The Trapper Nelson

On a hiking trip in Alaska in 1920, Seattle resident Lloyd Nelson used a borrowed Indian pack to carry his gear.  The pack was sealskin stretched over willow sticks, and proved to be uncomfortable to say the least.  He thought he could design a better one, and thought there would be a market for one among boy scouts and outdoorsmen. 

He designed a wooden frame that had a canvas panel stretched across it.  The canvas rested the weight of the pack load on the user's back, keeping the wooden frame from gouging the user's back.  He got a U.S. patent on the pack, which Eric Nicholson found out is U.S. Patent 1,505,661.  Thanks, Eric!   

He marketing the product by visiting every sporting goods store between San Diego and Seattle, and within a few years sales began to pick up.  He sold his patent rights to Trager, the company making his canvas bags, and shortly after the sale, he got an order for 500 packs for the Forest Service, and another 500 unit order shortly followed. 

By modern standards, the pack is cruel and unusual torture, but compared to the alternatives at the time, it was a big improvement. 

My father-in-law carried a Trapper Nelson pack on a hike from the Hell's Canyon of the Snake River, to the town of Riggins, over the Seven Devils mountains.  This was in the early forties, before WWII, and they carried canned food, an axe, a handgun, and other gear that made their pack weight extreme.  I inherited his Trapper Nelson, which belongs in a museum now. 

 

Comments

let me take a look at it, and I'll let you know if I'd like to publish all or parts of it. Illustrations would help. Bob

[PODO]

Great info, thanks a lot!!! I wish I will have such a writing skills.

[John Mahon]

I have a Trapper Nelson #3 that my grandfather gave me (he was a prospector and spent a lot of time in the interior of BC especially around Barkerville in the 1940s). I still use it exclusively and it routinely goes about 160 kilometers (or 100 miles for you US types) each summer and always in one long trip - the Boundary trails in Jasper being my favourites or a similar trip in the Willmore north of Jasper Park. I certainly don't understand the comments about torture or antique. It is a good working pack and is not hard to carry and I am no mountain man I assure you of that!

[Tony Broscomb]

Hi Bob. Just caught your comment of May 14 but have no way of contacting you except this comment board. Re: the booklet - oddly enough, neither the Vancouver Museum (book shop), nor tourism board nor the historical society have shown any interest in my 'magnum opus' on Jones Tent and Awning, yet it was a 100 year old company that started right after the great fire. In the meantime, I came across another Trapper Nelson Indian Pack Board, but of the Pintail Brand made by a different company entirely (not Jones or Trager).

[Tony Broscomb]

I found the piece of paper I lost re: the other Trapper Nelson Pack Board. It was made by Edward Lipsett Ltd., a B.C. company that made camping equipment in the 1930s and 1940s. By 1954, that branch of the business was dropped. The Lipsett version is identical to the Jones Tent and Awning and Trager (Seattle) boards. Does anyone have a Pintail and/or know anything more about Lipsett Ltd?

[email protected] is my email address.

[Charles Sargent]

Bill Heywood: I would be interested in purchasing those packs from you if you still have them. I have one that I use regularly but the frame is a little broken and it's just wearing out.
Anyway, drop me a note if you like at
[email protected]
thanks:)

[Nate Carabello]

Does anyone know of any plans available to build a "Trapper Nelson" or perhaps a similar pack board?

[Robert]

This is an outstanding pack, I came across one in the Seattle, Washington Goodwill Outlet store where things are bought by the pound and if the folks working there like you, you can get some insane deals. This pack with just a few minor tears that I patched and some light wear cost me $1.75. I used it a few months later for a two day hike near Bellingham, Washington. It was the highlight of conversation with the folks I came across on the trail. I ran into one old timer at the trailhead who remembered buying one of these new when he went into the Forestry Service. "It still gets the job done all these years later and after all the hell I put it through."

[Jonathan]

I came across one of these backpacks and wanted to know more about it. It is a Trapper Nelson Indian Pack Board manufactured by Chas. Trager. I was wondering if anyone knew the value or the age of the pack.