Our Story
Merchandise is made in the Atlantic Provinces from quality materials that, when possible, are also from the Atlantic Provinces. Merchandise tells a story about manufacturing, history, and creativity in the region.
Traditional distinctions between artisanal or crafted and mass-produced items are flattened. Merchandise functions at a high level. Function and aesthetic are twinned, valued concepts. Merchandise is focused on homewares and useful items.
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The Bear River Mercantile is inspired by Frances Nation, a store in Christchurch, New Zealand. During a visited 2019 we had this exchange with the owner:
Q. How did you choose your soap vendor?
A. Her soap lifts away from the dish. It doesn’t dry and hold to the dish.
I understand that reply as a comment on how most artisanal soaps glue themselves to the surface they rest on as they dry. What I appreciate about the response, though, is that it declares that good soap isn’t just a cleaning product but an object we interact with, and that interaction must be satisfying, foster ease, and make life better.
Our Mission
Why we started.
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Community
Giving back to Atlantic Canada
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
Proudly Owned
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.