I just wanted to tell you and your customers how pleased I am with your Duluth packs.
I have been going to both the Quetico Provincial Park and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area for many years. Each year I bring along some students from the Canton, IL school district. This tradition of offering these students the chance to experience this wonderful place has been going on for over 25 years.
I still have the same Duluth packs today that I started with. Trust me when I say these students know how to abuse my packs, (i.e. drag them over rocks, lift them up by the front flaps, you name it, they have done it.) I have always known that these packs can handle
most any type of abuse and still hold up for the next group, year after year. The one thing I had hoped these packs could do as well was 
float, for an extended time. Well last year it finally happened, one of my canoe’s flip over above a waterfall. By the time I got the students to shore (before they went over the falls), the canoe and 4 of the 25 year old Duluth packs had gone over. When I finally got my canoe back out of the water, portaged it to below the falls, and loaded it back up again, around 20 minutes had passed. Another 5 to 10 minutes had gone by before I spotted the other canoe floating downstream. To my amazement there were all 4 Duluth Packs still floating by the canoe! These packs had been floating for around 30 minutes! So for anyone that asks the question, “Will they float very long?” You can tell them to call Greg S. from Canton, IL. I will be going back again this year with the same packs, but this time I will be taking a different route through the Quetico.
One very satisfied customer!!!
Greg S.
This pack has been my favorite since I was stationed in Duluth in 1999. Since then it has traveled from NYC to Miami and Virginia Beach to San Francisco. It has spent enough time at sea with me to earn a medal. I love you gear and heartily recommend it to anyone who listens.
All,
Best regards,
Scott H.
I know I have written you about my DULUTH PACK duffel in the past. Over the years, I had purchased too many alleged “ballistic” nylon duffels to count. They typically failed where the zipper attaches to the fabric. However, they failed in other ways too. The point is they failed!!! One such failure caused me to use my beloved DULUTH PACK duffel on a trip to Shanghai. This was a bag I traditionally used for local trips because I loved its appearance.
In any case, I have used the duffel on sixteen subsequent trips to China and too many miscellaneous other destinations to recall. I suspect international trips give a truly astonishing number of people an opportunity to mishandle my bag. When I arrived in China last month, my business partner remarked that he admired my duffel. I filled him in about my affection for the bag. He said, “well, you must like them you keep buying them”. He could not believe that the same bag had held up so well that it looked new and still does after all this use. SOMEWHERE, there must be a pile of “ballistic” nylon duffels awaiting recycling. I will no longer be contributing to that pile.
Thanks, John M.
I have lived in Alaska for 26 years now. I came up here from South Carolina for the fishing, paddling, hunting, and other outdoor activities. There is lots to do, and this is really the place to do it. I stay busy, even, or especially, in retirement, with a constant parade of trips, from one day to three weeks, floats for hunting and fishing, whitewater, road based trips, remote airplane access only trips. A friend and I even do a moose-hunting trip by train every fall, using America’s last flag stop train to get in and out of the mountains. I never leave home without a Duluth Pack product of some kind. I have original Duluth Packs in the #3 and #4 size, a canoe thwart bag, a rifle case, and several smaller items, and my wife uses your bomb proof heavy duty tote, and a shell bag for a purse. I don’t take any canoe trip of any length, or in any style of boat, without the thwart bag - it is the absolute perfect solution for the niche that it fills.
But the Duluth Packs are the all-stars. They go on any trip longer than a day, rafting, canoeing, hunting, fishing, catching the train. They can hold anything and wear like iron. And they can take the abuse too. In the mid-90’s I was on a rafting and fishing trip in Southwest Alaska, on the Togiak River. My aging Dad, my brother, and two South Carolina friends and I had spent a week floating, fishing, camping and enjoying being together. We had a Duluth bag with us, needless to say. On the last day we were picked up on the river in a Grumman Goose, an amphibious plane in wide use in Alaska. The weather was poor, the load was heavy and to make a short nightmare into a short story, we crashed on takeoff, shearing off the tip of a wing that caught on the river bank, and tearing open the belly of the plane. The plane went into a flat spin and miracle of miracles we landed upright, with the passenger compartment intact. We had bumps and bruises and minor blood flow, but all were essentially unhurt. The plane was totaled; some of the gear was flung off into the bushes and destroyed, including a Pelican Case (they are guaranteed against everything but sharks and 5 year old children). I had all the raft repair kit and other tools in an Army surplus 50 cal. ammo can – it was ripped open and the metal torn like tin foil. The Duluth Pack was in the storage compartment in the nose of the plane, and suffered two tears in the crash, but was otherwise fine. After we arrived back in Anchorage, I took it to a shoe repair shop, and had them sew the rips with their heavy duty sewing machine. I have used the pack ever since and will cherish it always as a momento of a close call survived with family and friends.
I am embarrassed to say, I treated my Duluth Pack like it needed no maintenance whatsoever. That’s not exactly true – the leather should get some cleaning and preservative from time to time. I ignored this. My straps finally deteriorated to the point where they broke, and I sent them back to Duluth for replacement. Voila! Good as new, and my pack is looking at another season of heavy use in the Alaska Bush.
I don’t recommend that you test your Duluth Pack gear like I did, but I do recommend that you use it and use it hard. It will hold up, and it will do everything you ask it to, almost. Come to think of it, it did exactly what I asked it to do – it held up through a plane crash and protected my gear. I’m a fan for life.
Venable V., Jr. Anchorage, AK
I just received my Plunge Mittens, and the first thing I noticed was the fine craftsmanship, as well as the handsome look. I’m sure I’ll get years of use from these fine mitts. Thanks so much. Looking forward to doing more business with Duluth pack.
Dave M.
Ogden, Utah
A few years ago I took a 60 – 70 year old wood framed trapper nelson pack on a 12 hour hiking trip through Mt. Backer, WA. I had bought it at a thrift store for $1 just a year before on a whim and hung it on the wall of my room next to a pair of old wooden ski’s; I never intended to use it but a friend said he’d give me $50 if I used it for a hike we had planned in Mt. Baker, WA. I did, made $50, and completely changed my style of enjoying the outdoors. Previously it was all modern materials, expensive, often costly to repair, and they never seemed to fit in with the wilderness. After marching through deep snow for 12 hours, I realized that old pack of canvas and wood was more durable than any of the modern packs I’ve owned, and its simplicity of design seemed to be more fitting for the wilderness. I started replacing and sometimes just getting rid of most my modern equipment, finding along the way how much excess I had. After a few more hikes with that pack I started to become fearful of damaging it. A pack that old isn’t under warranty and they aren’t making new ones daily to replace it. So I searched the web and found an older timber cruiser pack for sale on ebay. It looked good and the price was right so bought it and a few days later was holding my new pack. About a year after that I was ending a hike in the Cuckanut Mt. near Bellingham, WA. when an older gentleman commented on having owned a pack just like it. Well that started a conversation, mostly I listened to what he had to say, and he had some great things to tell a young guy like me. He told me about many hiking adventures through the very hills I was just leaving, and some I’d surely like to go see. Told me about his first pack (a Trapper Nelson, modified for use with or without the pack board) that he owned for about 46 years before a bear got into it and how he replaced it with a Duluth Pack Timber Cruiser. That was in 1970 he said, and it served him until 2006 when he sold it. Our conversation lasted a good couple hours, but eventually, as I had to get a move on and get home, we shook hands and exchanged names, when he said his name was “Christopher” I immediately replied with his last name, which put a look of concern and puzzlement across his aged face. I opened the flap on the pack there across the inside of it, in faded marker was “Chris Johnston”. A smile shot across his face that I’m sure he hasn’t smiled in decades and his eyes lit up like a kid at christmas. We were both in a bit of disbelief that his pack he sold ended up on my shoulders, and that we would then meet, and I think he was more surprised than me. Our conversation ended for the day but didn’t stop. He was 84 and I was only 21, quite the age difference but he quickly became one of my better friends and mentor of sorts. Sadly Chris died just a month ago, at 85 years of age. I remember him every time I load up his old, my new, Duluth Pack Timber Cruiser and set out into the wilderness. Its nearly 40 years old, and I think its got another 40 left in it.
Robert P., Kalispell, MT.
Dear Duluth Pack,
I have an Olive Drab Boot Duffel that I purchased from you some 20 years ago. This bag has been around the world as I survived in the U.S. Navy. Believe me, this is one tough bag. You should be proud of your product!
William V., Bullhead City, AZ