"Trapper Nelson" may sound like an “old timer” from the Gold Rush. It was in fact a backpack — one used by any self-respecting mountaineer. Although later upgraded to lighter packs, as James Adam Craig describes in this article, a Trapper Nelson was great as it was spacious and basic.

Here, he reminisces about his time in the BC Mountaineering Club from the mid-1950s to the 1970s. He talks of different packs as well as the necessities for camp.

His article also speaks of Gary Gordon, Fr. Damasus Payne, Martin & Esther Kafer, Dick Culbert, Glenn Woodsworth, Arnold Shives, Alice Purdey and John Clarke.

Peaks included are Mount Slesse, Mount McKinley, Mount Logan or Mount St. Elias, Lake Lovely Water, Tomyhoi-Falls River, Icewall Lake, Mount Waddington, Ape Lake, Blowdown Creek, Lillooet Icefields, Nirvana Pass and Stawamus Chief (“Squamish Chief”).

James Adam Craig was a man who climbed in summer and skied in winter. These snippets of reminiscences of his time in the mountains give some insight into what it was like to head into the mountains before the days of good access roads or trails — or as he tells it, when “a tent didn’t require a book of instructions to assemble.”