history | The Filson Journal

The Filson Journal

The History of Buck Knives_1200x628

History of Buck Knives: Made in America

Buck Knives is a historic American brand with a legacy that spans four generations. For 118 years, they’ve been dedicated to crafting quality, handmade knives, and tools designed for a life lived outdoors. While they’re a global leader in the sports cutlery industry, the journey began humbly at the turn of the 20th century.

Read more

Maxville_1200x628

Maxville: The Town of Oregon’s African American Loggers

Nestled in the dense forests of Northeast Oregon stood Maxville, a former logging town that granted residence to African American loggers during the state’s exclusionary period, which saw Black people outlawed from the state. Despite the odds, this timber town thrived and prospered amidst adversity to become a boon for Black men and their families to flourish.

Read more

The History of Boxing in Logging Camps_1200x628

Eight, Nine, Ten…He’s Out: The History of Boxing in Logging Camps

Logging camps were rough and tumble enterprises, where loggers often worked from sunup to sundown six days a week in their pursuit of timber harvesting across the forests and mountains of the United States. Sunday was their one day off, and one of the pastimes they engaged in for entertainment every week was boxing. Read more about some of the professional fighters than got their start in logging camps.

Read more

The People Behind Our National Parks_HERO

The People Behind Our National Parks

We’ve all heard about John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt–two iconic symbols of public lands and our country’s National Parks. In this article, we explore some of the lesser-known stories, behind the scenes, that deserve just as much credit in shaping the parks as we know them today.

Read more

Ford Bronco_1200x628

A Brief History of the Ford Bronco: American Outdoor Icon

When the U.S. Forest Service needed sturdy trail breakers to cover their 193 million acres of wildland, they turned to the Ford Bronco. Excellent ground clearance, superior maneuverability, slope-hugging stability, and a heavy-duty front axle — everything a forest ranger is looking for in an off-road vehicle.

Read more

The Filson Story_Featured_V2

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.

Read more

Inspiring Women_HERO_V2

Inspiring Women of the Pacific Northwest & Alaska

We’ve all heard the stories of historic women like Amelia Earhart and Nellie Bly. Here we’re focusing our scope to our backyard in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, shining a light on a few groundbreaking women that never (potentially) made it into your history books.

Read more

Great Cascade Tunnel 1

The Great Cascade Tunnel

Between Seattle and Chicago, a train called the Empire Builder rolls on 2,206 miles of steel track. It leaves daily on a 48-hour trip, gliding past splendid vistas including Glacier National Park. However, possibly its greatest feat lies beneath the surface.

Read more

Skagit Expedition 1

A Soldier to the Last – Lieutenant Pierce and the Skagit Expedition of 1882

On July 18, 1882, a lieutenant in the US Army named Henry Hubbard Pierce received a letter from Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles, who was commanding the Department of the Columbia, which included the Washington Territory. This communication outlined Special Order no. 97, which charged Lt. Pierce with carrying out an expedition of the North Cascades. The primary goal of the expedition was to map his route of exploration, starting from Fort Colville on the east side of the mountain range to his terminus in Puget Sound by way of Lake Chelan and the Skagit River. As the instructions outlined, his “reconnaissance is to obtain such knowledge of the country and its occupants as may be valuable at present or in the future to the military service.”

Read more

Boots on the Ground: The History of the Combat Boot

“A-ten-hut!” Cue the sound of many warrior feet coming together at once. One of the most important pieces of gear in a soldier’s arsenal today, the U.S. Army’s combat boot has been through many iterations over time. In fact, over the past two hundred years, the combat boot was updated for almost every new war.

Read more

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.

Read more

Climber Fred Beckey: Spirit of the Mountains

If you listen hard enough, you can hear Fred Beckey’s spirit whispering among the towering peaks and hidden valleys of the Northern Cascades. Around campfires, bar tops, or anywhere that people gather, his name tends to pop up. He is an outdoors urban legend, the mythical mountaineer who spent eight decades solely focused on one thing and one thing only: climbing.

Read more

Pacific Fishermen Shipyard: The Origins of Ballard’s Oldest Working Shipyard

Pacific Fishermen Inc., or “PacFish,” as it is known to the many boat builders, ship crews, employees, family members and stakeholders in the Ballard community, can be traced directly back to the year 1871. It was in this year that a 47-year-old Norwegian immigrant, ship carpenter, and operator named Thomas William Lake settled on the north side of the Salmon Bay waterfront in unincorporated Seattle and opened his own shipyard.

Read more

Coldfoot Provisions Thumbnail

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.

Read more

Journey to the Yukon: Passage Aboard the Steamships from Puget Sound to the Far North

The month of July 1897 was an exciting time to be living on the West Coast. Steamships with names like Excelsior and Portland were docking in the ports of San Francisco and Seattle, respectively, loaded down with tons of gold mined from the Klondike region of the Yukon territory of Canada. Alaska was the gateway by which anyone with a desire to strike it rich could make the journey northward and, if well prepared and lucky, eventually return to civilization a millionaire.

Read more

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.”

Read more

The SS Bering

The story of the SS Bering begins with her launching under another name, the Annette Rolph, on July 4, 1918, in Fairhaven, California. The ship was a wood-hulled “tramp” freighter built for the trans-Pacific trade and joined the fleet of the Rolph Navigation and Coal Company. At 245 feet in length, she was one of hundreds of wood-hulled vessels produced for the maritime industry in World War I.

Read more

Coldfoot Carousel 4

Coldfoot: More than just another gold camp – a place that defined those who lived in it

The history of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897 promised fortune to many who made the journey north to the gold fields of the Yukon Territory, with many of those headed to Dawson City and Circle City in Alaska as jumping off points. By 1898, the search for riches had expanded to other regions of Alaska, including the remote Northwest interior and its network of rivers and tributaries. History has recorded the efforts of those brave souls, and how their search for gold helped to create new settlements and trade routes.

Read more

a black and white image of the bow of the SS Clallam with passengers prior to its sinking

The Sinking of the SS Clallam

Hazardous weather conditions. Small craft advisory. Strong wind warning in effect. These are common warnings to mariners who may be considering the Strait of Juan de Fuca—the passage running between the south end of Vancouver Island, BC and the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State—during the fall storm season of 2019.

Read more

Seattle Maritime Academy – 50 Years of Training Seaworthy Mariners

Long before Seattle was a tech town, or even an aviation town, it was a maritime town. In fact, it still is. And although some brag that Seattle has more pleasure boats per capita than any other city in the country, it’s the working vessels—and the men and women who serve on them—that make Seattle a maritime powerhouse. For the past 50 years, Seattle Maritime Academy has played a key role in training the professional mariners that keep this powerhouse running.

Read more

a straight on view of the work in progress build of the ballard bridge as an old car drives towards the cameraman

The History of Ballard: The First 100 Years

Today, the neighborhood of Ballard is well known for its restaurants and atmosphere. However, the history of this Seattle hamlet is a story of industry, community, and entrepeneurship.

Read more

a black and white image of six men wearing a variety of jackets, hats and pants holding a flag reading the mountaineers

The Evolution of Mountaineering Gear

Humans have climbed mountains since they first crossed the Alps or left religious offerings in the highest heights. But it wasn’t until the mid-18th century that Europeans turned their gaze to the tops of mountains.

Read more

two Air Force men wearing green snowsuits, one sitting up, while the other lays down resting on a bag as a helicopter takes off in the snowy mountains in Alaska

The 210th Air Rescue Squadron

The 210th Air Rescue Squadron, nicknamed “The Second 10th,” is an elite peacetime and combat search and rescue (CSAR) unit based in Alaska that’s on call for its citizens 24/7/365. Regarded as “the Guardians of the North,” the unit has saved thousands of natives stranded in remote terrain, brutal snowstorms, and icy waters along the coast.

Read more

close up image from the top down of over a dozen wild horses in varying hues of brown and black running towards something

A Brief History of America’s Wild Horses

The wild horses of the West have occupied the minds of people here since they were reintroduced to the North American continent by Spanish explorers in the 16th century. These first mustangs (from the Spanish mestengo, which means “ownerless beast” or “stray horse”) were the predecessors of the wild horses that roam the desert and grassland ecosystems of the Midwest and Western United States today.

Read more

a brunette woman with a long braid down her left shoulder wearing a grey scarf, red jacket and black cowboy hat against a wood barn

The History of the Cowboy Hat

If there is one piece of Western wear that has become the ultimate symbol of the American Cowboy, it’s the cowboy hat. Like all Western wear, hats were made to be as tough as the trail and started off as accessories purchased based purely on function rather than fashion. A hat provided shade, protection from the elements, and warmth for the wearer, but could also be used to fan a fire, as a vessel for drinking water, or waved from horseback to catch the attention of a fellow rider in the distance. There were as many styles of cowboy hats as there were people wearing cowboy hats.

Read more

snowy white covered landscape with a dozen snowy bison walking towards you

Rebisoning America’s West

As we bounce across the prairie, small groups of bison close to the dirt track watch us roll by, while two bands of elk stare at us from a distance. Meandering along in search of the two bison cows, Austin talks of seeing the landscape restored to its pre-nineteenth-century vigor.

Read more

The O’Hair Ranch

Before there were O’Hairs, there were Armstrongs. And like most homesteaders, the Armstrongs arrived at Paradise Valley, Montana, by way of misfortune looking for fortune. In 1878, Owen T. Armstrong (“O.T.”), aged 27 years old, and Mrs. O.T., aged 26 years old, decided it was time to up and leave Missouri, where they had hewn out a meager existence.

Read more

wild goose jack setting a goose free, the goose is taking off from his arms into the air

Wild Goose Jack

At the turn of the 20th century, sportsman John (Jack) Miner found himself amidst an unregulated commercial market, and local grassroots hunting. In the small town of Kingsville, Ontario, along the northern shore of Lake Erie, young Jack and his brother Ted spent their minimal free time carving and painting decoys in preparation for when the ducks would return.

Read more

double barrel shot gun open with both shells hovering above chamber

History of the Shotgun for Upland Hunting

The earliest shotguns, or “Haile Shotte peics,” as they were called, date back to the 16th century in England, where they were used for hunting by the aristocracy, chief among them Henry VIII. These were multiple shot firearms and were used primarily for hunting birds.

Read more

vintage green United States Forest Service and Filson jacket with department patch on brown canvas backdrop

Filson and The Forest Service

Because of our shared history in the wildlands of America and mutual need for tough gear in remote places, Filson and the U.S. Forest Service have been likely partners since we were both founded (1897 and 1905, respectively). As the Klondike Gold Rush ended, Filson found new customers in the loggers and workers of the Pacific Northwest, many of whom would become or were members of the Forest Service.

Read more