Go Ask Alice. A thread on hunting and fishing rucksacks.

Going out the door, elk hunting, with my medium sized Alice Pack.  You can see a comealong, an Australian fanny pack for additional storage, a Wyoming Saw, a small carrier for a gmrs radio, a first aid kid, and two canteen covers.  No, I don't pack all this stuff around with me while I'm hunting.  I'm pack this to the truck.

I used to date teenage queen

Now I carry an M16

I used to drive a Cadillac

Now I carry an Alice pack

1980s (and maybe earlier) Jody Call.

I have a long history with backpacks.  In spite of that, I'm very clearly not up on the latest and greatest backpack.

Indeed, in this category, I find myself in the same situation as other people who sometimes baffle enthusiasts, in that I use them, but I don't know that much about a topic for which there's a lot to know.  I'm that way, for instance, when I meet a hunter who doesn't know anything about firearms, really.  I meet these people semi regularly, they enjoy hunting a lot, but their rifle or shotgun is a mere tool, and often a cheap one.  

Fishing, upon which I'm frankly less knowledgeable, equipment wise, is the same way.  I'm not up on the latest and greatest fly rod, for example, but I do know a little about them.  Occasionally I'll meet somebody, however, who brings up fishing, but actually knows nothing at all about their equipment. 

They almost always only use a spinning rod.

Anyhow, I'm sort of that way on backpacks.

Enlisted man in he U.S. Army just before World War Two, wearing denim fatigues in the field so as to not dirty the service uniform.  He's equipped with a M1910 Haversack.

The very first backpack of any kind that I had was a M1910 Haversack, the Army issued backpack introduced in 1910, as the name would indicate.  That piece of equipment, shown fully packed above, was adopted that year and soldiered on into World War Two. 

What a miserable piece of equipment it is.

They were, in my assessment, an awful pack, or at least they had no ability to be used outside of the service.  The reason for my dim opinion of it is probably demonstrated by this video:

The Army must have had a similar opinion as they introduced a new set of backpacks during World War Two, none of which I'm going into, as this isn't a history of military backpacks.

Anyhow, as a kid I obtained a M1910 Haversack.  Without knowing for sure, my recollection is that an uncle of mine had purchased it right after World War Two, probably just as a thing to play with, and I got it from him.  That's a long time ago, and I could be wrong.  Since that time, as an adult, somebody gave me a second, completely unused, M1910 Haversack which was made during the Second World War.

That one remains unused, but the first one I did try to figure out as a boy.  It was pretty much hopeless.

Because I have always been really outdoorsy and wanted camping gear, my parents gave me a backpack of the full blown backwoods type when I was in my very early teens, or nearly a teen.  I don't know if its the correct term or not, but we called that sort of backpack a "frame pack", as they had, at that time, a lightweight aluminum frame.  I no longer have the pack, I think (although I might somewhere) and I feel a little tinge of guilt when I think of it.  My father, though  an outdoorsman, was not a backpacker and he didn't have much to go buy when looking for a pack for me.  And it was the early 1970s when everything was bicentennial themed.  It was a nice lightweight pack, but it had a really prominent flag motif to it  and I found that a little embarrassing.  I'm embarrassed now to admit that.

I did use it, although not anywhere near as much as I had hoped.  In your early teens, you can't drive, and that meant I didn't have that much of an opportunity to go places with it.  The number of years between age 12 and age 16, when you can, are very slight, but at the time they seem endless.  By the time I was 16 it didn't seem that I had much of an opportunity to backpack either.

I'll note here, although I'm taking it out of order, that later on a friend of mine gave me a sued Kelty backpack, which I still have somewhere.  It's like this one:

I have used it, but again, not nearly as much as I'd like, and not recently.

I still have, and will get to that in a moment, the frame from the first frame backpack that I noted in this thread.

The backpack I've carried the longest distances is the LC-1 Field Pack (Medium), or as it is commonly known, the "Alice Pack".

The Alice Pack came into U.S. military use in the late Vietnam War period.  As I haven't researched its history, I'll note that it appears that the Alice Pack was developed from the Tropical Field Rucksack.  The pack it started to replace one that had come in during the 1950s and was really pretty primitive, just being a big pen pouch rucksack about the size of a modern book bag that hooked into a soldiers webgear.

Given the history of Army packs, I guess it isn't too surprising that the Tropical Field Rucksack was regarded as a huge improvement and Alice came along soon thereafter.  I don't remember anyone being hugely fond of Alice Packs, however, when I was in the service.  Having said that, I don't remember anyone being enormously opposed to them either.

The entire time I was in I never saw one being issued with a frame.  Frankly, without a frame, a long march with Alice is a miserable thing.  I've marched as far as 30 miles with one, with no frame, and that didn't cause me to love Alice.

It did cause me to look for another pack, however, and I found a great one in the form of a REI nylon backpack.  

This is the same model of REI backpack that I own.  I'd post a photo of mine, which I still own, but the pack has been appropriated by one of my offspring.

While not a full-blown expedition frame pack, the REI pack is and was great.  It had internal metal stiffens that operate like a frame, and a belt, which makes a big difference.  The side pockets, moreover, are slotted to accommodate skis.  I've used it like crazy.  

As noted in the caption, it's so useful that its been appropriated, probably an a permanent basis, by my son.

At some point while I was at UW, and it may have been when I was in law school, I obtained a "book bag" for the first time.

How everyone carried school books up until at least the 80s.

It's odd to think of, but book bags just weren't a think until then. As I had a lot of books to carry while in law school, it became sort of a necessity as I walked to school and back, probably a distance of about two miles, I needed something to carry them.  I didn't want to buy a book bag dedicated for that purpose, so I bought a surplus German Army rucksack.  It was the same size and nearly the same configuration as the Alice Pack, but without the padded shoulder straps. They were just heavy cotton webbing.  I figured that after my time in lawshool was over, I could repurpose it, which in fact I did. I used it for a game bag, brining home a lot of rabbits with it, but even affixing it to my old frame to haul an elk with.  With hard use like that, it eventually blew out.

Some years ago, a sporting goods store here in town carried some surplus items, including Alice Packs complete with frames.  I bought two.

I wish I'd bought a couple of more.

I wasn't a huge fan of Alice back in the 80s, but with the frame, I am now.  I keep one packed with stuff for big game hunting, and another with stuff for bird hunting.  I've rucked into the mountains with Alice on my back so that if I shot a turkey, I could bring it back without having to carry it via armstrong.  And with the Alice frame, I can take the pack off and use the frame to haul meat, if I don't have equine assistance available.

All of which made me think that I sure wish I'd gotten a couple more of them.

Alice Pack I use for fishing and bird hunting to carry equipment.

Same Alice Pack. This is a later one after the service had adopted the Woodlands Pattern of camouflage.

But that sure isn't a popular opinion.

I have two Alice Packs that I use for outdoor stuff today.  One I use for waterfowl hunting and fishing.  I'll probably start using it for upland birds too.  That's all because, over time, I've found that I'm packing quite a bit of gear around and I need an efficient way to to do it.

This is the first posts I've ever put up on a gear topic.  I'll get into this more later, but basically, what I'm talking about here, is gear I take with me every time I go.  When I'm bird hunting what I take, besides my shotgun and shells, are gmrs radios and a knife.  That's about it unless I"m waterfowl hunting, in which case I often take my waders.  Not a lot of gear, actually.

When I'm big game hunting, however, I take is my gmrs radios, binoculars, some food, water, often some soda (I never take beer hunting, fwiw), game bags, knives, saw, and a come along.  And I need a pack with a frame, in case I have to use the frame to pack something out.  

At one time, I carried my radio gear and some binos in an outdoor bag.  But I still took an Alice.  Now I find myself transferring everything to the Alice as I don't want to carry too many things if I can avoid it.  

So I thought it would be handy to have another one.  I posted something on reddit about it and what I found is that Alice's are hugely unpopular with the outdoor community.

Well, I can see why.  It's not a modern camping backpack. . . but I don't want to drop a couple of elk quarters into my nice backpack.

My good backpack.  It  was a gift from a friend who was concerned that I didn't have a good, modern, backpacking pack.

And frankly, with a frame, I'm finding that old Alice isn't so bad.  

Related threads:

The History of the Backpack

Walking