Backpacking/Climbing Knives of the 1960s, 70s and 80s?

[Jack Black]

Great idea for a thread Pinnah, and I'm sorry to be late checking in, having quite a busy weekend

I started hiking and camping in the 60's, when I was just a boy, and have been doing the same most of my life. I took up fishing about 1970 and was a keen angler throughout the 70's. Started rock-climbing in the 80's, though I'd been around a lot of climbers since boyhood, and scrambling on mountains and mountaineering since the 70's or earlier. I don't do so much backpacking now, but I did a lot (including right through the winter) in the 70's, 80's, 90's, and the last decade.

All my knives have always been outdoor knives. My first folders were jacks made by Richards and Rodgers in Sheffield, I had a Barlow at one time too, and I think I would have been about 8 when I got my first British army clasp knife, and a navy design too, given to me by my grandad, specifically for camping. My grandad, who was also a keen hiker, camper, and fisherman, had carried both these knives, and I also remember he had a Rodgers 'Bunny' Jack knife, and also carried a sheath knife when out hiking and camping. My own sheath knife was a kitchen knife my dad sharpened up for me, and which my mum made a sheath for. I got it when I was about 10, and I carried it for years, until 1977, when it was stolen. By then I'd got a few more Sheffield-made sheath knives, and I remember I was carrying a Rodgers Lambsfoot, which my grandad also gave me. I went on my first European backpacking trip in 1978, and carried a knife identical to the one posted by Andi above. My companion carried a Sheffield-made sheath knife and a British Army clasp knife. I gifted that knife to someone, replacing it with a smaler Sheffield-made sheath knife, which I still have, and which has accompanied me on many backpacking and camping trips. I got a Mauser Officers Knife in 1978, and that became my main backpacking and camping knife for nigh on a decade. In the 90's, I was writing about knives professionally, so I tended to carry a lot of different ones. I found most of the fixed blades being manufactured in the early 90's to be unsuitable for camping, and I even ended up designing my own. I generally carried Scandanavian sheath knives and single-blade folders, but I also took a liking to a Victorinox Hunter, which I still sometimes take camping. Most of the time, for backpacking, over the last couple of decades, I've carried a Mora (sometimes a Cold Steel Finn Bear or Roach Belly) and a small SAK, such as the Wenger World Scout Knife, mainly for the can-opener and cap-lifter. Travelling around Europe last decade and this, I've tended to carry the Wenger and a non-traditional folder, or the Victorinox Hunter. As for climbing, my old climbing knife was a non-traditional Spyderco Co-Pilot. Sorry for the rambling post.

Jack

 

[Old Hunter]

When I first started going on hikes and hunts in the outdoors it was in the early to mid-1960's with my Dad, who always carried an Imperial M-4 bayonet that came home from the Army with him in the mid-1950's (I own it now). My first general purpose outdoor knives for all outdoor use (hiking, camping, Scouts, etc.) began with a blue handled Official Cub Scout knife around 1962, followed by a brown handled Official Boy Scout knife around 1966 (the blue one got handed down to my little brother) - those two came from the local BSA distributor, J.C. Penney Co. In 1966 I received my first fixed blade knife for Christmas from my parents, a Black Beauty F66 by Western. My Dad bought it at Tarrytown Mall in Rocky Mount NC - I think I saw it at Montgomery Wards and pointed it out to him before Christmas, but I can't remember the exact store for sure anymore. I carried it for all outdoors purposes from the time I got it until I bought a Buck 105 at the Aberdeen Proving Ground Maryland PX in 1976 - that one started hiking, backpacking, and Soldiering with me that fall. None of my knives that got used for recreational backpacking and hiking, or for military use doing the same, came from a backpacking or hiking specialty store. OH

Ps I just remembered my first SAK; I bought it at the Fort Bragg NC PX when I was a company commander (1981-84) - I gave it to an Italian Officer during a Display Determination NATO exercise in northern Italy in 1986. I bought a replacement (that I still have) when we got back to Bragg. Those SAK's were my military/outdoor sports pocketknives from the early 1980's until I bought a KABAR stockman pocketknife in 1998.

 

[billym]

Great thread.
As a young kid most of the outdoor stuff was mostly running around the wooded areas and ponds in my neighborhood. Then I carried any knife I had bought on he cheap from the local hardware store I could get to on my bike (with banana seat and all). I think they were a lot of faux-bone Imperials. They cost very little around 1975. I was crazy about fishing for bluegill (fresh) and Snapper "blues" (salt). I recall a lot of cheap fishing knives with the scaler/ruler/hook remover.

In the 80's (high school) I got more into actual backpacking and some Whitetail Bow hunting. I never went anywhere without a SAK of some sort, Hunters and Tinkers mostly (even to school!!!). I took these along on camping and backpacking trips. When hunting I still had the SAK but got a Buck 112 as well.

In the 90's I was almost 100% SAK. Started rock climbing and always felt the Climber was perfect because of the first aid uses for the scissors. Climbing also opened me up to the modern one hand opening knives (Original round hole company) because of the likelihood of needing to hang by one hand while cutting away old slings at anchor stations (often almost no footing).

Took an OG Leatherman on part of the AT in VT once, once. Didn't need most of the tools.

EMS was the first real outdoor chain on LI in the 70's but some hardware and "Toy" stores often sold camping gear. Also we used a lot of household stuff we scrounged from home to take camping.

Today I would take a Vic Farmer and a #8 Opinel if I were going any backpacking distance.

 

[screened porch]

Porch, Where would have a person purchased a scout knife in Kalamazoo in 1967?

Huge thanks for the wonderful Manning quote. We could probably start a dueling quotes thread (different forum) between Manning and Fletcher.

"All things being equal, choose a john with a view." -Colin Fletcher

I have to go back and fix my quote. First of all it was the 2cd edition, dated Dec 1967...
To get the official scout stuff, you had to go to Miller Boerman's Sporting Goods and prove you were a scout. There was athletic stuff in front and a gun shop in back. To get an unofficial knife, you'd go into the gunshop and drool over their display case of Camillus and Case knives. There were two other SG stores downtown, more into camping type stuff than athletics, and they had knives. Stafford Bros Hardware had a good selection of pocketknives.

 

[screened porch]

Hey Jack, what's a bunny knife?

 

[Jack Black]

Gary, this lines up with my experience, even moving into the early 70s. It would be super interesting to hear when people saw their first brick and mortar "hiking or backpacking store". I remember the Alpine Shop in South Burlington, VT, which was a yearly stop for me in the summers. There was also the general/hardware store in Stowe that we would often stop at on the way through. They had stuff for hiking but I don't recall any hiking stores, per se. Pagocycle was a bike shop in Burglington that carried some hiking stuff but that was in the late 70s and early 80s. I think that merged with distributor/catalog Climb High later in the late 80s or early 90s (and then moved to Shelburne).

Over here in the North of England, Wakefields Army & Navy stores were big, and Sheffield had several. They sold boots and some camping and hiking gear, as well as workwear. The firm went under in the 1980's due to squabbling in the family that owned it. Millets were another chain, which sold workwear and budget outdoor gear. They ended up just selling the latter. They went under a couple of years ago, though there are still a few independent branches, as also happened with the afore mentioned army stores after the collapse of Wakefields. The first dedicated outdoor shop I can remember was Blacks (originally Blacks of Greenock), they opened a branch in Sheffield in the mid 70's, and are still in business.

I find this stunning, having never seen an Opinel until well after 2000!!

Actually, in hindsight, I saw Opinels in the Colghan sections of camping stores but didn't know what those "cheap" knives were and certainly didn't know they had any heritage.

For people who saw Opinels in the 70s and 80s, did you see them sold as Opinels or did you see them sold by Colghan? What kinds of stores carried them?

I don't remember seeing SAKs in Sheffield in the 60's. The first time I can remember seeing them on sale was at the beginning of the 80's, but they may have been sold outside Sheffield (which had plenty of home-made cutlery then). Opinels I can remember seeing in the 70's, and they were advertised in the UK outdoor press in the 70's and 80's, as well as being sold in outdoor shops and outdoor stores. First time I bought an Opinel was when I lived in France in 1991.

Hey Jack, what's a bunny knife?

It was a small Jack knife produced by Joseph Rodgers, it had a clip and a pen. It was a longstanding and popular pattern produced under that name by the firm.

 

[CSG]

I seem to recall that Kabar fixed blades were pretty common in the Sierra back in the 60's. I didn't have one but I think they were pretty popular.

 

[Modoc ED]

Jeez!!!!! All this talik about the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Didn't any of you guys venture out and about before then????? You guys do know that tents, bed rolls (even sleeping bags), mess kits, flashlights, fire starters (matches), and all that kind of portable stuff was available in the 40's and 50's don't you. Heck, back then you could even buy a tent one side at a time - they were called shelter halves. They were good enough for the Army and worked great for civilians too. There was even a Coleman lantern available in the 50's but you had to pump it for 30-minutes to get 15-minutes light from it - not worth it. Candle in a glass chimney worked just fine.

 

[jackknife]

Jeez!!!!! All this talik about the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Didn't any of you guys venture out and about before then????? You guys do know that tents, bed rolls (even sleeping bags), mess kits, flashlights, fire starters (matches), and all that kind of portable stuff was available in the 40's and 50's don't you. Heck, back then you could even buy a tent one side at a time - they were called shelter halves. They were good enough for the Army and worked great for civilians too. There was even a Coleman lantern available in the 50's but you had to pump it for 30-minutes to get 15-minutes light from it - not worth it. Candle in a glass chimney worked just fine.

Oh yeah, we had all that stuff back then. Good old canvas tents that weighted about what a small outboard motor would. And they were self cleaning. All you had to do if it rained, was brush up against the inside and it would let the water right through. And they always had that great aroma, kind of like...like... a musty basement closet for a polite description.

And then there were the bedrolls. NIce thick wool, warm and cozy on a cool night. Why a nice two blacket bedroll only weighted in about 30 pounds, dry. You had to really keep them dry because if they got wet, the weight tripled overnight. The old sleeping bags were okay, if you could get them rolled tight enough to be less than 3 feet in diameter. Kind of bulky, and combined with the tent would exceed the load capacity of a WW2 Jeep. If it got wet, you needed a deuce and a half.

Ah, the old Colman lanterns, great memories Doc. Great exercise, pumping away, beads of sweat forming on your brow, and finally a pure white light. But then the flair ups were exiting. A nice two to three foot jet of flame shooting out the side, setting anything on the table in the way on fire. Really livened up the campsite, running for buckets of water, the fear of a forest fire setting the adrenaline to flowing.

Nahh, these kids today with their carefully engineered equipment that weighs mere ounces to the pounds of our old stuff, reliable as the sun rising in the east. Not real camping as we knew it, doc.


Carl.

 

[Rsmith_77]

Jeez!!!!! All this talik about the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Didn't any of you guys venture out and about before then?????

haha! NOPE
born in 77 so that makes getting out before then a tad difficult

 

[Modoc ED]

Oh yeah, we had all that stuff back then. Good old canvas tents that weighted about what a small outboard motor would. And they were self cleaning. All you had to do if it rained, was brush up against the inside and it would let the water right through. And they always had that great aroma, kind of like...like... a musty basement closet for a polite description.

And then there were the bedrolls. NIce thick wool, warm and cozy on a cool night. Why a nice two blacket bedroll only weighted in about 30 pounds, dry. You had to really keep them dry because if they got wet, the weight tripled overnight. The old sleeping bags were okay, if you could get them rolled tight enough to be less than 3 feet in diameter. Kind of bulky, and combined with the tent would exceed the load capacity of a WW2 Jeep. If it got wet, you needed a deuce and a half.

Ah, the old Colman lanterns, great memories Doc. Great exercise, pumping away, beads of sweat forming on your brow, and finally a pure white light. But then the flair ups were exiting. A nice two to three foot jet of flame shooting out the side, setting anything on the table in the way on fire. Really livened up the campsite, running for buckets of water, the fear of a forest fire setting the adrenaline to flowing.

Nahh, these kids today with their carefully engineered equipment that weighs mere ounces to the pounds of our old stuff, reliable as the sun rising in the east. Not real camping as we knew it, doc.


Carl.

Yeah, but it was fun wasn't it Carl.

 

[Thomas Linton]

Jeez!!!!! All this talik about the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Didn't any of you guys venture out and about before then????? You guys do know that tents, bed rolls (even sleeping bags), mess kits, flashlights, fire starters (matches), and all that kind of portable stuff was available in the 40's and 50's don't you. Heck, back then you could even buy a tent one side at a time - they were called shelter halves. They were good enough for the Army and worked great for civilians too. There was even a Coleman lantern available in the 50's but you had to pump it for 30-minutes to get 15-minutes light from it - not worth it. Candle in a glass chimney worked just fine.

Providing either: 1) you were a dwarf; or 2: you didn't mind getting wet if it rained.

 

[dalee100]

Hi,

Not many mountains in the Land of 10, 000 Lakes. But we do have Boundary waters Canoe area. Way back then it hadn't been discovered by the 694 savages. And I always tried to get 2 weeks to a month in there. The fishing was great and the solitude divine.

Due to the canoe, we could tote more stuff. But you still had to portage. My friends were Buck 110 fans. I only ever carried a Schrade 34OT. I did pack an Old Hickory in my Duluth pack. I also always had a folding swede saw and a small ax.

Remember the surplus gear. It's all we had. There was a hardware store that often peddled old military surplus. But it was a hit or miss thing. I never saw a "sporting goods"store til I went away to collage.

Dalee

 

[Thomas Linton]

the 694 savages[/quote} ??????????????

I tried Google.

 

[Jack Black]

Enjoyed your posts Ed and Carl :thumbup: Owing to not being born earlier, I was only able to go camping for the first time in the 60's, but there was no lightweight gear here then. My grandad gave me an old canvas army tent that would have taken a dozen kids to lift off the ground, and even when a pal of mine got a cotton tent in the early 70's, if it rained we got soaked. I usually slept out in caves or used tarps, with a blanket instead of a sleeping bag.

I used to know the guy who bought the boots for Wakefield's Army & Navy, who I mentioned in a post above, and he told me that in the late 1970's, they imported hiking boots from China. They asked the manufacturer to put an extra pound of steel in each shank, as then people equated weight with quality!

Also going back to my earlier post about knives in use over here, how could I forget the Normark range, which were actually re-branded EKA and Martinni knives, and which were heavily marketed in the fishing and hunting press, and to a lessere extent the outdoor press, in the early 1970's. The folders were the Big Swede and Little Swede, which were EKA knives, and they also did a Martinni filleting knife, a hunting knife, and a deluxe hunting knife (which is the one Duncan just won in my giveaway). THey were advertised by the UK agents, Whitby Knives, I think, and it was Whitby who subsequently promoted Opinel (and later Buck) knives. They're still going, and with the same owners.

 

[midnight flyer]

I started carrying a Montgomery Wards authorized BSA knife about 1961. It was my camp knife (really, my only knife) until about '66. It went everywhere and did everything. It did my bushcraft work in Boy Scouts, went fishing, hiking, camping and was never out of my pocket. I do indeed remember putting a fresh edge on it and some 3 in 1 on the joints and blades to get it ready to go as part of my camping ritual. Later on, I bought a Boker 4" stockman and that and a tiny can opener replaced the BSA knife.

When I started going on longer camping trips and then on deer hunting trips I bought a Buck 119 in '72 to carry along with my folder. That 119 has worn like it was made of diamond and performed well at anything I have ever used it to do. It has camped, canoed, fished, hiked, hunted, prepped meals, opened cans, made fires... you name it since I got it. It still looks new! (Well, to me anyway.) While it is in desperate need of new sheath, I wouldn't hesitate to bet the farm on that knife under any circumstances.

I had to pay a premium for that Buck, too. The local hardware stores carried CASE, sometimes Schrade, then Colonial or Sabre. Sporting goods stores here had CASE, then as their luxury knife, Puma. Buck wasn't well known here in '72 by any means and if someone had Buck knives for sale they usually had just the 110 and a couple of small folders. But a friend of mine had a brother that returned from Vietnam and he had bought the 119 at the BX overseas and he swore by it as a hard worker as he put it through its paces over there. His was really beat up, but he loved it.

So me and a friend of mine ordered our Buck knives from Sears since they could get just about anything in those days, and two weeks later they were in our hands.

I still take it if I am going overnight. But these days I don't go out hiking for much more than a long day, usually in conjunction with some river fishing or a picnic, so for those short days I just take a 4" stockman or my Queen medium soddie.

Robert

 

[Raymond1000]

I have a Freedom of the Hills 2cd ed from Dec 1967. He recommends the old boy-scout type utility knife. I bought the book (at an antique store) because it opened to that paragraph.
"For special purposes a hunting knife is superior, as are double-bitted axes, cavalry sabers, Gatling guns, and dynamite, but a modest mountaineer contents himself with a modest blade." (p.27)
My first SAK was bought in Switzerland in 1967, and was a marvelous novelty in Kalamazoo at that time.

I belonged to the Seattle Mountaineers in the late sixties. Freedom of the Hills was my climbing bible.

I was trying to remember that quote.

Thanks, scrteened porch.

For bushwhacking and hunting I am a big knife-small knife guy. I don’t like to dress game with a folder. I tried many different knives, from Buck through Herters. I used the Herter’s knock off of the Grohmann before I knew Grohmann existed.

Through the seventies I carried a Randall Model 7 and a Marbles Trail Master. In those days the wait for a Randall was months, not years.

 

[screened porch]

the 694 savages[/quote} ??????????????

I tried Google.

I tried googling Minnesota 694: looks like an Interstate highway that opened the area to the savages in question.

 

[Raymond1000]

Enjoyed your posts Ed and Carl :thumbup: Owing to not being born earlier, I was only able to go camping for the first time in the 60's, but there was no lightweight gear here then. My grandad gave me an old canvas army tent that would have taken a dozen kids to lift off the ground, and even when a pal of mine got a cotton tent in the early 70's, if it rained we got soaked. I usually slept out in caves or used tarps, with a blanket instead of a sleeping bag.

I used to know the guy who bought the boots for Wakefield's Army & Navy, who I mentioned in a post above, and he told me that in the late 1970's, they imported hiking boots from China. They asked the manufacturer to put an extra pound of steel in each shank, as then people equated weight with quality!

Also going back to my earlier post about knives in use over here, how could I forget the Normark range, which were actually re-branded EKA and Martinni knives, and which were heavily marketed in the fishing and hunting press, and to a lessere extent the outdoor press, in the early 1970's. The folders were the Big Swede and Little Swede, which were EKA knives, and they also did a Martinni filleting knife, a hunting knife, and a deluxe hunting knife (which is the one Duncan just won in my giveaway). THey were advertised by the UK agents, Whitby Knives, I think, and it was Whitby who subsequently promoted Opinel (and later Buck) knives. They're still going, and with the same owners.

I loved Viet Nam jungle boots. Not for hiking, for on the job. The steel plate was meant to protect GIs from punji sticks. It protected me from nails in my feet.

 

[mnblade]

Oh yeah, we had all that stuff back then. Good old canvas tents that weighted about what a small outboard motor would. And they were self cleaning. All you had to do if it rained, was brush up against the inside and it would let the water right through. And they always had that great aroma, kind of like...like... a musty basement closet for a polite description.

And then there were the bedrolls. NIce thick wool, warm and cozy on a cool night. Why a nice two blacket bedroll only weighted in about 30 pounds, dry. You had to really keep them dry because if they got wet, the weight tripled overnight. The old sleeping bags were okay, if you could get them rolled tight enough to be less than 3 feet in diameter. Kind of bulky, and combined with the tent would exceed the load capacity of a WW2 Jeep. If it got wet, you needed a deuce and a half.

Ah, the old Colman lanterns, great memories Doc. Great exercise, pumping away, beads of sweat forming on your brow, and finally a pure white light. But then the flair ups were exiting. A nice two to three foot jet of flame shooting out the side, setting anything on the table in the way on fire. Really livened up the campsite, running for buckets of water, the fear of a forest fire setting the adrenaline to flowing.

Carl.

This really takes me back. I was only born in 1968, but as a kid in the '70s we'd do a lot of car camping (I suspect my dad was too cheap to spring for a hotel). I don't know when/where my parents go their gear, but it was old, even then. I think it must have been inherited from my dad's dad. We'd load our 1974 Plymouth Fury III sedan with an 8-person canvas tent, five of those cotton/wool sleeping bags, a Coleman stove and a Coleman lantern -- and a whisk broom. Dad was nuts about always toting along a whisk broom. I swear, the rear bumper of that car must have been dragging along the pavement as we left home.

-- Mark