Woodsman's Gear of the 20th Century Part 6

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morning folks I'm Dave Canterbury with self-reliance outfitters in the pathfinder school back in another series year of the 20th century woodsman we have skipped around a little bit with gear we've talked about knives axes cooking implements we talked about lighting and things like that and I want to keep going with that and we'll come back to some of those ideas because I have lots and lots of things that I want to go over with you I'm just trying not to do two items in the same category in a row so today we're gonna talk about backpacks back in the woods [Music]

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okay this is the trapper Nelson pack frame or Alaskan pack frame and the trapper Nelson backpack and we're gonna look through this thing really quick and see the different features that were developed when this pack was made but in 1920 Loyd Nelson had taken a trip to Alaska and he had borrowed an intimate pack frame for his trip which was made with sticks and sealskin probably similar to some of the bushcraft frames that we see today most likely a ladder back style frame when he returned from that trip he decided that pack was so uncomfortable he was going to design something better for hunters and trappers and in 1922 he developed a register the patent for the trapper Nelson pack Frank okay so let's talk about that today stay with me okay so here's a pretty good look at a trapper Nelson pack frame this would still be a usable backpack today now one thing that you can see on the bottom of this frame is basically there's just clips and like saddle rings D rings from like tack that hook into that and the only thing with that is they're a little fiddly to get right but it would hook in here so that it was easy for you to be able to get this pack on and off all you'd have to do is drop one out of a clip and you can sling it off to one shoulder one clip was during a little tighter than the other side and then you had adjustments on the strap itself I think that guys of this time period well I know for a fact guys at this time period we're a little smaller in stature if you look at uniforms and things like that from back in World War one even into World War two and clear back into the Civil War the uniforms and things are very small you wouldn't think they'd fit anybody that was over the age of about fourteen today and this pack is really no different this pack frame is stretched out completely as far as how big these straps will get and the thing would barely fit me with just a light shirt on let alone if I were wearing some type of outerwear like a washer or volgarr me okay so like I said I'm wearing just a t-shirt and a flannel and I've got these straps adjusted all the way out and it barely fits on me barely fits if I had anything else on underneath this it would not fit so bear that in mind if you're going to buy one of these backpacks for yourself you may have to make some modifications to the straps in order to be able to use it unless you're just buying it to hang on the wall so they do run a little bit small that's for sure now let's talk a little bit about the pack frame itself the pack is just a large bucket style pack and reading horse calf parts book camping a wood craft he differentiates the word knapsack and pack sack and he describes a knapsack as being something that will hold bits and bobs of your gear basically with your sleeping arrangements strapped or wrapped around the outside or a bedroll attached to the bottom whereas a pack sack would hold the entire contents of the travelers kit this was designed to be a pack sack it's got a large bucket style pack in it that you could put lots and lots of gear in and it has one pocket on the front that you could put things that you needed to get really access to and they had a large flap with some adjustment if you made this thing really big and had it filled up it also had a tie strap on it here that you could run through a couple of loops here and here and tie them together to hold everything shut and cinch it up tight if that's what you chose to do before you put the flap over on top of it like this so that's the pack itself but the really the innovative part of this whole system is the frame and the way this thing was made it was made to be two separate pieces where the pack came off the frame so let's talk about that okay so the way this pack is attached to the frame is it basically has grommets in the pack that go over the top of eyelets on the frame and this one's just got an extra stay in it they generally came with one state per side again this one's just got an extra and then you could remove this pack completely from the pack board just like this so that it could be washed and maintained let's take the other side off because this pack frame itself is really the meat and potatoes I think of the whole trapper Nelson system so there's the pack completely can be completely taken off maintained washed repaired whatever the case may be and you're left with the frame now the frame of this pack really was the innovative feature because making a frame that was comfortable to carry was his entire intent so what he did was he took an oak frame and he bent the components so that there was air space trapped in between if he wrapped it in canvas and you can see this is just wrapped in a piece of canvas and it's laced up just like a boot here to draw it tight and you can see where over time things have ripped and things like that when it's been put on and taken off all character added and it has a metal stay rod here in the center and your straps are basically just nailed to the frame with a couple of nails they wrap around the front side they're nailed again and then you have the straps coming through the bottom or the back side of the canvas here where you have the label that says trapper Nelson so what this did was it allowed you to have a piece of canvas here and give you air space between the actual pack itself and the load and your back so that you had air traveling up in between this pack frame to keep you from getting so hot now you have some absorbency here you had issues with this being against your back and it would make you sweat but again evaporative cooling took place because you had an air space here and that was really to innovate a part of this frame in this system that really had not been used or manufactured commercially for the hunter the sportsman

to this point when he made this pack frame it's a very simple system it's a little bit difficult to recreate in that you have to steam bend or heat Bend these boards I have reproduced one of these and I have a video on that on my youtube channel but I think it is well worth talking about this system of the trapper Nelson because it was a very innovative system for its time again it was created very similar to something that had been used by Nelson when he was traveling with the in Erwin in Alaska so it is taken from a Native American style frame and if you kind of look back on that even further and you look at the artifacts in the Otzi collection where Otzi was found he had a wooden pack frame as well with just a large bucket style skin backpack that was attached to it

alright guys well I appreciate you over for this video today I thank you for your views I think you pretty support I thank you for everything you do for our school for family and for business for all of our sponsors and structures affiliates and Friends and I will be back with another video shortly I have to leave to go down south tomorrow I'll be in the Bahamas as well as Florida teaching over the next several days when I return I will get some more videos up in this series I'll try to get some videos shot while I'm down south and maybe on the islands as well to put a spur-of-the-moment type video up on YouTube if I can if not we'll get back with this series as soon as I return thanks guys