A Packsack for Every Season - Scott Earl Smith

Call it a character flaw if you like, but I have a thing for packsacks. I love a good packsack. One that is designed perfectly with all the pockets and special features you can imagine. Every now and then I get duped into buying another one that is just one notch better than all the rest. But it’s never perfect enough. If I could design my own ideal outdoor pack, it would be one that is modular so you can add pockets and pouches to suit every need. It would also be made of some kind of expanding and contracting material that would grow or shrink to your daily needs. Perhaps made from the stem cells of an anaconda. Then if you needed a day-pack for your lunch, camera and binoculars - it would shrink to that size and hold everything snuggly in place. But say you found a Chevrolet Duramax truck engine in near perfect condition on the side of the trail, you could slip that into your expanding packsack and hump it out.

But until someone invents that packsack at a near affordable price, I’ll hang on to the ones I have. 

As you can imagine I’ve accumulated a number of packsacks over the years. At one point I thought I’d thin out the herd and sell all the substandard packs and keep one or two of the best. I started using one of my favourites for everything - an Eberlestock X2. But what I found is that organizing and re-organizing this pack to suit my daily needs was a real nuisance. If the pack was loaded for hunting and I wanted to use if for fishing, then I’d spend a good hour or more emptying it and restocking it in an organized fashion. After all, cramming everything into a packsack without giving any thought to finding things again is pointless. And inevitably I’d forget one important item each time.

So I decided to dedicate one packsack to each need instead. My X2 remains my go-to pack for hunting day trips - and on a recent trip where I flew to Oregon for two weeks I used that same X2 for my carry-on luggage - without bringing any checked baggage. That’s impressive folks! I wore my boots and warm jacket and stowed my crocks inside the bag for semi-formal dress. I wore my ear muffs, ball hat and toque stacked one on top of the other (quite the fashion statement). I brought a few pairs of dark coloured socks and underwear (they can be worn inside-out on week two) and donated them to a nice charity that sells used clothing before I left (I’m such a great guy).

My red and grey Tatonka Bike and Hike is now my steelhead fishing pack, my tan and black Tatonka Bike and Hike is my shooting pack, my Eberlestock Team Elk pack is my cold-weather hunting pack, and so on. Dufflebags are also organized by activity and season. 

This way, if steelhead fishing is on the agenda, I can grab my steelhead pack, my steelhead duffle bag and disappear into the wilds in an instant. 

Speaking of which, I think I’ll do that now…

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Tatonka Bike and Hike for steelhead fly fishing

Eberlestock X2 Hunting day pack

WELCOME SPRING!

“Living was a horse between your legs and a carbine under one leg and a hill and a valley and a stream with trees along it and the far side of the valley and the hills beyond.” Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

People say things like “I don’t really care if I catch fish when I go fishing” and other nonsense like that. But what I think they are eluding to is that there is more to the outdoors than the task at hand; be it climbing a mountain, catching a fish, or running a rapids. The joy of the outdoors is full of hidden gems that hide in your subconscious and rise to the surface when something tweaks that memory; be it a smell or a sound - like the sound of a songbird at sunrise.

For example, the other morning as I headed out my back door the sky was just beginning to lighten and the sunrise was preluded by an orange hue to the east. There was that smell of dampness that reminds me of spring, and a bird making a kind of forlorn call that I instantly recognized as something I often hear when I’m out steelhead fishing in April and May at first light. The call had three tones that sounded like the bird was sleepily saying “Good morning.”

I checked with local bird expert and wildlife biologist, Brian Ratcliffe, who advised me this call was that of the black-capped chickadee. He explained this bird arrives in our area in early spring and the call I heard was a territorial call - a precursor to the mating season. Later on in the spring, once mating has commenced, the chickadee’s call has several more tones and is more upbeat in nature.

As this is a family-friendly blog, I’ll let you figure out why this little bird is happier.

Anyway, such is the nature of spring - as elusive as it can be in these parts.

By now, everyone is tired of winter. You get teased by a sunny 8-degree afternoon and feel like you’ve just won the lottery. Next morning it’s -20 with windchill, and the following day you’re shovelling snow again.

In this sense April can be the most challenging month of the calendar.

But I do believe that we Canadians take the diversity of having four distinct seasons for granted. I spoke to someone recently who used to live in Hawaii but moved to Thunder Bay for a full time career. “Man, come December that must have felt like a kick to the groin with a steel-toed boot.” Was my response.

But he explained that in Hawaii every day is the same, and believe it or not 27-degrees gets old after a while.

That seems difficult to fathom at first. But having four distinct seasons does bring interest and challenge to our lives. Each season has it’s own personality, weather and associated interests and pastimes.

Spring is unique in that it bears the feel of new beginnings. The song of the black-capped chickadee, the moist warm morning air and warm sun rays on your face seem to say, “Let the games begin.”

Welcome spring! We missed you.

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