Last month, Dal Libraries unveiled a new exhibit at the MacRae Library celebrating one of the Faculty of Agriculture’s most enduring traditions: the Campus Blanket.
Since 2003, Campus Blankets have been produced using wool from sheep raised on the Agricultural Campus. The exhibit traces the journey from sheep to finished blanket, highlighting the people, processes, and history behind this Dal tradition.
Created through collaboration with campus partners, the display brings together blankets, yarn, handcrafted wool items, archival records, museum artifacts, photographs, and books from Dal Libraries’ collections.
Visitors learn about the sheep raised on campus, the annual shearing process, and the origins of the Campus Blanket program. A sheep management course manual from 2001 provides historical context, while photographs and artifacts document every stage of production, from sorting and packaging wool to its transport to a mill in Prince Edward Island and its transformation into finished blankets.
The exhibit features both an original Campus Blanket and one from this year’s production, alongside other wool products made from campus fleece, including hand-knit hats.
To complement the display, Dal Libraries also created a commemorative bookmark featuring a 2003 Agricola alumni news clipping announcing the launch of the Campus Blanket program. Drawn from the Edith Zillig collection (MS-14-22), the bookmark includes QR codes linking visitors to the archives catalogue and the Barley Boutique, where Campus Blankets and other Agricultural Campus merchandise are available.
