Do you ever think about why the word “pack”
is used in terms such as “backpack”? I had not, until I came across a chapter
of Horace Kephart’s “Camping and Woodcraft”. As can be seen from the image
reproduced below, some packs are literally packages, wrapped in waterproof material
and held together by a harness.
The reason I was reminded of this was
because I have come across yet another variant of blanket roll. I was reading
about China in the first half of the twentieth century. This is a very
interesting period of history and I am rather surprised more movies and games
are not set in this period and location. The various Chinese factions had to
equip millions of fighting men with only limited resources. How they achieved
this is relevant to recent topics on this blog.
In the photos below you can see that a
pack was created by placing the cargo within a blanket and then rolling each
end inwards until they met. In the last photo you can see that a shelter cloth/
rainproof is carried in a horseshoe around the pack so that it is easily accessible.
The Books
