These jackets were all to be blue, but when this colour ran out they used red then the plaid cloth that we associate with the jackets of today. Askin was fulfilling a contract he received from Captain Charles Roberts at Fort St. Joseph. The term later spread to be universal, and in Canada the “Mac” is regarded as a marker of national identity and working-class values. These jackets were later made famous by American loggers in the northern part of the midwest in the mid-19th century logging boom. Mackinaw is a heavy dense water-repellent woolen cloth, such as Melton cloth. It was used to make a short coat of the same name, sometimes with a doubled shoulder. The name Mackinaw likely originates from the Straits of Mackinac in present day Michigan, USA. This area was an important trade artery during the 1700s and 1800s, and Mackinac is one of the earliest Metis communities. Heavy woolen cloth traded through this area may have been described as Mackinaw cloth.