Duluth style packs

[Glenn MacGrady]

I wonder why the different styles of containers ?? Variety is the spice of life ??

Sure, and many folks here use a variety of modern material soft and hard waterproof bags, containers, buckets and barrels.

However, some folks prefer to use more traditional canoes, such as wood/canvas, and more traditional paddles, such as beavertails and ottertails, and more traditional gear and food packs, such as canvas Duluths and wooden wanigans. These more traditional things are often preferred for aesthetic reasons and for their historical connections to the canoeing cultures of hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

Many of the canoeists here who own traditional/historic canoes and gear also own the most modern canoes and gear. There is a wide variety of canoeists here, including canoeing cultists, addicts and collectors.

 

[Barry1954!]

Sure, and many folks here use a variety of modern material soft and hard waterproof bags, containers, buckets and barrels.

However, some folks prefer to use more traditional canoes, such as wood/canvas, and more traditional paddles, such as beavertails and ottertails, and more traditional gear and food packs, such as canvas Duluths and wooden wanigans. These more traditional things are often preferred for aesthetic reasons and for their historical connections to the canoeing cultures of hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

Many of the canoeists here who own traditional/historic canoes and gear also own the most modern canoes and gear. There is a wide variety of canoeists here, including canoeing cultists, addicts and collectors.

Built my first wanigan this spring LOVE it !!

 

[lowangle al]

This load was 104lbs, not recommended.

 

[Murat V]

Not sure if you need this, but Lloyd of Canoe Canada East has a tutorial on how to make a canvas pack complete with all the plans and photos needed to finish the job...

https://www.canoecanadaeast.com/do-it-yourself-canoe-portage-pack.htm

 

[Patrick Corry]

Thanks Murat, that link should be very helpful! I’m just awaiting the arrival of some waxed canvas to begin the project.

Incidentally, I just found two Duluth packs for sale at (somewhat) reasonable cost so now I’m loathe to pass them up but I guess I am committed to the project. Ah well… I do like a challenge.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

The canvas is gray (or is it grey?).

What do you think of the color?

Unwaxed canvas is easily dyed. Just search on the subject. Waxed canvas can't be dyed.

 

[lowangle al]

Patrick, if you don’t like it how will you know if an original Duluth might have worked better.

 

[Boatman53]

If you buy the packs at a reasonable cost and don’t like them you could probably resell them here. Mine are pretty old and I might be interested in one at least.
Jim

 

[ppine]

One you add filler it will be pretty white. You can paint it any color you want. . My OT Guide 18 was white for 30 years. It shows up really well at a distance on lakes and rivers.

 

[lowangle al]

Thanks Murat, that link should be very helpful! I’m just awaiting the arrival of some waxed canvas to begin the project.

Incidentally, I just found two Duluth packs for sale at (somewhat) reasonable cost so now I’m loathe to pass them up but I guess I am committed to the project. Ah well… I do like a challenge.

If you need an excuse to buy them, they make good storage vessels for things like life jackets, blankets or even old sweaters. I'm sure you could find a use for them and if not you could resell them like Jim suggested.

 

[Idiot Savant]

Okay, so I've now been obsessing about Glenn's remark about the appropriateness of a Duluth style pack for close to a week. COB that I am (that's cheap old b*st*rd for those not in the know), I find it really hard to part with hundreds of dollars for a pack which is pretty unsophisticated. My experience with mountaineering/climbing/backpacking packs is that over the last several decades designers have made great leaps forward in both load-carrying and fabric improvements while Duluth style packs haven't changed for a hundred years! Then, on the other hand, maybe there's a good reason for this; maybe they're perfect as is....

Anyway, I'm now seriously contemplating making my own Duluth style pack. I'm a pretty good at sewing, and have Amish saddle and tack shops nearby for sourcing leather, and my brother has an industrial Juki sewing machine. Just like in my working career, I am able to 'see' the finished product in my mind, then dissect it into it's parts and fabrication steps. If I do this I'll probably use waxed canvas.

Lastly, I'll put this question out there for the regular users of these packs: What capacity/size is most useful? I've been thinking of making a large, box-style like Duluth's Paul Bunyan pack- 70+ liters capacity since I like to have everything inside the pack rather than strapped or hanging from the outside. Your thoughts?

Here's my two cents, for what it's worth.
First, I had a cheese head friend come out for a river trip, in Utah, and he brought traditional canoe packs.
I used dry bags.
After the trip he sold his traditional packs and bought dry bags.
But now I've purchased a Granite Gear #4 canoe pack and want to experiment with using it. I can see advantages to the dimensions.
For instance, it's as wide as my two person tent. You can also stuff items, like a rain jacket, under the flap, making them quick to access.
My plan is to use a pack liner and use smaller dry bags inside that. So, for instance, I'd put all my clothes in one dry bag and my sleeping bag in another dry bag and my food in yet another dry bag, etc.
It's black nylon. Maybe not that traditional, But deinitely more subtle than my yellow and blue dry bags.

 

[clemency]

Just a heads up that Granite Gear is having a 30% off sale. Pretty tempting.

 

[billconner]

I dumped once, first day of a week trip, Sunday Lake in the Q. All three packs - a Duluth and 2 Kondos - had just a liner and nothing got wet, even after bobbing in waves for half an hour. At least for that kind of flat water, I don't see the need for dry bags.

 

[lowangle al]

I use the liner when going tandem, as they are too big just for my stuff when solo. When solo I use roll top dry bags w/o the Duluth liner. They take up more space but it's also a good system. I like Sea To Summit brand dry bags. They're very light weight, barely more than a stuff sack. They are very watertight too. I took one on vacation to Hawaii recently, just in case something came up, but only used it to hold ice and beer. After 10 hours it still held water without leaking a drop.

 

[pblanc]

Here's my two cents, for what it's worth.
First, I had a cheese head friend come out for a river trip, in Utah, and he brought traditional canoe packs.
I used dry bags.
After the trip he sold his traditional packs and bought dry bags.
But now I've purchased a Granite Gear #4 canoe pack and want to experiment with using it. I can see advantages to the dimensions.
For instance, it's as wide as my two person tent. You can also stuff items, like a rain jacket, under the flap, making them quick to access.
My plan is to use a pack liner and use smaller dry bags inside that. So, for instance, I'd put all my clothes in one dry bag and my sleeping bag in another dry bag and my food in yet another dry bag, etc.
It's black nylon. Maybe not that traditional, But deinitely more subtle than my yellow and blue dry bags.

The heavy clear plastic liners do work and Granite Gear also sells them BTW. But I prefer to use individual light weight roll top dry bags inside of my Cordura GG traditional 3.5 and #4 packs instead. They add little weight, little more than a plastic liner, and different sizes and colors help keep different gear organized so you don't find yourself rummaging around in the bottom of a big pack bag for a small item.

 

[LanceR]

We use trash compactor bags for liners. They are inexpensive and rugged. On longer trips we carry a spare in case of one getting damaged. I also have a strip of Gorilla Tape wrapped around a walking stick or thwart that makes quick watertight repairs.

I also use lightweight dry sacks inside the trash compactor liners to keep thing organized. Walmart has some inexpensive dry bags that work well for us:

Robot or human?

Robot or human?

Lance

 

[billconner]

I use to buy the heavy ones from an outfitter - can't recall what name brand - bu now I look for the clear 4 or 6 mil trash bags. Plenty strong enough.

 

[Patrick Corry]

I received my waxed canvas fabric, and also the two Duluth packs I purchased; a #4 and a #2. Geez, the #4 is massive! If I ever filled it up I doubt I could carry it! These packs will help me with patterning the new project which should be somewhere in between the #2 and #4 in capacity.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I received my waxed canvas fabric, and also the two Duluth packs I purchased; a #4 and a #2.

All because of a tangential comment by some geezer on the internet. Let's hope he doesn't opine on the color of your truck.

 

[Pseudonym]

I love my Duluth packs!

I use two. The first is a #4 that is massive and swallows everything: my personal clothing, tent and sleeping kit. That pack gets lined with a massive Recreational Barrel Works pack liner in their heavier 70 denier version. The bright color helps illuminate the interior and makes finding a particular stuff sack a little easier. This pack is so big that its rarely stuffed full and will therefore easily conform to the shape of the remaining space in my boat between a wanigan and thwart or yoke.

The second Duluth is smaller and contains an ash pack basket to add some structure. I use it for all the items I like to keep handy on the water and in camp. It gets placed just behind the rear thwart, just forward of my legs when I'm in a knees-bent seated position, and in the center of the bilge so that if I want to extend my legs out straight I can do so on either side of the pack. You can see the pack peeking out from under my spray cover in the image below:



The pack is strapped to the rear thwart with a cam strap, so that it can be stowed tight under the cover in whitewater. When the strap is slack, I can pull the pack out into the cockpit between my legs for easy access. The location is incredibly handy because it goes from easy-access to out-of-the-way in a jiffy.

To waterproof the pack, I use a poly plastic liner, which is just a contractor bag twisted shut and held with shock cord. To keep the edges of the pack basket from abrading the poly liner, I wrapped the basket in a a thin nylon sack and put some soft foam under the bottom of the basket. Doing so creates a three-layer system: outer Duluth Pack, middle waterproof layer of poly plastic and inner basket wrapped in the sleeping bag sack. Each layer is soft and the poly divides the interior into wet and dry areas, so I can stuff wet articles between the Duluth pack and poly liner and separate my dry clothing outside the pack basket but still inside the poly liner, which keeps them out of the way of the basket contents. Credit goes to Cliff Jacobsen for this system.

In the photo below, you can see the green duluth pack, plastic poly liner and gray nylon sack that contains the pack basket. The nylon sack is an old sleeping bag storage sack which is very oversized and hangs down into the pack basket interior, effectively covering the basket weave on both sides. The second small basket in the middle catches the little items that would otherwise fall down to the bottom.