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Original Alaska Outfitter Since 1897 | The Filson Story

Since 1897 we’ve had the same mission: To create best-in-class products that outsmart the elements, outperform expectations, and outlast you. Our Founder, Clinton C. Filson put it best, “Your satisfaction is the sole purpose of our transaction.” Read about our legacy and history on the Filson Journal.

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10 Min
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Profiles

Lael Johnson – Olympic Peninsula Fly Guide

Lael Johnson is a fly fisherman and guide on the Olympic Peninsula. His passion for the anadromous fish of Washington’s coastal rivers is contagious. He loves these fish, these rivers, and the people he is lucky enough to experience them with. Filson Contributor Ben Matthews spent a few days on the river with Lael to ask a few questions about guiding, steelhead, and life in general. If you’re interested in heading out on the river with Lael yourself, check out his website and book a trip. You won’t regret it.

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5 Min
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Filson Signature Materials: Waxed Cotton

What worked then still works today. While science and chemistry have produced some amazing options for raingear in recent years, sometimes the best option for wet-weather protection has existed for over a century. There are certainly situations when technical waterproof fabrics are a must, but there are also times when traditional waxed cotton is the preferred option. This article examines what waxed cotton is, how it came to be, and why we like it so much.

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5 Min
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Profiles

Why the Skagit River Watershed Matters

Nothing feels small on the Skagit River. It emerges from the Cascade Mountains, the ridgelines rising suddenly and severely, compressing the landscape and framing the view with their immense, sharp mass. For much of its length, the river is wide enough that three or four drift boats could easily pass side by side with plenty of room to spare. Anglers standing in its flow could never dream of reaching the far bank with a cast. If that angler is fly fishing, then they are likely to be using a two-hand rod to throw a Skagit head, a short specialty fly line developed on its namesake river a generation earlier to deliver big flies and sinking lines to winter steelhead-holding water.

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4 Min
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Profiles

The Glaciers of the North Cascades

North Cascades National Park counts more than 300 glaciers along this northwestern spine of mountains—and that’s just inside the park boundaries. The North Cascades are the most glaciated place in the country outside of Alaska, but this ice-clad range has remained relatively under the radar compared to places such as Montana’s Glacier National Park or Mount Rainier in the South Cascades. The landscape here feels wilder, at the edge of things, with a mystical feel of vastness and geologic time lent by the presence of these relics from the last ice age.

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5 Min
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Profiles

North Cascades: Bastion of the Wild

Sitting like stone guardians just below the Canadian border, the North Cascade mountains are keepers of the wildness that once roamed unchecked across North America. Soaring high into the skies, their stony and snowy peaks seem to scrape at the clouds that pass overhead demanding tribute as they float by. Sparkling like scattered gems, glacially fed lakes brilliantly reflect the sunlight while, through deep green valleys, bright, blue-gray rivers run down to the surrounding flatlands. It is a spot where a person could quickly leave behind all of the trappings that attach themselves to our modern daily existence and transport to another existence entirely.

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4 Min
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Profiles

Zech Bennett: The Undersea Tradesman

When you meet Zech Bennett, he seems like a pretty ordinary guy. Not too tall or too short, he seems somewhat in shape but is not a chiseled gym rat. The brown hair sticking out from underneath his baseball cap is slightly askew, and his face breaks into an easy smile. He is the type of person you could share a few beers with at the bar while swapping stories about ferrying kids to events or catching up on the latest scores. It’s only when you hear what the 32-year-old Homer, Alaska, resident does for a living that you realize there is more to him than you see at first glance.

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4 Min
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Field Notes

You Take What You Can Get: Or Suffer the Consequences

The stampede for gold into the Klondike of the Yukon territory reached a peak in 1898. In that same year, 1,200 other miners set out for other regions of the far north, including to the Koyukuk and Chandalar river drainages in the remote Alaska Territory interior, in a desperate search for similar riches. This region is situated in the northwestern part of Alaska, with the Koyukuk River flowing through it from the borders of the Arctic Ocean to where it enters the Yukon at Nulato.

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3 Min
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Profiles

Western Flyer: The Vessel of John Steinbeck

On the morning of Monday, March 11, 1940, writer John Steinbeck and marine biologist Ed Ricketts boarded the sardine seiner Western Flyer at a wharf in Monterey, California. Both men were moving slowly because a fiesta to celebrate the end of fishing season had gone on late into the night after a boat parade, a barbecue, and seine skiff races. Steinbeck and Ricketts were well-known on the waterfront—and elsewhere—so their departure on a six-week expedition drew a raucous crowd. They didn’t get away until that afternoon, and as the Flyer eased from her berth, Steinbeck noticed that the whiskey they’d loaded for medicinal purposes was gone. “Good,” he thought. “A lot of people I know won’t be getting sick for awhile if the booze does its job.”

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7 Min
a lay down of a black, white and red flannel pattern Filson Mackinaw Wool Cape Coat on rustic wood
Featured

Filson Signature Materials: Which Filson Wool?

For as long as history has been recorded, wool has protected people from exposure to the elements, and today it works just as well as it always has. No other material, natural or synthetic, performs as well in as many conditions as wool. Other articles in this series examine wool’s history, the science behind its performance, and differences in quality of different wools. This article will take a closer look at some of the specific wools used to make Filson goods.

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3 Min