Heavy, itchy, and enormous: How sleeping bags used to roll

May 30, 2023

If you're going camping this summer with modern, lightweight gear, take a moment to reflect on how convenient camping has become. Not so long ago, camping gear was as rustic as the woods it was made for. And the folks who carried it were made of pretty tough stuff themselves.

Take the sleeping bag, right up there with the tent as an essential piece of equipment for a camping trip. Back in the day, a sleeping bag was as big as a modern tent, and ten times as heavy.

Rather than caressing the camper with soft, synthetic fibres, old-school sleeping bags were lined with wool so scratchy you could use it to clean the camp stove.

In Part III of our summer series Inside the Vault, history curator Maureen Peters breaks out a 70-year-old sleeping bag that looks too big to carry. But the person who carried it during decades of camping trips lived to be 104, so maybe newer isn't always better.

Click the video above to see the sleeping bag and hear a great campfire story.

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador

Zach Goudie is a journalist and video producer with CBC in St. John's.

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