I am the Camille Poirier, maybe you hear of me, eh?
By Camille Poirier
I I am born March the third 1838 Camille Poirier in Lower Canada what you now call Quebec. I was in St. Jacque nearby to the back of Montreal born.
My family was a poor one and my mother she died soon when I was yet young. One uncle who was a god father to me he raised me and for that I am yet grateful since without him I have no life. Without him I am a dead one but he was there for me and I live to the old age because of him.
The life was still hard though. I have but two years the schooling, from seven to nine years in age as a small boy and that was it, I do not learn too much in the school. Mostly I work on the farm, my uncle’s farm until I am 14 and then I run away.
I do not know what I am doing this time running away but I have a life too hard on the farm so I do it I guess and I am soon in a shoe shop there I start the trade that is my life. The farm life she is very hard and so is the shoe shop but still not so bad this time as the farm life.
To learn the trade I was taken on and it was my life to be in the shop 15 hour of the day and in the year I am earning $10 for the whole of this work in the year. I am doing this three year before I get my papers as a full fledge shoe maker, and then I am earn at $6.00 the month for the next year I stay.
We are different now. I turn around and I look back at my life then, it was another life, like it belong to another one, not to me. In the winter it was dark half the time we had three of us working around the one candle a home made one, a tallow candle, that was it. That was our light to make the shoe by. We work and work, always work. We work hard, we did.
Then I am 19 in the year 1857. I look at the United States we all did, us boys in Lower Canada it was the land of the dream for us. We all see there wealth in our visions. Yet I am too poor and it is too hard to get in and then I am in Manchester England soon to try it there, it is easier place to get to from Canada in those day.
But I have no English not a word but I stay three year I work hard at it all. I make the shoe, I lay the brick, I chop the wood for anyone they need some, still no head way. I stay poor always.
I am having with an ax the accident on my knee, where it cuts. It become a very bad situation for me, the doctors not doing so much good, then I walk on the crutches for better than a year. My knee she is stiff she will not bend much so I am go back to home again in Canada.
I am better again there. I marry to a woman and we have the two childrens. That was the year 1862 and then she die my wife in the year 1864 the fall of it, with me the poor cripple man and two kids behind left all alone it was a sad day that one, a sad day. I miss that good woman, I love her yet. I have tears sometimes in the dark of night for her, my first love. I am in the bed at night in the dark and the tears run down my face like is raining for her, and she is no more, she is gone now these long years.
I was in my native land five year back from England and age of 27 when 1865 come along. Still I am thinking since a boy of the States the land of promise and now I have the English language a little, maybe enough, so I go, I have some money save up by now.
It was first to St. Paul in Minnesota I go. I am a good workman. Fast, I work hard all day there at home in Canada, 12 hours in the day, for 75 cents and I get by good. But then in St. Paul where I go I am now get suddenly two dollar, three dollar in the day I am so surprise how can this be I am doing it the same way but the money is so big. I am greatly surprise, I am.
Then after a while I am there I am a foreman in a big place. I am still making the shoe, but now I am pay one thousand of dollar in the year as foreman to make the shoe.
This goes into my head a little and I think back on the farmland so I buy some, 120 acre of land. For I was brought up that way and it is still with me as a thought to be a farmer. Then I am marry again to another woman, in the year 1868 and the next year I am look around to start my own shop, always restless, this young man was, the one who I was then.
Town after town I look at, St. Peter, St. Cloud and so on. I look some other place too but keep looking for the new place, the right one. They are talking then of the railroad, the St. Paul & Duluth Railway I hear. This must be the coming thing I think to me which turns me to Duluth as my home and I go there for the opportunity.
In the cold of the year, it was February of the year 1870 I am leaving my wife, with my tools and what supply of leather I have to travel in the suffering cold alone very cold but I make it at the end to Duluth where I settle.
From Colonel Graves Spruce Young I lease the property which was all snow then, four feet deep, and I buy the wood and the tar paper to build but found no carpenters to work. They are all busy this time at three dollar and a half the day and working hard at it, very busy. I say I give them $5.00 to work on my side and they all say yes and they come over to me and so I have my house then in five days, done.
I have my shop then and I have a boarding house on the other side of it where I am the cook too. This is how I become a good cook to this day now. Then I work at the business. Six week go by and I have six good man they work for me the money rolling in, working some times part of the night too, to make the work finish but we do it. We get it done.
I am getting trust of people through my work. I have some credit. Some times it go bad then I give them my word on the debt, that I pay them back no matter what, now many years on I am still deal with the same ones and they still have the trust with me. I am good for my word still. I am the honest man, always. It is the right way. I always do this things so.
Then I send for the wife in March. It is still the year of 1870. I am of age 32 years. My wife and the childrens at first they stay with Mr Sweeney the city engineer as I have no place which I have to build on the back first. Everything frozen hard. Without the trees they cut all winter to make the fire we freeze, and the ice was long on the lake this year, the boats stuck on the lake so we almost starve at the end but then spring come to us and we make it. Supplies come in for us from the boats from the Great Lake.
By year of 1877 I have 25 man. They are board with us too, some of them. My wife she does the work very hard I do not know how, she is a good woman. Sometimes I think too good for me but she stay with me anyway and then we start the first water business in Duluth. The business are going good. The shoe business. The ice business. The water business. We are make the good life.
But I think the insurance is eating me. It is seven percent, eight percent on my stock so I drop it and then the fire come, big surprise. I am then suddenly $15,000.00 in the deep hole of debt so I have to start over from nothing like the first lonesome blade of grass in spring from the burned earth.
I move. I sell some property. I make money some more. I am the only shoe man around for year on year so they all come in from every place around to buy the shoe so I get by. I have the large business with working from six in the morning to the night, 11 or 12 in the night some days, always working.
Many of them that need the shoe come to me from the copper mine in the good times then the mine run out and they still owe me the money. I collect from a few, not too many. Then McGregor & Morrision take fire up the street and I get burn out another time from that, it spread to my shop too. All my stock at $40,000.00 is gone I get some on insurance for my building not much though so I start at it again. This is the year 1883 now, this year. I start over again.
I go on. I keep up with the work. Then I sell out. I think $30,000.00 cash for my building is good, a good offer from Henry Bell and I take it. I think I am rich now with all this money and I think the land is the thing to buy and sell. I think I will get rich that way.
I buy and sell the land. One year go by, two year. Then come the year 1894. The panic in the year 1894 come to me like a wolf and take it all away from me when it all go bust so I am broke down another time. I feel like a rock on the bottom of the lake where I sit dead under the waters. I am too old for this now, down too deep I think but I have to eat some more so I go back into it. I am 56 year old this year. I am not a young man no more. I build up slow, the hard way it is for me, but what else? It is my fate.
Back a few year before all this I make lots other stuff. I know the leather, I know the canvas, I am good with the hands. This is the new country. When I first come here there is almost no city. That is why I come with the railroad, it is all new. We build up together I think.
First the ship then the mine, all on the railway line they depend. The copper ore go out, the iron ore go out, the wheat go out, the corn go out, on the ship, the coal come in, the other stuff come in, the food, the goods, we have a big trade here. People come too. Duluth she grow, this city.
People come by. People farm on the land. They need the shoe, the boot, some harness for the horse and I do it all but mostly the shoe and the boot. Then I get another idea.
Back in the old day at first the country she is still wild a lot of place. We get the new railway and some road here and there you know, but lots of land still is the bush. Many go and come by canoe every where, they still use the canoe for get around in that day. They come to the town for supply then go home or they hunt, they haul supply out and back, to and fro. With the canoe. So I think on it.
We have the old pack basket. We have some duffel bag and some gunny sack. None of this fit the canoe too good. What could be better than this I think. We got some people hauling cargo back and forth, around and around, all they got is a bag on a tump line. I see some knapsack around, they been around a long time, the knapsack. I think on it. But the knapsack he are too small for the canoe hauling. I think some more, how I could make the things better for people.
One day then I think some more and I have the idea. I think about the basket and the knapsack. What if the knapsack he get bigger, like the duffel. Big like a pack basket but canvas. You put the shoulder strap on him too, same as always with the knapsack. You still got the old tump line too, like on the basket, maybe he work that way too.
What it going to take I think. I try some stuff. Some friend of mine, they know the canoe so they help me. I do not know the canoe. I never carry the canoe and that is one of the secret. I have it wrong to start but I fix with help from the friend.
For the canoe no matter what, sooner and later you got to carry it. You run out of the water and then you make a portage. It is the way of all the canoe trip, the water she come to the end and then you walk to the next one on the ground with your feet.
The pack basket, the big duffel bag they carry lot of stuff. The basket not too good in the canoe but it hold a lot. The duffel bag harder on the carry but sit better in the canoe. The knapsack good to carry small load and it sit in the canoe pretty good but too small. None of it good for the portage. So I make all them come together and I try it out. It take me a few month. I am busy with the other business I have but I keep on it I am like that.
Pretty soon then I have the Poirier Pack, so I patent him. I have the big pack for lots of the stuff, with the shoulder strap like a knapsack, but he is a big one this fellow. He has also the tump line for the portage and he is canvas and good leather to be sturdy and you can roll him up to tuck away when he is empty. He open to the top end and fasten with buckles to be secure.
The shoulder strap are put on right so he hang low when you wear him. This is for being out of the way during the portage when the canoe she is up on your head and then the pack he is down low and out of the way. Here is the secret. The canoe and the pack then they do not fight each one another. And a small strap again to hold the shoulder strap on the front of the chest tight together for comfort. The chest strap, he is mine. I invent him then.
For carry of load back and forth without the canoe, you have the tump line to make it easy. If you go out with this and it is a bad day, I have also add the carrier for umbrella to provide shade from rain and sun as well it is a good pack I think. It add to my business greatly increasing sales. I have invent this pack, the Poirier Pack. The hunter he use it too sometime.
This was the story of my life. In the year 1911 I have 73 years when I sell all to Duluth Tent and Awning. For them the Poirier Pack then become the Duluth Pack after our city named. It is one of my proud things in my life.
This is my story. I hear you still make this pack today long after I am gone. It is one of my proud things, this pack. I was Camille Poirier then, maker of the shoe. I was Camille Poirier, maker of the pack like you still use today.
It is good I think.
I hope you remember me sometime in a quiet moment.
You've read dumb articles in the past. A hack writer introduces a subject and feels that it needs some depth, so there's a brief nod to history, which the writer invents. Something about the knuckle dragging cavemen, and then maybe something about knights of the round table, followed by scenes from the wild west, the roaring 20s, then finally the author starts on the real subject.
This kind of fluff usually covers half a paragraph unless the writer is totally clueless and trying like crazy to fill space. Then it can take up to half the article.
Which is the point. Turn the crank. Make up something. Blow smoke. Fill space. Give the readers something to keep them busy. They're dumb anyway, right? They won't catch on, so fake them out. This is standard hack writer procedure.
So let's start with some history then, cave man era.
It's easy to say that people way back when made bags to carry things in because they did. People still do. But the really old stuff was made of all organic, all natural materials without price tags. And what were those all natural materials? Things like hides and branches, a few strips of leather, and sinew.
And that was all they really needed. It's easy to say that these people had a few odds and ends to drop into their packs because they did. Perhaps a stray elk liver, or a couple of rocks. They didn't have much because shopping malls were too far away to drive to, and anyway no one had a car that would go several thousand years into the future and come back again, unlike now.
And there was no shopping. Or money. And what transportation existed was unreliable in the extreme. And might try to eat you.
These people were stuck with only odds and ends then. Stuck.
With odds.
Odds like lumps of dried meat (an elk liver only if you were very wealthy), and ends like tubers, tanned hides, some semi-pretty shells, or clods of dirt. And at this point we simply wave our hands and say that after history's wheel turned a few turns we got the modern backpack, cleverly skipping all the messy details like how to get an elk liver into your handbag.
It got even easier to say this when Frozen Fritz showed up on a glacier near the border separating Austria and Italy in 1991.
Frozen Fritz, a.k.a. Ötzi the Iceman, as he might have looked.
Strictly speaking, Fritz was only partly on a glacier. The rest of him was partly in it. He's more often referred to as Ötzi the Iceman, and he's been dead roughly five thousand three hundred years.
Earlier news reports said things like "He wore a wooden-framed backpack on his back and carried a bow which he had not yet finished making. He had a quiver full of half finished arrows with bone and stone arrowheads which had not yet been attached. He wore a small pack with his fire-making kit around his waist. And hanging on the strap of his pack was a stone knife in a woven grass sheath. He also carried a copper-bladed ax." 1
And in case that wasn't enough, they brought in experts to pontificate: "The picture that emerges from my analysis of Ötzi's possessions is of a mature, highly skilled hunter. His kit provided, with minimal weight, all the necessary tools for hunting, butchering and bringing back meat, skins, antlers or horn on his lightweight pack frame." 2
Damn handy for the quickie historian to find this stuff in print, already typed up, although later on people began rethinking the evidence. Like maybe what the experts first took for a pack frame was really part of Fritz's snowshoes. Whoa, babe. Too bad for us lazy authors. This book is about packs, and it would be so easy to drop in a few paragraphs of canned history.
Dang. More typing must be done the hard way, I guess. By me.
But there was a Fritz, and he was frozen, and it is clear that he had some pretty tricky gear, and knew how to use it.
Snowshoes, for instance. You didn't get them off the rack 5300 years ago. There were no racks, except the kind that might come after you on the top side of a moose.
So in other words he (Fritz) and his people (the ancient Fritzians) could get by.
They were bright and capable, and we know they had to carry things, that's pretty obvious, so they probably had packs. External frame packs are such a blindingly obvious idea that they were even reinvented in the 20th century. Therefore Fritz's folks likely had them too, illustrating the eternal cutting edge of European culture which we have gradually come to know and love.
Note also that mention of Fritz's fire-making kit. He definitely did have a small bag or pack with him.
Fritz's external frame backpack is not confirmed, but he did have a day pack, as we would call it. He also had a half-finished bow and a bunch of half-finished arrows, so we can also say that he was a lazy bastard. Someone a guy could trust, maybe hoist a few brewskis with on a Neolithic Saturday night when it could feel really good to sit around the fire and gnaw on something.
Maybe Fritz was the kind of sloppy, easy-going sort of guy whose shoelaces come undone a lot, the kind of person who has a bunch of stories to share.
Maybe that's why they shot him and left him stuck in a glacier. No one has ever liked a smartass.
– Please to ignore gap. –
Of several thousand years. (Please.)
Next we skip a few thousand irrelevant years and hop up almost to the present day. We can do that because we're not historians or anthropologists, and because none of us is deeply interested in this. You have no unhealthy fascination with history, either. Maybe a little interest, around the edges, and that's OK, but not more than a little interest. That is OK too.
You're OK, I'm OK. Are we OK with that? OK.
Besides, since you're reading, and this is all in your head, it's pretty easy to hop around. If you're anywhere near normal then you have lots of room in there, which makes hopping easier. (Have you noticed?)
So then. The 20th century arrives, but just barely.
Lloyd F. Nelson and daughter (and pack), 1922.
There is this guy named Lloyd F. Nelson. For some reason they always spell Lloyd with two ells, and Lloyd F. Nelson was one of them. Damn straight. A government employee, working for the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, WA very early in the 20th century.
One day his job took Lloyd F. to Alaska where he faithfully performed his duties. He was a guy you could count on, this Lloyd of the redundant ells. He performed duties faithfully no matter where he was and no doubt would have used his spare ell with barely a moment's notice if he had ever needed to. But with Lloyd F., that probably was not necessary.
So he went to Alaska on assignment and did something, whatever it was.
But after he was done with whatever it was, Lloyd had a few days off and borrowed a "crude Indian pack board made of sealskins stretched over willow sticks, a style used by generations." Maybe it was crude and beat up, or maybe he didn't at first recognize its hand-crafted authenticity, but the pack did give him an idea.
What Nelson used was probably two or three sticks lashed together, forming either an A shape or a triangular shape (depending on how many sticks were used, how they were tied, and whether the maker had learned his letters).
The sticks were the frame, and the frame had a bag tied in the middle somewhere, with a couple of shoulder straps thrown in for fun. This was 1920, so calm down. In 1920 this was really something. This was the same kind of technology that Frozen Fritz had used five millennia before, but reinvented by some other clever northern American Indian types, after which it hit this regular Lloyd between the ells with its brilliance.
Us pasty white people catch on eventually. "Brilliant", he said, did Lloyd F. say to himself one day.
The story, as it is told, is that after his epiphany Nelson lay awake nights and fretted over whether he could come up with something better. As in better than three sticks and some hide.
Being a slow and methodical genius, Nelson continued this process for nine years. (Nine.)
During this time Nelson designed many packs, learned to sew, had wooden parts made to his specifications, and tested his packs by actually using them, throwing in canned goods and rocks to make things completely authentic in an early 20th century way. He worked and worked and worked, and when he finally had it right he worked and worked and worked some more, and then he went out and tried to sell his new pack.
Nope.
Didn't sell.
No one was interested. Only a few packs eventually sold in a desultory and sporadic way, which means hardly at all.
Finally, something happened.
But not to Lloyd F.
The packs did not sell, or attract any attention, let alone purchasers. At all.
So, groping toward the advertising world as a last resort, a tactic many other geniuses have resorted to, Nelson decided to name his product. He named it Trapper Nelson's Indian Pack Board, and then later decided to ignore the paid advice, live dangerously, and shorten the name to Trapper Nelson. Not Trapper Lloyd F. Nelson with two ells but just Trapper Nelson, as in the Trapper Nelson pack. Which is now famous.
But it wasn't then, you see.
Because it continued not to sell. Or if you are fussy about cause and effect, it was not-famous because it did not sell. Either way works. The pack was in full-on failure mode.
In fact, this lack of sales was positively furious. It furiously did not sell at all.
Then Nelson patented his invention, which made a huge change because the pack did not sell even more than it did not sell before. And then Nelson tried everything else he could think of.
Lloyd F. Nelson patent drawing for Trapper Nelson pack.
People continued to stare at the pack board and grunt to themselves while scratching their behinds. The very people who most needed Nelson's invention simply could not comprehend this technological leap.
Going from a dumpy canvas bag with shoulder straps to a dumpy canvas bag hung on a wooden frame to which the shoulder straps were in turn anchored was too big a leap. Simply too big a leap. Too much for them to imagine. They only grunted quietly over and over again, while staring, and not in a reflective or sophisticated sort of way either.
Grunt. (Time passes.) Stare.
Grunt. (More time passes.) More staring.
Silence.
Grunt.
Maybe it was the canvas panel across the back, designed to prevent the frame from digging into the hiker's spine. Perhaps it was the concept of hanging the bag on the frame to keep it away from the hiker's body, and then hanging that frame thing on the hiker's body, with the aforementioned canvas panel providing ventilation and holding the whole arrangement away from the hiker's back. Or it could be that the idea of the wooden frame was the confusing part, or which end was up. This issue has never quite been resolved. But many, many clocks ticked. Slowly. With no discernible change in attitudes, although the soft grunting sounds continued, off to one side.
In fact only two sounds were heard - a soft, baffled grunting set against a background of barely heard and extremely slow, possibly imaginary clock ticks.
Hikers were used to unslinging their packs and dropping them into the mud. Nelson's newfangled wooden frame kept the pack off the ground and out of the mud, kept the whole arrangement rigid, and allowed the hiker to lean his pack up against a rock or tree where it would not fall into the mud or even come close to it.
These concepts just could not be grasped.
These concepts were too advanced for the modern world, having been invented a mere five thousand years earlier by guys who wore brain-tanned animal hides and killed supper with a stick. Not quite enough time had elapsed yet for modern man to adapt to these radical ideas.
But Nelson knew he was on to something. It was right. He knew it. He just knew it. It had to be right. If it wasn't right, then why was he lying awake at night mulling it over, for crying out loud? So he kept on. His faith in the Trapper Nelson pack was unbounded. And it was named after him as well, so he had to make it work.
The pack did not sell.
Things did not work out.
Then after several more years the pack continued not selling.
Nelson gave away free samples, mailed out brochures, advertised. Contacted the U.S. Forest Service, Boy Scout troops, famous sportsmen. Left piles of packs in sporting goods shops, on consignment. The thunderous landslide of sudden orders persisted in not arriving all at once, or even slowly over time.
The pack did not sell.
So in 1929 Lloyd Nelson gave up.
"The consensus was that my product was too good-looking for the type of person who carries food, clothes and blankets from place to place," he said. No doubt you yourself have seen some of the descendants of these people. Incomprehensibly, they are too dumb to buy a pack with a frame but not too dumb to breed, which says so much more about evolution than we want to think about.
So Lloyd F. Nelson gave up.
He sold his business to the Trager Manufacturing Company of Seattle, an outfit that had been helping him to manufacture the canvas parts for his pack. Potential customers continued to stare out of glazed eyes in blank incomprehension and scratch lazily while breathing through parted lips.
But not for long.
Because something happened one day.
The mighty universal clock ticked one more tick, and the heavens turned one more degree with an almost inaudible click as the massive hands of that immense clock moved, slightly. Oh, so slightly. Both the little hand and the big one moved, but just a bit. So little you couldn't see anything at all. Nothing much seemed different. Nothing. But the new age had arrived. Suddenly. The earth began to hum in a new sort of way, almost inaudibly, almost imperceptibly. Change was afoot.
Fire season arrived.
Fire season arrived too late for Lloyd Nelson, but not for his pack. His former pack.
Two weeks after Nelson sold out (TWO FRIGGIN WEEKS!) the Forest Service screamed in an order for 500 pack boards, to be delivered pronto. Pronto! "We have a really big fire here!" they screamed. Screamed! Get us some packboards! PRONTO!
This is true. They had this really big, ugly fire to put out, and the pack boards seemed like a good idea, a really good way to carry equipment and supplies back and forth. Yeah, right! Right now! Send them!
They had hundreds of people fighting fires but no packs.
Tick. Two more weeks went by.
Tock. Another order for 500 pack boards came in.
Same deal. More fires. Tick. Things were burning all over. Tock. People were jumping up and down. Pants were on fire everywhere. Suddenly everyone had to have a Trapper Nelson pack. The 20th century came in (a bit behind schedule) riding a bright wave of toasty hot flame.
And Lloyd F. Nelson was hosed.
He missed the fun. All he got was a few bucks for selling out two weeks too soon. He took his two ells and his eff and faded from view, Lloyd F. did. The Trager company continued, and prospered. It continued, supplying outdoor equipment for Eddie Bauer, Recreational Equipment, Inc., L.L. Bean and other companies. Companies like Abercrombie and Fitch. Even Abercrombie and Fitch for a while sold the Trapper Nelson. It was pure, uncut outdoorsy sex appeal, and everyone was crazy to have it. Suddenly, and for a long while after.
Trager was in business for a long while. They later sold mostly smaller items like book bags and so on, to carry the smaller lumpy maybe not quite so useful things that the ultralight backpacker might think of as nonessential. 3
And Lloyd F. Nelson?
Dead. Forgotten.
Almost. Almost forgotten.
– But was that it? –
First the glacier-creeping, fur-capped, arrow-punctured, ditty-bagged, knife-wielding, bow-toting, snowshoe-wearing Frozen Fritz, then a big gap for 5000 years, then (bing!) shiny, Hi-Tek PakBoards™?
Not quite. Equipment started crude and matured slowly. It was mostly homemade. Sometimes it was clever, as with Fritz's grass-stuffed shoes, which Petr Hlavacek, a Czech shoe technologist, and head of the technological laboratory at Tomas Bata University in Zlin, thinks are better than modern footwear.
Zlin. Think about it.
"Wearing the shoes is like going barefoot, only better. They are very comfortable. From a technical point of view they are very strong, sound, and able to protect the wearer's feet against hard ground, extreme temperatures and damp. They also have a very good grip and withstand shock very well", said Petr Hlavacek, after making and testing replicas of Fritz's shoes. In Zlin. 4, 5, 6
Tumplines were used a lot. "From equatorial jungles to the barrens of the high Arctic, almost every native culture has a form of tumpline. Groups who do not use a tumpline usually represent one of the so-called civilized cultures." 7
First the stick, then the bag, then the tumpline. Easily understood items all. Easily overlooked by someone who thinks cell phones, singles bars, and rush hours are pretty good ideas.
– Tump me mama, tump me. –
(From here to there and back.)
A tumpline isn't a pack, or a bag, or a basket, but it's used with them, like a single shoulder strap that goes over your head instead of your shoulder.
Duluth pack tumpline.
A tumpline has a wide band that rests on the noggin between the forehead and the top of the skull (around the hairline). Toward each lower end the tumpline tapers to a narrow band, which is what attaches to and supports the load. The load in turn is carried in some kind of container close to the back and high up.
The idea is that the hands and arms are free to move, and the load's weight is transferred to the skeleton through the spine. The spine, unlike the body's muscles, is made to carry weight. So this works.
Putting a load up near the shoulders also brings the weight more in line with the body's center of balance, so less energy is needed to carry that weight, a fact that the U.S. Army has confirmed in tests. Go Army!
During the fur trade days of the early 19th century, voyageurs (the canoe paddling human pack animals of the woods and rivers) were normally obliged to simultaneously carry two 90-pound (41 kg) pieces of freight over portages between bodies of water. Using tumplines.
So a man, short and small by today's standards, and weighing around 140 pounds (65 kg), would be carrying at least 180 pounds (82 kg) of cargo. During each carry. And each portage required many carries. Stuff that in your pack and lug it, Bub.
These guys habitually lived on cornmeal mush with a rare piece of salt pork thrown their way as a treat. No, they weren't crazy fit macrobiotic mush nuts. This was all they were allowed. Capitalism, remember that? Bottom line. Profit and loss. Lean and mean - all that. The way it worked in the olden days.
So where are we today? Conover says in his book From Beyond the Paddle that "at the summer games in the Cree village of Mistassini, Quebec, women have carried close to 900 pounds and men have exceeded 1200," over a round-trip route covering 80 feet. With tumplines. (408 kg, 544 kg, and 24 m, respectively.)
Frederick Remington knew what it looked like.
Who's a pansy now?
And yes, you saw the right number of zeroes on those numbers. Try thinking primitive technology. Just try.
The Métis Voyageur Games, sponsored by the Manitoba Métis Cultural Club in Winnipeg include a 540 Pound Sack Carry. The rules are: "This carry consists of four, 100 pound sacks with a tumpline, and two, 70 pound sacks saddled over the top sack. Departing the loading platform, the competitor must carry this weight to the farthest distance they possibly can." Before exploding.
Note the team size there: One.
Imagine 540 pounds in your pack. (Let's see...540 pounds divided by 2.2 equals, ah, 245 kg. Damn. You're a big eater then?)
Another game has a 180 pound limit, and is open to both men and women. There are two categories.
The first category is distance. Each sex carries a 180 pound (82 kg) load, but the women's route is a tad shorter. Their route has milestones at 100, 200, and 300 yards (just-about-meters) while the men have milestones at 200, 400, and 600. Medals are awarded to anyone who reaches any milestone whatsoever, with the most prestigious medals going to those who make it all the way. In other words, this is a competition only against death and destruction, with the winners being those still standing among the living.
You win if you do it, and if you also do not die. Either one works.
But wait! There's more!
The second category is speed. The speed games cover a course of 100 yards (91 m) and involve a 90 pound (41 kg) weight. Apparently anyone can compete against anyone else, and the quickest one wins (or dies trying, which is automatically second place at best, if not lower). 8
Conover cites G. Heberton Evans's book Canoeing Wilderness Water, which says of tumplines that "properly adjusted, the device rests on the nice thick frontal portion of the skull and by its very nature lines up all the vertebrae and relies on the long bones of the legs to support the load. A slight forward lean puts all the forces in line with the skeleton, which supports most of the weight. This leaves a person's musculature free to engage in a springy stride that allows for both shock absorption and forward motion. Although the tumpline itself may weigh only a few ounces, it allows the carrying of phenomenal loads that beggar one's sense of credibility."
Beggar. As we've seen. You betcha there.
Today tumplines are used mostly among canoeists, and by only a few of them. Of those who know of it at all, some of them shun the tumpline, some never catch on, and a handful never travel without one. Tumplines made the use of the wanigan possible.
Say what? Wanigan? What be then this wanigan thing?
The wanigan is a handy wooden storage box that fits neatly inside a canoe. It is canoe luggage. Or custom cabinets for your tiny boat. But goofy to carry without a tumpline.
Another modern use of tumplines is to carry pack baskets. These are baskets traditionally woven of black ash withes and still used (but rarely) in the northeastern states. Pack baskets are made mostly by the Micmac, Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy Indians, and are light, rigid, strong, and resilient, though the genuine article is now very expensive.
Tumplines, to be useful, must be precisely adjusted, down to the fraction of an inch (millimeters, my friend). If the tumpline is too tight, the user's head and neck are pulled back and the neck muscles are forced to support the load instead of the spine. If the tumpline is too loose the load rides low on the back and digs in, especially if that load is in a rigid, box-like wanigan.
Despite the possibility of carrying huge weights, accidental falls may be less threatening with a tumpline than with a pack, even if one is carrying a hard-sided wanigan. Falling with a pack means going down with it, because the two of you are strapped into a tight, deadly embrace.
Falling with a tumpline means you can shuck off the load before you hit the deck, and so maybe you do not fall at all. The technique is to dip your head and roll your body to one side to deliberately dump the load in a controlled way, and then regain your balance once you are free of the weight. Only the load ends up on the rocks, and not you. (Garrett Conover)
Ötzi may not have had a tumpline with him the day he died, but he knew about them.
He had to.
They go way, way back. Primitive technology, remember.
Still too advanced for most of us.
– Respect your backbone. –
Nessmuk (a.k.a. George Washington Sears) wrote Woodcraft and Camping in 1884 ( http://bit.ly/1ylhUjO ). Of packs he said: "Firstly, the knapsack; as you are apt to carry it a great many miles, it is well to have it right, and easyfitting at the start. Also, it may be remarked that man is a vertebrate animal and ought to respect his backbone. The loaded pack basket on a heavy carry never fails to get in on the most vulnerable knob of the human vertebrae. The knapsack sits easy, and does not chafe. It holds over half a bushel, carries blanketbag, shelter tent, hatchet, dittybag, tinware, fishing tackle, clothes and two days' rations. It weighs, empty, just twelve ounces."
(Hey, this is ultralight territory here, from 1884!)
In Nessmuk's day and for a while before, packs were made of leather, or of canvas, which could be waxed or rubberized for waterproofness, or made of oilcloth. There were no hip belts but many of these packs came with tumplines, or a tumpline was easily fitted.
In fact this style of pack, the Duluth Pack is still available through Duluth Pack, of Duluth, Minnesota.
– Camille, I need shoes to go. –
(And a pack with that.)
In 1911 Duluth Tent and Awning bought out Camille Poirier, inventor of and patent holder (1882) on a new kind of pack, "a canvas sack that closed with a buckled flap, had new-fangled shoulder straps in addition to the traditional tumpline, a revolutionary sternum strap and an umbrella holder."
Originally known as the Poirier Pack, this very item lives on as the Duluth Pack, a brand name of Duluth Tent & Awning, a company now known as Duluth Pack.
Poirier pack.
Poirier was born in 1838 to poor parents in French Canada. He had two years of schooling, between the ages of seven and nine, and at age 14 began work in a shoe shop, putting in 15 hours a day for a salary of $10 a year. After he learned the trade inside out, forward and backward, he got a raise. His pay jumped to $72 a year.
An ax accident partly crippled him while he was trying out life in England, and despite his best efforts he remained poor, so it was first back to Canada, and then to St. Paul, Minnesota. "When I left Canada I was working 12 hours a day at 75 cents and I was a fast workman, I got two and three dollars a day in St. Paul I tell you I was greatly surprise."
(Just to be absolutely clear, when he said "12 hours a day at 75 cents and I was a fast workman", he meant that he, as an expert, worked 12 hours a day for a total of 75 cents for the day. Not 75 cents an hour. Think long and hard about that one.)
Rising to the position of foreman of a large shoe shop in St. Paul at $1000 a year still wasn't enough though.
The idea of running his own business led Poirier to Duluth. He found sleeping space on the floor of a boarding house for $7 a week, meals included: "What struck me was a big pile of green wood 10 to 12 feet long right at the front of the door and the carcase of a cow or bull on top of it the cook would go out with an axe and chop good chunks of the frozen meat and that was our bouillion lots of onions and Duluth soil mixed in place of pepper."
With savings he had brought with him to Duluth, Poirier built a workshop and home, and soon had six employees, and steady money coming in, so early in the spring of 1871 it was time to send for the wife and kids. "I bought my wife proud as a king to our new mansion the frost was covering the walls 1/2" inch thick in the morning, but bread frozen solid and every thing the same way."
Later, shortly after dropping his expensive fire insurance he was burned out, losing everything, and falling $15,000 behind. And remember, that wasn't $15,000 in today's money. Add a few zeros on the end to cover the conversion factor.
It was a staggering loss.
Camille Poirier's Duluth Pack patent drawing.
But Poirier persevered and recovered, relying on the patience of his creditors. Later he moved into "a cement house store and home." Business went well but he still worked hard. "I opened the store at six and keep open from eleven to twelve every night and Sunday was a good day I would go up to my Sunday dinner and some body would ring the bell and had to go down again." A mere seven-day workweek.
Then another fire. A nearby building caught, then a barrel of kerosene rolled down the street and exploded in front of his shop. A $40,000 loss this time. Time to start over again. Later "Henry Bell offered me $30,000.00 cash for the building and I was tired of the business and I thought I was rich and I took it. I then went in speculating bargins on property twenty years to soon...when 94 came I went down like a rock."
At age 56 Camille Poirier had to start over yet again.
At age 56 Camille Poirier was an old man.
In those days you either did it or died. If you couldn't work you couldn't eat.
Poirier had nothing but debt, his skilled fingers, good business sense, and a reputation. They were barely enough to keep him and his family alive. Barely.
Feeling old he nevertheless remained cheerful and kept at it, glad at least to have three meals a day. A few years later, in 1911, he was able to sell out to Duluth Tent & Awning and pass along his innovations to us backpackers, who really have it pretty easy, except for the dirt in our food. We still have that. ( http://bit.ly/1bjq9Bg )
Still stylish after all these years.
Duluth Pack has now been in business almost 130 years. Its 2006 earnings were $5 million. "Workers hand-cut and stitch every piece of canvas and leather that goes into its products. Even riveting operations aren't mechanized, with the company opting instead for experienced craftsmen wielding ball-peen hammers. All this work takes place inside the original storefront Duluth Tent & Awning first occupied at 1610 W. Superior St. in 1911." 10, 11
If Mr Poirier could visit today he would see it, and know it, and understand it, and be proud.
Wouldn't you?
– Footsie Notes –
1: Ötzi the Iceman from The Humanities Program: http://bit.ly/14RbefO See also: Iceman: Uncovering the life and times of a prehistoric man found in an Alpine glacier, by Brenda Fowler ISBN: 0679431675, 330 pages, University of Chicago Press, 2001 And: The Man in the Ice: The discovery of a 5,000-year-old body reveals the secrets of the stone age, by Konrad Spindler ISBN: 0517799693, 305 pages, Harmony Books, 1995
2: Blood on the axe from New Scientist archives: http://bit.ly/1aAQ6cN
3: A Brief History of How Backpacking Got It's Name [sic] from Trager (now defunct): http://bit.ly/1D09IZ8
4: Ötzi's Shoes from The Engines of Our Ingenuity, University of Houston: http://bit.ly/15tWHVJ
5: Hay Beats GORE-TEX from Science Magazine, American Association for the Advancement of Science. Try http://bit.ly/2iJjtqR or http://bit.ly/2kaejom (Access has been limited to a sample of the original article.)
6: Shoemaker pursues the ultimate sole mate from The Sydney Morning Herald: http://bit.ly/17zW9NE
7: Garrett Conover, Beyond the Paddle: A Canoeist's Guide to Expedition Skills-Polling, Lining, Portaging, and Maneuvering Through Ice, 1991, isbn 0884480666
8: Voyageur Games 540 Pound Sack Carry from Métis Nation of Ontario: http://bit.ly/161ll2A
9: Autobiography of Camille Poirier from Sheldon Aubut's Duluth History: http://bit.ly/1bjq9Bg
10: Duluth Pack is bursting at the seams, 07/23/2007, Duluth News Tribune: http://bit.ly/1vxf7Ne (partial content)
11: About Duluth Pack: http://bit.ly/1zGooH7
12: Original Duluth Pack from Duluth Pack web site: http://bit.ly/1yIKfPR
T oday was the day. Bunny Cottontail got up early, before even the sky was awake. Everywhere he looked was dark.
Bunny Cottontail sniffed. The air was cool and clean. Bunny Cottontail did not smell danger. He did not hear danger. He did not see danger. "This is good," he thought, "Today will be the day."
Then Bunny Cottontail waited and thought some more. "Mother Cottontail is good to me. She brings me food, many good things to eat, but she has nothing to carry those things in. Today is the day that I will help her. I will show her I am good. I will bring her a gift to help her."
While Bunny Cottontail waited he sniffed the air. The air, still cool and clean, carried no scent of danger. Then Bunny Cottontail looked again and still saw only darkness, and nothing moved. All was quiet.
It was time.
Long before the sun had opened its one bright eye Bunny Cottontail hopped from his nest and into the world. He was all alone. Bunny Cottontail was not afraid but he was cautious. Bunny Cottontail often got into trouble, but today he would make up for that. All by himself.
He hopped away from his nest, into the darkness.
He hopped a long time, stopping now and then to check for danger. Strange things come sometimes, to Cottontails, and take them away. And when they go away they never come home again. They never come back to share their stories or play with their friends. They go and never return.
Bunny Cottontail did not know where those friends went, but he was sure that he did not want to go there too, so he stopped to sniff the air and listen, and he watched.
Then he hopped some more. He hopped and hopped, and by and by he came to a place.
This was a strange place, but he had seen it before.
The place was flat, and nothing at all grew there but old trees, and only a few of them. The ground was bare and hard.
Strange creatures came here and stayed, one night, two nights, and then they left again. This happened over and over.
Different creatures came and went, but they were all of the same family. That was clear. A strange family. They were very strange, and they looked dangerous.
They came and made a thing, and went inside the thing when the sun shut its eye, and when the sky became bright again they came outside again and then they went away. Bunny Cottontail had seen this from the safety of the forest.
Mother Cottontail had told Bunny Cottontail never to go there. "Never, never, never go here," she told him, "or they will take you away and you will never come back to the nest."
Bunny Cottontail knew that Mother Cottontail was right but he was not afraid. Bunny Cottontail was almost grown. He could run very fast. Bunny Cottontail thought he would be safe. He hoped he would be safe because he could run so fast. He was going to find a gift for Mother Cottontail.
Bunny Cottontail crept out of the forest. He came close to the strange thing in the clearing. The strange and possibly dangerous creatures were inside it. He could smell them. And hear them breathing with his big ears.
Bunny Cottontail did not know what they were but he was sure they were not friendly to Cottontails. Not at all. Not ever, even for one second.
They were enormous, these creatures, like trees that moved, but not so big as trees, and they had two trunks not one, and those trunks moved underneath them somehow. Trees waved at the sky every now and then, but they did not walk around, so Bunny Cottontail was not sure just what these creatures were, but they did not smell good. Not like trees, not at all. And they made noises. Loud unfriendly noises.
But not in the dark, when the world was quiet — when the world was dark and quiet they were too, so Bunny Cottontail had an advantage. Bunny Cottontail was as quiet as air and he was quick as thought, and he felt safe in the dark, so he crept closer.
There it was, waiting for him. He could see it, even in the dark.
"This is it!" thought Bunny Cottontail, "Still here! I have found Mother Cottontail's gift! She will be pleased with me. Now she will know that I love her and am grateful to her for the good things she does for me."
And Bunny Cottontail crept closer.
Bunny Cottontail came so close that he could put his nose right on the big thing that the loud creatures were in. It was huge. It was like a rock. A big rock, right there, but it was not a rock.
Bunny Cottontail put his nose right on the big thing and it moved a little. It was strange and confusing but it was soft too, a little, and it moved when his nose pressed on it. The big thing went way up and curved over and came down on the other side, and the big dangerous creatures were inside.
Bunny Cottontail could hear them. Bunny Cottontail could smell them and hear them breathing.
This was very dangerous. Very dangerous. Very, very dangerous indeed. Indeed, but this thing had to be done.
Bunny Cottontail moved slowly. So very, very slowly. Right up to the gift. The thing he would give Mother Cottontail. It was right in front of him, on the hard, bare ground.
So quietly that even he did not hear it himself, Bunny Cottontail picked up this thing and put it on his back. It was like wrestling with Big Brother Cottontail, when Big Brother Cottontail climbed on Bunny Cottontail's back while playing, but much lighter than Big Brother Cottontail.
The gift did not have the weight that Big Brother Cottontail had, and the gift did not wiggle around either.
Bunny Cottontail put his front legs through the things hanging from the gift and fastened the other thing around his middle and carefully secured it. It fit perfectly.
Mother Cottontail would be so happy.
Bunny Cottontail had the thing on his back and it stayed there by itself. It fit perfectly, and it held tight, and it felt good. It was strange to have this thing on his back but it felt good too, just as he had hoped.
Just as he had planned.
Bunny Cottontail was almost as large now as Mother Cottontail, and he knew that his gift would fit her too. This would be fine, this gift, a fine gift for her.
Very quietly now, so quietly that Bunny Cottontail could barely hear himself, so stealthily that Bunny Cottontail hardly felt himself move, so cautiously that even the night itself did not know that he moved, Bunny Cottontail crept away.
Bunny Cottontail crept out of that flat place where the earth was pounded hard, and into the forest.
Bunny Cottontail moved away from that place where the big loud things were, where they stayed inside their big strange thing that was like a rock but not a rock, and he went into the forest where he felt safer.
But not quite completely safe. No, not entirely, completely safe. Because before he could move far, far away to safety there was a sound.
It was not a good sound.
It was a dangerous sound, and Bunny Cottontail heard it with his big ears.
Bunny Cottontail had learned this sound from Mother Cottontail, and she had taught him about it. Now was a time to be afraid, and Bunny Cottontail was afraid.
He became very quiet and waited. He barely breathed at all. He became fear itself, and sill as ice.
Bunny Cottontail listened. He did not move at all, not even a single one of his soft whiskers twitched. The sound he heard was very faint and soft, but he heard it. He heard that sound, and he knew it. It was the sound of Coyote.
Coyote was here.
Coyote was near. Very near. Too near.
Bunny Cottontail heard a sound that could almost not be heard, but there it was. There was no mistaking it. Coyote was awake, and looking, and would take Bunny Cottontail away, never to return, if Coyote found him. Bunny Cottontail heard the faint sound of Coyote's soft fur rubbing against the air. It is a sound that cannot be heard except by the Cottontails, and only if they are paying attention, and Bunny Cottontail was nothing but attention.
Bunny Cottontail heard that sound now. The sound was truly faint, yet so close that Bunny Cottontail could feel it moving through the air.
Bunny Cottontail waited.
Bunny Cottontail knew about Coyote, more than he wished to know. Bunny Cottontail stayed quiet and did not move. Bunny Cottontail waited. He did not breathe.
Lucky for him he was a very smart Cottontail, and his ears were young and sharp, and he knew what to do. So Bunny Cottontail waited, and Coyote passed on without discovering him, and then Bunny Cottontail did not hear Coyote anymore, and there was no more sound of fur rubbing against the still air.
Coyote was going to that strange place too. Coyote seemed familiar with it, and through the brush Bunny Cottontail saw Coyote there sniffing, and sniffing some more, and saw him go up to the large rock that was not a rock.
"Surely he will find my scent," thought Bunny Cottontail, "and then he will come for me, and Mother Cottontail will never know what became of me. And Mother Cottontail will never receive her gift. I must go." And Bunny Cottontail went, silently, deeper into the forest.
But as he went he made no sound at all. Even the grass did not know he was there, he was so careful. Even the soft earth did not feel his footfall. He moved like darkness within darkness, like silence within silence. Like the memory of a forgotten memory.
And he went away. Then he did go far, far away.
It was a long way home to his nest, and Bunny Cottontail went that way, but carefully, and finally he came to his nest, where he felt safe again. And he had Mother Cottontail's gift! He had brought it home!
At first Bunny Cottontail wanted to rush in, giggling with joy, and wake Mother Cottontail and see how happy she would be, but then he thought. "I must be a good Cottontail. I am almost grown up now, and I should be more careful of how I act. I do not want to startle Mother Cottontail from her sleep and frighten her, so I will wait."
And while he was waiting Bunny Cottontail had an idea. "I should make sure that Mother Cottontail's gift is clean and presentable, and decorate it with flowers to bring her joy and show her how much I love her."
And that is what he did.
He took the thing off his back and brushed it and brushed it and made it clean. Perfectly clean.
And then Bunny Cottontail gathered many, many small flowers and attached them to his gift. It was still dark but he could find flowers by smell, so he knew which ones to pick.
Bunny Cottontail put some here and put some there until he was done, and then the thing looked fine, covered with flowers of many kinds, all braided together. He did not know what to call this thing but it did not matter. He knew that Mother Cottontail would be pleased.
This thing would help her. It was a thing to carry things in, and Mother Cottontail would be glad. It would help her to carry food and good things to eat back to the nest, and it would make her happy.
And finally it looked like a proper gift, all clean, and covered with the flowers that Bunny Cottontail had put on it.
By now the sky was almost awake. Bunny Cottontail was tired, for he had been up half the night, and had gone far, and returned, and had come near danger, but he was excited too.
Lightly, gently, the air stirred. The eye of the sun began to open and a new day was born. Bunny Cottontail heard Mother Cottontail stirring inside the nest. Soon she would see her gift.
"Is everything all right?" wondered Bunny Cottontail. "Did I do everything right?"
He thought. Then he thought some more.
"Oh, no! I forgot to look inside! I cleaned the outside of the thing and brought flowers to weave beauty into it but I forgot to look inside! What if it is not clean?" he thought. "What if there is something unfortunate inside?"
Quick like a bunny, for he was one, Bunny Cottontail went over to the thing. The top had a part that opened and closed. This part was held shut by things like flat vines, but they were loose, so Bunny Cottontail pulled at them and pulled some more, and opened the thing and peered inside.
"Ah," he thought, "yes. I missed something. There is something inside," and he pulled it out.
"Ah, something odd," he thought, "Mother Cottontail cannot use this. I will put it here under this bush for now, and see to it later." And so he did that and then he was done.
Then Bunny Cottontail returned to the nest and there was Mother Cottontail, sniffing the fresh morning air, the clean sunlight sparkling in her alert eyes. She looked right at Bunny Cottontail. She looked into his eyes with her eyes as only Mother Cottontail could do.
"And what have you been up to, Bunny Cottontail?" she said. "You left the nest. You left before the day began, and now you are back. No doubt you have been at some mischief. You must tell your mother what you have been doing."
"No, Mother Cottontail," said Bunny Cottontail, "No mischief. Do not worry. I have found you a gift, to make your life more pleasant. I see you go off and then bring us back food and good things to eat and I see that it is hard for you, so I have brought you a gift to make your life easier. Perhaps next year, when I am older and wiser I can find a better gift, but this is the gift I have now, and I have brought it here for you."
Mother Cottontail looked at Bunny Cottontail, and then she looked at the thing. The thing was dark but not too dark, and soft but not too soft, and covered in flowers. But it was a strange thing. She was not quite sure what it was. What was Bunny Cottontail up to now?
Bunny Cottontail helped her to put it on. It fit her perfectly, for it was small enough, and yet big enough too, just as he had thought.
Then Bunny Cottontail explained.
When Mother Cottontail went to find food and good things to eat, and brought them back, it was hard for her. But Bunny Cottontail was a good observer. He had thought to himself, "How can I help Mother Cottontail?" Bunny Cottontail had seen other creatures in the forest. Bunny Cottontail had seen Bushytailed Wood-Rat come and go.
Bushytailed Wood-Rat was a good neighbor and knew how to provide for his family too. Bushytailed Wood-Rat came and went, and brought back many good things for his family, and that is how Bunny Cottontail got his idea.
Bunny Cottontail watched the big creature-things in the strange place with the pounded soil down by the water. He saw them come and go. He saw them carry some things inside other things that they put on their backs. Bunny Cottontail also saw Bushytailed Wood-Rat come and go, carrying things.
Bushytailed Wood-Rat was good at this. Bushytailed Wood-Rat was so good at gathering and carrying things that his kind were called Pack Rats, and Bunny Cottontail saw his chance to do good. So he took the thing from the big loud creature-things who looked like moving trees and slept on the hard ground inside the strange rock, and brought it home to Mother Cottontail, to make her life easier.
When Mother Cottontail heard Bunny Cottontail's story she was pleased. Mother Cottontail was pleased that her son was so clever, and had thought of her.
She thought they should call this thing "Pack", in honor of Bushytailed Wood-Rat and his kind, the Pack Rats, since Bushytailed Wood-Rat was a good neighbor, and always had a kind word for them, and provided for his family. When they used the word Pack they would always think of how Bushytailed Wood-Rat provided for his family, and of doing good things for one another.
So Mother Cottontail accepted Bunny Cottontail's gift. Together they celebrated in the bright warm morning sunlight by breakfasting on the blossoms that Bunny Cottontail had used to decorate Pack. Then Mother Cottontail put Pack on her back and hopped off to find a tasty lunch for them all.
Bunny Cottontail was tired then, and went to the nest to take a nap, but before he got to the nest he remembered that other thing that he had found inside Pack, and went to the bush where he had hidden it. It was still there.
It was shiny all over. So shiny. So smooth.
So odd.
It had small stones on it, or things like stones. Shiny stones, like tiny stars, but stars that sparkled in the sunlight of day, not in the dark stillness of night.
Bunny Cottontail played with the thing and it unfolded, the way an old spider might unfold its legs, but it was not a spider, and had only two legs. It was very odd, this thing.
Bunny Cottontail looked at this thing. He looked and looked. He did not know what to do.
He turned it over then, in his clever paws, and then he saw something strange. He could look through part of this thing, but the things he saw on the other side of it were very dim, as though night had come to them again. And when he looked away the day returned again. This was an interesting thing to have.
Bunny Cottontail found that if he was careful he could put this thing on his head. Part of it rested gently on his sensitive nose and the parts that looked like legs rested on his ears, and the parts that turned day into night covered his eyes. The tiny stones sparkled happily.
"This is fine," he thought, "Now I can keep the sun out of my eyes while I have a good nap."
And Bunny Cottontail hopped back to the nest, and lay down, and had a fine, restful nap.
And that is exactly how it happened that Bob and Jane's daughter Sarah mysteriously lost her little toy backpack one night while camping, and how Bunny Cottontail gave his mother a fine gift full of love and also became the first of his kind ever to have his own pair of rhinestone-covered sunglasses with heart-shaped lenses.
I'm Special. You're Special Too, Just Like Everyone Else
Intro to what's special about backpacks.
– Remember me after we've become acquainted. –
Remember now, we're still getting acquainted. We're still in the introductory phase, so we're not quite considering ultralight backpacks yet. We still have a few small training hills to hike over before we can traverse the ridge guarding the Kingdom of Ultralight Delights.
First, let's talk about uses for backpacks. This sounds like a really dumb topic, but think of this section as a test, and remember what they say - "There are no dumb questions, only inquisitive idiots."
Did that make sense? I didn't think so either. See? One of us is getting smarter already.
OK, back to our story.
Backpacks are really good for carrying stuff. So are other things. Oil tankers for example. Maybe you've never thought about it but the only purpose in life for an oil tanker is to carry oil from one place to another.
Does an oil tanker complain about this? Does it whine? Does it get itself all wrapped up in a hissy fit and then start screeching and throwing things? We think not.
But.
Backpacks are a little like oil tankers. They do their job, faithfully, gracefully, professionally, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, and so on.
Backpacks are bulk carriers. They carry large quantities of whatever it is you need them to carry.
Normally this bulk stuff they carry is the stuff that keeps you alive. You got your food and fuel, of course, and then your water and nose drops, and like that. Then you got your shelter and bedding, rain gear, spare clothes, and your teddy bear.
All of that goes into your pack and then you lug it around on your back. If you bump into a rock you get a bruise and not a goopy world-class environmental disaster, so that's different. And oil tankers are pretty much the opposite of graceful, unlike backpacks.
So that's what packs are good for.
– No Kitties? –
Backpacks are special this way, in the quiet, faithful, graceful, professional way they handle bulk. Backpacks aren't pink with kitties printed on the side, for carrying bubble gum and a couple of books to class and back. Nor with Darth Vader printed on the side. Those are book bags. (Though some of us may be partial to the special
Darth Vader Hello Kitty collector's edition book bag. In
Empire Black and
Purrfect Pink, with death rays and ruffles.)
Backpacks can be used for hauling groceries back from the store but it's rare. You know if you've seen it. Doesn't happen much. You see somebody doing this and you know right away you got a special case on your hands, and you pretty much decide to back away slowly.
Carrying change? Try a pocket. If you're fussy and old-fashioned then try a coin purse with a pinched brass clasp.
Got a tube of lipstick, some tissues, a bit of mascara and a mirror? Do you like people to call you Rocky when you're not being Giselle? OK by us, but a clutch purse matching your outfit might work better for those special nights out (all things considered) than a 45-liter pack with a hip belt and sweat stains.
Paper bags are pretty good for toting a sandwich to work. Bad in the rain though. Next.
Dump trucks work great for big loads of rock and gravel. They burn diesel. Next.
Those stainless steel over-the-road tankers are priceless if you need to haul a few thousand gallons of acetone. But backpacks aren't. Next.
Backpacks, they are less like long-distance carriers than long-distance lovers - purely recreational but breathtaking and oh so satisfying. That is enough.
But more strictly speaking a backpack is a portable hole to keep things in when you want to go from Point A to Point B. (In Canada it's "Point A to Point B, eh?", except in Quebec, where it's said with a French accent, eh?)
A portable hole to put things in and then pull things out of again. Think about it.
A backpack is like a portable black hole, your personal black hole, though you may order it in a different color if you wish. Black is only a suggestion, though it goes so well with the word
hole. A backpack is a refuge for your dreams, a vessel transporting your hopes across optimistic sunny seas. One that you and you alone can sail to the horizon and beyond. But mostly a hole you put stuff in. And then pull it out of again.
And one you really should wash once in a while, as is proper with holes.
Backpacks can be pretty big. Scary big, as you'll see if you go backpacking, especially after you get smart and switch to light, ultralight, or superultralight, or superduper ultraspecial hypersonic teensy itsy bitsy ultraultraultralight packs. Once you do, and after you get adjusted to the sudden lack of pain you'll notice all the big packs and start shuddering with revulsion.
It happens. It's like you get sensitized. Suddenly you see how big
normal backpacks are. Hah!
Normal. Strictly over-rated.
– Heavier Than Air Machine. –
Which reminds us of a little talk once.
It was part of a set of introductory classes for people who had never backpacked before. Where someone who worked at an outdoor shop was showing off the newest model of pack, practically right off the production line. It may even still have been slightly warm. The hip belt she swiveled, to match your motion as you walked. For comfort. Oh, she swiveled and rocked, that belt. The buckle was the size, nearly the size of those things that professional wrestlers wave around at each other on TV while they do all the yelling. A buckle like that.
You know?
Trophy belt things with great flat buckles that make hub caps look small. It had one of those. Big hip belt. Way, way big.
And the best part was that the pack, empty, weighed 10 pounds.
In metric, that's still too heavy. Something around 4.54 kg, whatever
kg means.
Containing only air plus an insignificantly small amount of nothing else, the pack weighed 10 pounds. Let's not even mention that it was big enough for a normal person to crawl into. You could crawl in there and die. That big. Weld a cannon on one side and you had a tank turret.
But let's not dwell.
What you ought to do is remember that number. Ten. Later on when we get into ultralight packs and
pack weight and
base weight and
from skin out weight and
total pack weight, your hair will have several reasons to stand on end, and then it will be fun to remember what you read here, so hang onto that number for dear life.
Yes, folks, packs have weight.
In the early days when backpacks were made out of twigs and animal hides they were light. They were light and flexible and supple and light and easy to repair and light. They were constructed of all-natural local ingredients. A person could fine tune a pack. A person could make a pack in an afternoon out of things within easy reach.
Life was good. Sunlight dappled the peaceful woodlands.
Then darkness fell.
People forgot about backpacks.
People didn't need backpacks because people stopped walking. They had horses to ride and oxen to drag around big wooden things with wheels, and then they had gigantic iron machines stuffed with lumps of flaming coal, emitting soot and noise, and then woofy honking big diesel trucks and aircraft with whirling engines stuck on every possible surface.
So with all that going on, people forgot about backpacks and got dumber for an awfully long while, and started some big wars, and then invented backpacks again so they could carry war stuff around. And as you might expect the war packs were not lyrical and light and did not inspire gentle wootling music played on bamboo flutes during poetry readings.
No.
But.
Eventually the big wars tapered off somewhat and a few guys kept their packs and continued to carry heavy things around in them, like surplus steel boxes stuffed with sandwiches and ammo, and those guys shot animals dead. Then they carried the dead animals home and ate them. This was called sport.
After a while longer some of these guys decided to stop shooting at things and just hike around with their packs, unarmed, which made sense to a few of them. Then backpacks started getting made kind of for their own sake, namely recreation, and they continued to be made of the original materials, plywood and canvas, and then of aluminum and canvas, and then of aluminum and heavy nylon, and then later of some more clever materials.
Backpacks stayed hefty because they had been born hefty. Hefty it was. People didn't know any better. Maybe it was all the shooting that they had been through, and keeping their heads puckered into their shoulders, a posture that stifles blood flow, slows the creative juices, and keeps thinking stunted for a long while.
– Twigs In Retreat. –
No one knew about the original ancient twig and rawhide packs. The modern watchword was
hefty.
Packs got bigger and bigger all on their own and humans evolved apace, to endure the crushing weight of ever bigger backpacks.
For eons humans had held steady in the five foot to five and a half foot range (around a meter and a half-ish). In school you are taught that the size of earlier humans was due to poor diet and lack of
Flintstones Chewable Vitamins. This explanation may satisfy the mentally inert, but it is not the truth. No, far from it.
Humans remained slim of body, svelte, lithe, and of moderate height and weight because it is both right and good. This is the human ideal - what it means to be human. This is the ideal as ordained by Heaven. Only in the modern age have the spawn of humans grown to be giants.
Only very recently did human feet enlarge to rival the proportions of snowshoes.
It is a fact that only during the latest few flickering moments of human existence did our species take a quick turn toward the lumbering and the oafish, and it is solely because their backpacks got too big. It was either evolve or die. A case of the survival of the brutish, and though we survived we became ugly.
Obtuse.
Dense.
Wretched.
– Here Come Da Elves. –
Only in the last few years have a scant handful of exceedingly intelligent and perceptive individuals recognized the true cause of our predicament, and working in relative obscurity, often scorned, reviled, and ridiculed, did their nimble minds and delicately flicking fingers reinvent lightweight backpacks. Even ultralight backpacks, superultralight backpacks, etc., etc. as mentioned previously.
And now we can go back the other way. We can return to our roots. We can become smaller and more slender and more lithe, a little more like elves, like the joyous woodland creatures we ought to be. The joyous woodland creatures we once were.
Modern materials first allowed the traditional backpack to grow grotesquely huge. It lost all resemblance to its ancestors, the original featherweight all natural and slightly furry conveniences that could be fashioned by anyone. It became an onerous weapon of dismay bristling with rasping weighty straps and hard steel buckles.
It grew zippers. With teeth.
But these selfsame modern materials and their continuing refinement have also permitted innovative clear-headed designers to reconceive the backpack, to recreate it, and to turn the modern backpack into something smaller, lighter and even more effective than our earliest ancestors could have imagined.
New age ultralight backpacks will allow human evolution to return to its natural course the way gentle spring returns to earth after harsh winter. Before long our descendants will regain human proportions. They will again enjoy smaller bodies. No longer will slabs of muscle, ranks of bone and mats of body hair divert nutrients away from the vital centers of higher thought. Humanity will re-enter an age of reason and delight.
Our descendants will be swifter of foot, able to do more with less, and joyously too.
Because of smaller packs and lighter loads they will walk more, and more comfortably, shunning motorcars and aeroplanes (and even, perhaps, motor-bicycles), spending their days far away from large cities that restlessly toss and turn each night under unnatural mechanical lights.
The strain of humanity on the world's resources will lessen, global warming will cease, and frisbee golf will replace war as the most popular sport.
Ibackpack. I am an expert. My name is Dolores Runtsauger.
The good things haven’t changed. All the trails worth hiking — I’ve hiked them. All the gear worth using — I’ve used it. All the people worth knowing — I know them. I’ve been there and back, so no need to try anything for yourself, just ask me. I know all the answers.
So, this new light stuff? Does that make sense? I know what works, and my gear is heavy enough to keep my feet on the ground. That’s where they belong. It never changes. My gear makes it possible. Some of it is 30 years old and not even dented. You can’t beat that with a tire iron.
I teach backpacking because I’m experienced. I teach what backpacking is, how it works, everything. And you know? When people come to learn from me, they do. I explain everything. I talk and people listen, and that’s how we get along.
So when I lead trips we never have problems because people follow my rules. You don’t listen, you go try new things, then you are breaking the rules. It makes a mess and we all get headaches. I don’t like that. So I stop everything, right there, and we have a meeting. We make adjustments. We regain our balance by getting back to my rules and then things work fine again.
I am the keeper of these rules.
Rules are good. Rules keep us in line. I like lines. I sit in the evening sometimes, in the dining room by the window, with a glass of wine and a ruler and a sheet of paper, and I draw lines. I listen to music. It soothes me while I draw. I draw straight lines on clean, crisp white sheets paper. I like clean white paper. I like straight lines. I like straight lines on white paper. Straight, clean lines are perfectly organized. Just so, like me.
I sit and draw for hours, sometimes. I relax that way, and it clears my mind. It’s soothing no matter what. I save my lines in binders, in a bookcase. No one touches them.
If I’m leading a group and something comes up, I think about my lines. I think about my binders, full of clean straight lines, and right then my thinking clears. If I stay inside my lines then things work fine. I think about sitting in the evening with my glass of wine, listening to the sharp point of my pencil cut straight across sheet after sheet to the inevitable end of each line. I draw lines and admire them, and when I have a problem I think of these lines, and immediately I know what to do.
What I do is pick the right solution, a tried and true one. One that works because it has to, from point A to point B. A solution that is always inevitable. And then we are back on track. Life stays simple and clear as long as I listen to the lines, and as long as people are reasonable and listen to me.
Reasonable is what people are if they do what I tell them to.
When backpacking was new it found me, and I learned it. I learned it before it was a sport. Way before professionals came along. Before record books. Do you remember that? Before people went out to set backpacking records and others went out to break those same records to prove something? No one saw that coming.
Every so often you’d hear about someone walking around the world for some reason or other, but even that hardly ever happened back then. No elapsed times were published. There were no score cards. No one cared. Once upon a time, before backpacking, people went camping. They went camping to sit and rest. To get away from life. No one went backpacking then. No one walked anywhere, ever, for fun, not even on vacation.
For camping you filled the car with your kids and your stuff and drove to a place. And when you got there you pulled out a canvas tent and a camp stove, and a lemonade cooler, and fried chicken, and that was it. You stayed put, at a picnic table. You stayed put and rested. The kids ran around but the adults never budged. Never left the picnic table. The kids jumped up and down and ran here and there and made noise until they could barely move any more, but they were only kids. Kids do that. Not adults. Adults rest. Adults know the value of staying with what works. The adults all rested. Rest was good and it was enough fun. End of story.
Evening was time for a campfire and marshmallows. The warm flames waved at us happily, and we talked in their light. It was comfortable. When a log popped we saw sparks jump up and go off into the night. Way off into the dark. They vanished into the silent dark night and went out. That’s what happens when you leave the center, when you set off on your own with some new idea. It always goes off into space and dies alone.
After a while we went to sleep on our cots in the tent and by morning the fire was out. This was good. This was life.
Then backpacking came along. Life changed.
The world became adventurous and even a little dangerous. It became bold. Almost scary. We felt like those campfire sparks, leaving the bright safe warmth of the fire and leaping into the dark unknown. If you tried it what would happen? Would there be an accident? We didn’t know. We tried it anyway, because we were young. If you went out would you come back? We wondered about this but we went anyway. But there were already rules.
They got it right at the beginning I think, the people who invented backpacking and the backpacking rules.
By the time we heard about backpacking it had all been worked out, so right away we had the rules. We were safe. Follow the rules and that was it. Simple. It worked. Backpacking was new to us, maybe, but it already had history. They had been working on it for a long time. So there were already rules that worked, that were approved. Rules that had been decided on. Finished. Polished. A long time before we came along. And the rules haven’t changed since, either. Not really.
I tell my classes to watch me and do what I do. What I do works for me so I know it works for everyone, because if it works, it works. There is no arguing with that. I don’t allow arguing.
First, you have to commit to studying and taking classes. You prepare yourself. Books — you read them, and learn from the experts. I wish more books came with mail-in tests, so you could get certified. It’s hard to find real books, like that, from the real experts. I should write one. Certificates are great confidence builders. They prove that you know things, in case anyone gets uppity. Anyway, even without tests I recommend these:
Iron Men of the Wilderness, by Long John Packer
Backpacking, the Nuts and Bolts for Real Men, by Harley “Hair Chest” Hefty
The story of a Real Man’s Real Backpacking Woman, by Janet “Biceps” Hefty
Strength Training One Step at a Time, Backpacker Edition, by Janet and Harley Hefty
The Complete Plodder, by Dieter de Wilde
Five Miles a Day: You can too, by Grit Trudge
After reading a few good books, you sign up for classes or workshops, as many as you can. Learn about gear, the tools of the trade, about the right attitude. Look for factory reps so you can get the inside scoop directly from them — who knows more than they do?
Develop a good relationship with your local store. Trust your retailers. They’re a godsend and the staff is trained to help you. Find your favorite staffer, grab on and don’t let go until you know everything. Who sells all day every day, year in, year out? They do. They will be glad to help you. They know it all: What sells. What people want. What’s right. Remember, if something is out there and you don’t see it in every store, there’s a reason for that. Go with what sells. Stay mainstream. Stay safe.
I’ll explain. Let’s do a short class right now.
First, you need a pack.
Packs have frames, metal frames, on the outside. The actual pack is a bag that hangs on that frame and then the frame hangs on you. You can’t break a frame like that, no matter how much you carry or how hard you try. This frame will outlive your grandchildren. This is the first thing you look for. Remember, all real backpacks have sturdy metal frames that last forever.
The pack to go with this frame (the pack bag) is cloth but it’s the kind of cloth that wears like iron. It even feels rough and scratchy like iron because it is rough and tough. That shows quality. The fabric is thick and stiff and strong and so it lasts forever. Like iron, but without the rust. It’s nylon pack cloth, a modern miracle that you can’t do without. It is thick and stiff and perfect. Shoot bullets until you run out or get tired of pulling the trigger, and you will never even dent a pack like this. It’s that good. Hang one of these pack bags on a frame of welded aluminum and you are set for life, or longer.
So get a big, strong pack. That way you have room for everything. You’ll need the room eventually so buy the biggest pack you can find right away. Get one big enough to park in — the reason is, you need so many things. Things take up space. Things are bulky. A big pack has room for things, and a sturdy frame keeps it all together. This is guaranteed.
Second, you need a tent. Modern tents are also nylon, much better than the old canvas ones. I’m within the rules by saying this because backpacking tents have always been nylon, and not canvas.
Your tent must have two walls or shells: the outer one is waterproof and the inner one is breathable, and has what is called a bathtub floor that wraps around under you. Even if you go alone, get a two person tent so you have lots of room. A small tent will weigh at least six pounds, about what your pack weighs. Note that real tents have these two walls for the same reason ships have two hulls, as a safety margin. One wall keeps out the rain and big animals and the other keeps out bugs, small animals, and drafts. While you walk, the effort of carrying a pack keeps you warm but after you stop you need protection, and that’s what a tent is for.
Tents run small for my taste, so I always recommend one size larger. One person needs a two person tent, two people need a four person tent, and so on. It’s heavier that way but roomier, and your pack is big enough to carry it all, so why not? Besides, a heavy tent stays where you put it.
With a tent you need stakes and guy lines, and a sheet of plastic underneath, to protect the floor. On the inside you have room to stretch your legs and lay out your pack and all your things. If you have a big pack then you need more room, which means a bigger tent and so on. Don’t be cheap. It is all for your own good, believe me. Bigger is always better.
Inside that tent goes your third essential, a hefty sleeping bag. Better to be warm, to be safe, than to be sad and sorry.
Down is best for sleeping bags, everyone agrees on that, but play it safe and go with synthetic. If you get wet, synthetic fill is a safer bet. This is a known fact, but synthetic fill is also not as warm as down, so you need more of it, which means more weight and bulk. Luckily you are already prepared for that if you’ve been following my advice. A five pound bag will keep you toasty and provide extra fill to soak up water if you get rain on it, so more is always better here too. And if you set a synthetic bag on fire, don’t worry — not only won’t it catch but you won’t have that awful smell of burning feathers either.
Along with that sleeping bag you need a little more insulation, to go under you. Your goal is a soft bed that insulates you below as well as above, so don’t scrimp here. The best sleeping mattresses are inflatable but also have insulation inside. Get one of these from the start. Two inches thick is good. More is better if you can find it. It’s cushy. You’ll be glad you brought a nice, thick mattress. A mattress like this will add another couple of pounds, maybe more if you get one that’s full length, but for only a little more weight you get to stretch out. After all, you got a big enough tent, right? See how it all works out?
Fourth, you need a stove. Everyone’s using canisters these days. Go ahead, it won’t hurt, as I have approved them, though I still use a white gas stove with two burners. Canister stoves are reliable. They always work. They are steel, and they’re durable. You can pound nails with them. Get one with a built-in lighter. One cup, one pot, and one spoon are all you need to go with the stove, unless you have company over. Aluminum will work for pots, and titanium will work, but stainless steel never lets you down, ever. That’s how I started and I’m still doing fine. Steel is what they use in battleships, not aluminum, not titanium, so that should give you a hint. If you pay attention to the reason for things you never get into trouble. It’s simple, really, like a straight line from A to B.
Whatever style of water bottle you go with, buy two. They come in hard plastic, aluminum, or steel. All of them work. All together, with your stove, pots and all, you have about four pounds. Throw in a water filter and add two more pounds. Hardly anything.
That ends our basic class. There is a lot more to it than that, but we don’t have time for it here. We can get back to it later, but right now I want to talk about an idea of mine. It’s my own contribution to the science of backpacking, and I’m really excited about it, especially as it stays totally within the official rules as far as I can tell. There could be a business opportunity here, for the right partner, so let me know if you’d like to get in on the ground floor.
Here is the basic idea — a pack is something like a suitcase, right?
When you really think it through you realize that a good pack needs the convenience and durability of a suitcase, but with outdoor characteristics. This is where I’m going. After all, travelers the world over have relied on suitcases forever, so why should backpackers not get that same benefit? Backpacking is also traveling.
So I had Loron make me a PackCase™. Yes, I already have a trademark. Loron is my husband and chief technical adviser. He’s an engineer, and together we’re experimenting, trying to get back to basics. As you might expect, he’s good with his hands, so he bolted a large suitcase onto a pack frame and I tried it. Sure enough it worked fine, though we’re only at the proof of concept stage. I am totally sure it will work. It has to, because it is the logical next step in backpacking, which is going backwards to get closer to fundamentals, but for now it’s my pet project. We’re working through it, patent pending, already trademarked, as noted. And my new trail name is “Luggy Lena”, in case you were wondering, after my new Luggable Luggage Pack.
A regular pack is great but face it — it’s a bag. Not mine. Not anymore.
A suitcase is hard-sided, so what does that get you? Natural rain repellency, for one thing. And it has a lock. I like that feature, I really like it. Not to mention the solid brass hinges. Fold your clothes nicely, strap them in, and you still have plenty of room for spare shoes, for toiletries, for everything, even a bathrobe, all kept crisp, neatly pressed, and in place.
Get to camp, set your pack down, and open it like any other suitcase. Everything is still right where you put it, completely organized, just the way you want it to be. You might wonder why doesn’t someone make this? Oops — I’m doing it!
My very first prototype was good, but I had Loron add another touch or two. He replaced the original suitcase with a custom hinged pack made of heavy gauge fiberglass that he made himself. Bless him and his workshop, he’s good with tools but he doesn’t hike. He stays down in the basement most of the time with his equipment and his bottle collection. He does a lot of nuts and bolts thinking there but I have the real creative streak, so this works really well for both of us.
The back side of my PackCase™ has two legs that I had Loron bolt on. They unfold and swing out to make the back of the pack a stepladder. Now I find a nice tree to camp under, and I park there. I unlimber my pack, and I have a built in ladder so I can get way up there to hang food and valuables overnight with no problems.
I also have (new!) racks on the sides of the pack, just small ones though, for air drying dishes after supper, and for hanging laundry when I do a little hand-washing. To go with this I designed a fold-out counter top with its own cutting board. This works extremely well for slicing vegetables, and is a comfortable stand-up height. With this setup it’s almost like I’m at home, except for cooking on a backpacking stove, and everything folds together again and locks tight when I pack up.
My tent unfurls from the top half of the suitcase (the lid locks open for safety) and envelops everything, including the pack. When I’m inside I’m cozy but still have access to everything in the pack, and can even stroll into the “kitchen” for a snack, or make a cup of herb tea anytime I want. And it has a night-light!
But this is still a little experimental of course. I wouldn’t expect you to really understand all of it, just yet, anyway. Better for you to stick with a traditional frame pack for now, until we go into production. But until then, remember what I said earlier and be sure to get a big pack. I can’t say this often enough.
A big pack is the most important single piece of equipment, your number one asset. The reason, once again, is that you need to take so many things. Specialized outdoor equipment (and clothing) takes up space. For example I always take a fresh change of underwear and socks for every day (essential) and that takes lots of room right there. Likewise for outer wear. Who wants to look the same every day? So you need at least two or three outfits. Just this much alone will fill up an ordinary pack, but not if you’ve shopped intelligently and gotten the biggest one you can find!
Besides regular clothing you need shoes to wear in camp, and it never hurts to have a pair of wading shoes for those pesky streams. Then there is rain apparel, wouldn’t you know? Jacket, waterproof pants, rain mitts, gaiters, a big hat, and a cover for the pack too. Plus maybe a second pair of (waterproof) boots.
We’ll leave out food for now. Food is a whole separate subject, but don’t forget your towel, washcloth, and soap, at a bare minimum. You might want to double check that you have enough shampoo, conditioner, and hand lotion to complement your toothbrush, floss, toothpaste, and mouthwash. Everyone says to take sample-sized bottles along but why? Why run out? Don’t skimp here! Take a big bottle of everything and you’ll always have plenty to share with others. After all, you aren’t going that far anyway.
Plan on shorter trips at first. A quarter mile, maybe, up to half a mile (if you’re exceptionally fit) is acceptable to start with, in good weather, and it always pays to be in reasonable shape. A mile is fine if you can go that far, but you’ll definitely have to work up to it. Don’t overdo it, and don’t even think about any real distance until you know you are ready. Keep in mind that a two mile trip will take you all day, so relax and enjoy it, once you are up to it, if ever.
Hike from the parking lot to the lake shore, plunk everything down, and camp. That’s it. Stay a night or two while you recover, then head back. Most people say this is more than adequate, and never move up to expeditions of two to three miles, and it’s true that you don’t get overextended with shorter trips — and almost never get lost — but if you want to go on a longer trip, ever, you can, when you are broken in and comfortable with your equipment, being outside, and so on. But keep in mind that there is never a really good reason to go overboard, or move into extreme situations where you are actually out of sight of pavement.
To work up to a basic level of fitness, try carrying a pack around in town. Try a park, for example. Give yourself a month or two while increasing your walking distance and weight up to a full load. Don’t be upset if you can’t stand up at first. Have a friend help you put on the pack and keep that friend near as a guide, and in case of emergencies.
You can do it! It takes time and perseverance but the body is amazingly adaptable, and in short while, like a season or two, you too will be able to backpack up to a mile, or even more if you dare!
And in remarkably short order, like another season or two after that, you may be able to go double that. It’s fun!
This is Dolores “Luggy Lena” Runtsauger signing off for now. Good hiking to you, and keep those hinges oiled!
