Do you ever think about why the word “pack” is used in terms such as “backpack”? I had not, until I came across a chapter of Horace Kephart’s “Camping and Woodcraft”. As can be seen from the image reproduced below, some packs are literally packages, wrapped in waterproof material and held together by a harness.
The reason I was reminded of this was because I have come across yet another variant of blanket roll. I was reading about China in the first half of the twentieth century. This is a very interesting period of history and I am rather surprised more movies and games are not set in this period and location. The various Chinese factions had to equip millions of fighting men with only limited resources. How they achieved this is relevant to recent topics on this blog.
In the photos below you can see that a pack was created by placing the cargo within a blanket and then rolling each end inwards until they met. In the last photo you can see that a shelter cloth/ rainproof is carried in a horseshoe around the pack so that it is easily accessible.
