The Filson Journal

Chuck Ragan: The Flow

Music would still be his mistress but being outdoors on the water was his true love. His business, Chuck Ragan Fly Fishing, introduces others to the haunts he knows so...

Boundary Waters: Endangered & Irreplaceable

There is something spiritual about packing a canoe with everything you need to survive and launching into a WiFi-less world. The coming days will be filled with thickly wooded shorelines...

Shop Class: The Shipwright’s Tool Tote

The Shipwright’s Tool Tote was traditionally made by shipwrights themselves to carry the tools of their trade while they were working on wooden boats. It had to be a very...

Signature Materials

Filson x Springbar Outfitter Tent — Handcrafted in Salt Lake City

The “Outfitter” model was inspired after a history of horse packers over the past century in America, with the same utility of the Springbar framework but with a pole design...

The Utah Traverse

It’s often easy to get lost in the severe beauty of southern Utah in the high desert lands of the Colorado Plateau. The parched and arid red sandstone landscape is...

Food & Recipes

How to Build an Overland Camp Kitchen

Brendon and I have been traveling by motorcycle for just over a decade. We’ve ridden on many different style bikes—from a sport bike, to a cruiser, to a big adventure...

Food & Recipes

Filson Food: Pheasant with Tarragon-Lemon Carrots

“A whole roasted pheasant takes time to pull off correctly. Rush the process and you’ll end up with a dry, lackluster-tasting bird that will make you wonder why you didn't...

Overland Moto Checklist from Radius Offroad

“As a professional motorcycle racer and passionate off-road rider, I’m always in search of longer more adventurous rides every time I’m on the bike. I’ve learned from years of riding...

Food & Recipes

Filson Food: Garlic Mustard Potato Salad

Early European settlers brought garlic mustard to North America for food and medicine. Meeting favorable conditions in the New World, the species escaped from gardens, thrived, and spread uncontrollably. Today,...

Rig to Flip, Dress to Swim: Prepping for a multi-day backcountry rafting trip

Adventure tales spun around the campfire always revolve around grit. These stories of adversity—like four days spent paddling in gale-force winds, getting to the first camp during a downpour, and...

Wet Weather Fire Starters

Cold and wet at camp? Dry out and warm up quickly by starting a fire with these four items that are most likely around your campsite.

Desi Sherwood: Off the Grid

Finding your passion can be a lifelong journey for some, but as simple as walking out your front door for others. For guide Desi Sherwood, growing up immersed in the...

The Amazonian expedition that nearly killed Theodore Roosevelt

Roosevelt’s epic journey was sparked by an invitation to speak in several cities on the South American continent in the fall of 1913. Before setting out from New York, the...

Food & Recipes

Filson Food: Stinging Nettle Quiche with Smoked Alaskan Salmon

If you’ve ever brushed against stinging nettle, you know it and you remember it. The burn, caused by chemicals in the tiny hairs that cover the plant, can be felt...

Filson in the Field: Packrafting the Remote Waters of Alaska

The state of Alaska tends to breed ideas larger than life. There is just something about the sheer amount of untrammeled wilderness there that seems to spark a fire in...

Anne LaBastille: True to Nature

At the age of 31, after securing a small plot of private land studded with mixed spruce, balsam fir, and hardwood forests, LaBastille embarked on a solitary life in the...

Exploring Denali: a wild & rugged wilderness

Denali is a land that quite literally ebbs and flows with the seasons. Spring and summer snow melts down from mountains that climb to the roof of the Alaska Range...

Forged from the Salish Sea: Artist Zack Leck

The stunning natural world of the Salish Sea continually influences and inspires Leck’s body of work. He looks for any excuse to venture out on the water, or under the...

The Fabric of the Sea: Artist Cristina Maria Melito

“In your work I can taste the magic of undersea. You are in touch with the beauty of the world’s wildness alive in all things and people, the endless non-linear...

Subsea Hunter: Freedive Spearfishing with Lucas Murray

As many land hunters can attest to, part of the reason they choose to hunt is to get in touch with an instinctual, ancestral aspect of themselves. There is something...

Signature Materials

Signature Materials: Lightweight Active Rain Shells

Since 1897, Filson has manufactured clothing that’s kept men and women warm and dry in the Pacific Northwest and across the globe–in rain-soaked forests, snowy rangelands and everywhere in between....

Food & Recipes

Filson Food: Smoked Wild Alaskan Salmon

Nearly every Alaskan who harvests salmon has a smoking recipe or two (or a dozen!) Up their sleeves. Including everything from traditional strips to kippers and pressure-canned to frozen, pieces...

Forever on the Move: The Isolated Existence of the Arctic’s Caribou

By the time that they have lived out their life cycle, a caribou of the Alaskan herds will have traveled enough distance to have circled the globe. Like so many...

Emily Mullen: Uptown’s Merchant of Joy

Emily tried office jobs, but they never sat right with her, so she went back to her roots and worked as a counselor at a YMCA camp that she attended...

How To's

DIY: Ammo Can Panniers

The objective of this build is to come up with a low-cost solution to the more expensive factory-produced or aftermarket panniers used on adventure touring bikes. Most factory-produced pannier racks...

Signature Materials

Moto Overlanding Apparel Essentials

We spoke with Aaron Piazza, group leader on our journey along the Washington Backcountry Discovery Route, about some of the essential pieces of kit that he recommends for backcountry riding....

Filson x META: Extraordinarily Present

Thor Drake is the founder & owner of Portland, Oregon's esteemed SEE SEE Motorcycles and the One Moto trade show. Widely-respected in the Pacific Northwest motorcycle community, Thor was an...

Washington Backcountry Discovery Route

A massive volcanic mountain range, the Cascades, bisects Washington. Along the flanks of this iconic range, national forest land offers intrepid motorcyclists a network of backcountry roads and trails through...

How To's

How to Ice Fish: learn from fishing guide Walleye Dan

Walleye Dan has been ice fishing for more than 40 years. He’s seen the sport change dramatically from his early days out on Round Lake in Minnesota, trying his luck...

How To's

Filson Fundamentals: Field Chainsaw Maintenance

Whether felling, bucking and limbing, or cutting up logs for firewood, it doesn't take long to burn through a tank of fuel when running a saw at full throttle. A...

The Bering Strait Crossing

In the northernmost reaches of the world, just a few clicks south of the arctic circle, Russia and Alaska are separated at their closest point by just 55 short miles...

Anacortes Junk Co.

Marine Supply? Hardware? Antiques? Museum and gift shop? It’s a bit of all of these. Wander over wood floors that creak like the deck of a ship to find less...

Food & Recipes

Filson Food: Campfire Cajun Rockfish

Like many of the other reef fishes on the Pacific coast, rockfish has a mild, white flesh, which makes it a versatile fish that takes on the flavor of any...

The Underdog: Exploring the Origins of Popeye

His voice is one that is impossible to forget—sounding like a rusty chainsaw trying to cut through steel, it randomly swerves between high and low notes. An almost incoherent mishmash...

The Longest Road: The Expedition of Caroline Van Hemert and Pat Farrell

A journey both audacious and unprecedented. They would travel from the Pacific rain forests near Bellingham, Washington, into the Alaskan Arctic, solely self-powered. 176 days to cover over 4,000 miles...

Mythology of the Northern Lights

When the northern night skies light up with brilliant streaks of light during the long winter months in a phenomenon known as the Aurora Borealis, it can take people's breath...

Signature Materials

Filson Expert Picks: Geoff Samples

Expert Filson gear advice from our own, and the extended Filson community—breaking down each product plain and simple.

Signature Materials

Tin Cloth Cruiser History

While the design of the Tin Cloth Cruiser has changed little over the decades, it has undergone some minor variations to meet demands beyond the forests. Over the years, the...

Food & Recipes

Filson Food: Northwest Cacciucco

This version of cacciucco uses seafood sourced from the Pacific Northwest instead of from the Mediterranean, as would be typical in Italy. The seafood used in this dish was caught...

Rum, Sailors, & Pirates: the dark history of booze on the High Seas

The spoils of captured merchantmen vessels often yielded large cargos of rum, wine, and ale, which pirate crews put to good use. Ironically, these periods of mass intoxication would last...

Ski Hunting the Alaskan Arctic

For untold millennia humans have been strapping skis to their feet and heading out to hunt prey. In the Altai Mountains of western China, 10,000-year-old rock art depicts paleohunters engaging...

Taking a Closer Look at Kon-Tiki

Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in zoology, botany and geography. Heyerdahl is notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947, in which he sailed 8,000...

Hoodoo Brewing co.

The sun has long gone down, although it’s a stretch to say that it really ever comes up on a January day this far north. On the corner of an...

Food & Recipes

The Smokejumper – Filson Hard Eggnog

In this version, I set out to make an eggnog drink that calls to mind sitting around a campfire out in the forest. I found Westland Peated Single Malt Whiskey...

The Arctic Wall: The Brooks Range

Above the Arctic Circle, in the far northwest reaches of North America, the Brooks Range lies remote and largely untouched and untrammeled except by herds of ungulates. Stretching from western...

A Wild Idea: The Attempt to Train Wolverines for Avalanche Rescue

Alaska has always seemed to be a magnet for dreamers and schemers, pirates and poets, a place where one could live a life less ordinary and challenge the status quo...

How To's

Winter Upland Hunting Guide + 5 Game Birds

Many game-bird seasons in the Northwest, Midwest, and Northeast extend well into winter— those cold, even icy days can be great times to hunt. Upland birds often fall into fairly...

Going It Alone: The Story of Richard Proenneke

In the summer of 1968, a tiny fixed-wing bush plane landed on the glacially carved shore of upper twin lake in southwest Alaska. A middle-aged man stepped down from the...

History & Evolution of Glacier Goggles

Thousands of years ago, the Inuit and Yupik people of Alaska and northern Canada carved narrow slits into ivory, antler, and wood to create the world’s first snow goggles. This...

How To's, Signature Materials

Recommended Care for Mackinaw Wool

Mackinaw Wool has been our most-trusted cold-weather protection for over a century, and these easy-maintenance tips will ensure yours provides reliable service for years to come.

The Tall One: The Story of Denali

In a land already renown for a larger than life landscape, the mountain known as Denali inspires awe from those that observe it. Wreathed in an eternal cloak of snow...

River Running: Mahay’s Riverboat Guides

Standing at the edge of the river, captain Steve Mahay can feel the energy coursing through the Susitna river at his feet. After forty-plus years spent on its slate-gray waters,...

McGee Creek Pack Station: Sierra Nevada, California

Jen spent her teenage years doing everything she could to be at the pack station as long as possible during the season. She would figure out what schoolwork needed to...

Food & Recipes

Filson Food: Chukars & Sagebrush Recipe

There may be no greater way to enjoy a meal than by going into the bush and cooking your harvest in the field from where it came. Although not native...

Map Maker of the Pacific Northwest

The Kroll Map Company, Inc., has been a fixture of the downtown business community in Seattle for over a century. Three generations of the Loacker family have continued the work...

N.M. Bachtel Forging Co.

No one knows this better than bladesmith Nicholas Bachtel. That’s why our collaboration, The Woodsman Knife, is forged from high-carbon 1084 steel, and the full-tang, straight-back blade is tempered to...

Yesler Way: the history & origin of “skid row”

The term “skid road”—or "skid row"—has its origins in the lumberjack camps of the Pacific Northwest dating back to the earliest pioneer days, where teams of oxen and horses would...

Rainy Pass Lodge

At age 17, Steve Perrins paid $1 to watch a home movie that rearranged his brain. It was March 1974. The 16mm reel, screened at a New Hampshire high school,...

How To's

How to Train Your Dog to Pull a Sled

Luna Lobos Dog Sledding is a family-owned dog sledding operation based in Peoa, Utah. Owners Fernando and Dana Ramirez believe that dog sledding is a work of art, and that...

How To's

How to Build Your Own Cross-Country Skis

The journey of making your own skis begins with a tree. Where and at what point you begin your engagement with it depends on what resources you have available. Ideally,...

Black Regiments of the Alcan Highway

Seventy-eight years ago, the Army Corps of Engineers completed one of its most ambitious assignments of World War II—the Alaska-Canadian (Alcan) Highway. After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the Alcan...

Walter Harper: The First to Summit Denali

By the time they established their final high-altitude camp at 17,500 feet both Stuck, and Tatum were struggling. The archdeacon, in particular, was in trouble. A forty-nine-year-old lifelong smoker, each...

Food & Recipes

Life Amidst the Tundra: Susie Jenkins-Brito

I was born and raised in southcentral Alaska to parents who instilled in me an appreciation of the natural world early on with a backyard sled dog team and a...

Lives Defined by the Sled: The Berington Sisters of the Iditarod

“The most epic 24 hours of my life that i can think of was in 2014 on the Iditarod trail,” Kristy Berington declares from the home she shares with her...

How To's

How to Pack a Mule with a Diamond Hitch & What to Bring

“May your loads ride straight” is the universal blessing packers give one another when leaving the pack station or meeting on a high mountain trail. Taking time when assembling the...

Deer Hunt Checklist

Alaskan subsistence hunter Nels Evangelista provided us with the deer hunting checklist he uses in the wilderness when in search of Sitka black-tailed deer. This day hunt checklist can ensure...

How To's

How to Make a Canvas Bedroll

Bedrolls are the original bivy and have been used for centuries to keep their occupants warm and dry after a long day of travel. If you’re not concerned about a...

The Official Rules of Horseshoes

The game of horseshoes, for the most part, is pretty simple. All you need to get started is two stakes, four horseshoes, a hammer, and some level ground.

How To's, Food & Recipes

How to Make Farmer’s Cheese

If cheesemaking sounds a little outside of your wheelhouse, rest assured that we’ve got the perfect way to get started. Farmer’s Cheese is widely enjoyed across Europe and can be...

At Ease in the Wilderness: Ray Livingston

There is something therapeutic about being in the outdoors. A rebirth of the soul seems to happen each time dirt is ground under your boot, branches brush off your jacket,...

Food & Recipes

DIY: Campfire Smoked Venison Jerky

When it comes to classic trail foods, jerky is always on the list. Whether purchased at a gas station on the way to the trailhead or made from a deer...

Signature Materials

Filson x Allagash Cruiser Axe: Hand Forged in Maine, USA

Brant & Cochran’s goal was to create an heirloom-quality axe that could also be put to unrelenting work. That starts with the steel—U.S.-made 1050 carbon steel. The “1050” refers to...

New Arrivals

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Ford Bronco x Filson Wildland Fire Rig

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The Pack Horses and Mules of White Pass Trail

Corey Forrest: Fishermom

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National Forest Elemental Series: The Breath of a Nation

How to Kill, Cook, and eat dungeness crab

A Life on the Water: Brett Fitzgerald and the Angler Action Foundation

Denali Damsels

Filson Food: Surf & Turf Alaskan Style

Discover the world of Filson

Chuck Ragan: The Flow

Boundary Waters: Endangered & Irreplaceable

Shop Class: The Shipwright’s Tool Tote

Filson x Springbar Outfitter Tent — Handcrafted in Salt Lake City

The Utah Traverse

How to Build an Overland Camp Kitchen

Filson Food: Pheasant with Tarragon-Lemon Carrots

Overland Moto Checklist from Radius Offroad

Filson Food: Garlic Mustard Potato Salad

Rig to Flip, Dress to Swim: Prepping for a multi-day backcountry rafting trip

Wet Weather Fire Starters

Desi Sherwood: Off the Grid

The Amazonian expedition that nearly killed Theodore Roosevelt

Filson Food: Stinging Nettle Quiche with Smoked Alaskan Salmon

Filson in the Field: Packrafting the Remote Waters of Alaska

Anne LaBastille: True to Nature

Exploring Denali: a wild & rugged wilderness

Forged from the Salish Sea: Artist Zack Leck

The Fabric of the Sea: Artist Cristina Maria Melito

Subsea Hunter: Freedive Spearfishing with Lucas Murray

Signature Materials: Lightweight Active Rain Shells

Filson Food: Smoked Wild Alaskan Salmon

Forever on the Move: The Isolated Existence of the Arctic’s Caribou

Emily Mullen: Uptown’s Merchant of Joy

DIY: Ammo Can Panniers

Moto Overlanding Apparel Essentials

Filson x META: Extraordinarily Present

Washington Backcountry Discovery Route

How to Ice Fish: learn from fishing guide Walleye Dan

Filson Fundamentals: Field Chainsaw Maintenance

The Bering Strait Crossing

Anacortes Junk Co.

Filson Food: Campfire Cajun Rockfish

The Underdog: Exploring the Origins of Popeye

The Longest Road: The Expedition of Caroline Van Hemert and Pat Farrell

Mythology of the Northern Lights

Filson Expert Picks: Geoff Samples

Tin Cloth Cruiser History

Filson Food: Northwest Cacciucco

Rum, Sailors, & Pirates: the dark history of booze on the High Seas

Ski Hunting the Alaskan Arctic

Taking a Closer Look at Kon-Tiki

Hoodoo Brewing co.

The Smokejumper – Filson Hard Eggnog

The Arctic Wall: The Brooks Range

A Wild Idea: The Attempt to Train Wolverines for Avalanche Rescue

Winter Upland Hunting Guide + 5 Game Birds

Going It Alone: The Story of Richard Proenneke

History & Evolution of Glacier Goggles

Recommended Care for Mackinaw Wool

The Tall One: The Story of Denali

River Running: Mahay’s Riverboat Guides

McGee Creek Pack Station: Sierra Nevada, California

Filson Food: Chukars & Sagebrush Recipe

Map Maker of the Pacific Northwest

N.M. Bachtel Forging Co.

Yesler Way: the history & origin of “skid row”

Rainy Pass Lodge

How to Train Your Dog to Pull a Sled

How to Build Your Own Cross-Country Skis

Black Regiments of the Alcan Highway

Walter Harper: The First to Summit Denali

Life Amidst the Tundra: Susie Jenkins-Brito

Lives Defined by the Sled: The Berington Sisters of the Iditarod

How to Pack a Mule with a Diamond Hitch & What to Bring

Deer Hunt Checklist

How to Make a Canvas Bedroll