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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Time-Proven Gear Modern Technology Hasn’t Improved On The Century-Old Duluth Pack

Rich Landers Outdoors Editor

In the basement of the Duluth Pack Co. in Duluth, Minn., stood a tall pile of field-weary gray-green canvas packs. Some had holes and rips where camp-raiding bears had scavenged for food. A few had threadbare bottoms from being dragged across rocks on countless canoe portages through the North Country.

A customer came into the store and added another well-used bag to the growing mountain of repair work.

“How old is that pack?” asked the shop attendant.

“I got it as a birthday present when I was 13,” the customer said. “Now I’m pushing 40.”

“That’s where we went wrong,” said the worker. “They last too long.”

Sorting through the packs, the attendant explained that a few leather straps needed replacing, and a few bottoms needed reinforcing. But a stitch here and a rivet there would soon have the entire pile repaired and ready for another season of backcountry canoeing.

“Some of those packs have been used by outfitters for 30 years,” said Steve Emerson, who manages the company’s team of seven sewers. As always, they handcraft the product, which is famous in the relatively small region for which it was designed.

The Duluth pack is an icon of classic outdoor gear. The unique design is as functional now as it was when French Canadian Camille Poirier came to Minnesota and applied for the patent in 1882.

At first glance, the original model of the pack looks like nothing more than a canvas envelope with leather shoulder straps.

But the enduring beauty of the product can’t be appreciated until you put it in a canoe and paddle for a week in the wilderness.

The Duluth pack has been the standard by which all other packs are judged in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area of Minnesota. Here, where canoe travel requires numerous portages, modern technology has had little luck in matching the Duluth pack for durability, accessibility, function and the ease with which it slips in and out from between the thwarts.

The pack’s envelope-shape molds to the curvature of the canoe. It finds the shape and hugs the bottom, providing a stable load.

Duluth packs are not common in the West, where polyurethane-coated bags with roll-down tops are more suitable for the whitewater rivers. The longest portage in much of the West might be from the car to the launch.

“This is not a dry bag,” Emerson said. “But the so-called dry bags don’t stay that way under the kind of use a pack gets in the Boundary Waters.”

Duluth packs don’t have hip belts to take the weight off a tenderfoot’s shoulders. They hang low so one can carry a pack and a canoe at the same time.

A tumpline can be strapped across the top of the carrier’s head to distribute the load.

“In this age of synthetics, we have to re-educate people about canvas,” Emerson said. “Canvas can dry from the inside out. A coated nylon bag dries on the outside and stays wet on the inside because it can’t breath.

“Nylon is lighter but not as durable as canvas. In canoeing, lightness isn’t paramount.

“Nylon breaks down in the sun’s UV rays. Cotton has natural UV protection because it grows in the sun.”

Perhaps the greatest testimonial is that Duluth packs are passed down for generations. Nylon packs are not.

The pack makers still shun the plastic Fast-tex buckles that have become standard equipment on modern backpacks.

“We prefer leather straps and a metal buckle that one can open, fasten and tighten with one hand,” Emerson said.

The only modern application he advises to the Duluth pack is a plastic liner, which the company sells for $3. “This will keep your contents dry and make the bag buoyant if you use it right,” he said.

The line of Duluth packs has grown to 30 models because, as Emerson put it, “Everyone packs and camps differently.”

“You wouldn’t stuff the Paul Bunyan model with food because it’s too big and you’d never be able to lift it,” he said. “But it’s perfect for stuffing with sleeping bags and pads.”

Two people heading out for a week can do well with one No. 3 Duluth pack apiece plus one for food. The packs are designed so one person can carry two packs on the portage, while the other person carries one pack and the canoe.

Some canoeists double the utility of their backpacking gear. But a backpack laid on the bottom of a canoe does not provide the speedy access to contents. With a Duluth pack, one flips the flap and everything is exposed.

“Everyone here is an avid canoeist,” said Emerson, who’s worked with the company for 16 years. “We wouldn’t be using this stuff if it didn’t work.

“Sure, we make refinements, but messing with a Duluth pack is like screwing around with the design of a spoon. Do anything you want with the handle, but leave the business end alone.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Illustrations by Rick Kollath