When someone hears the word backpack, their mind immediately produces the image of a fabric sack with numerous pockets, usually embellished with zippers, used to carry books and supplies to and from and through school with two straps in which they put their arms through to secure and carry it on their back. The backpack is also known by other names depending on regionalism: the rucksack, the knapsack, the haversack, the daypack, the bergen, the packsack, the moneybag, backsack, or a bookbag for example. But for the sake of this piece, we shall refer to it as a backpack. First off, the backpack used for school holds many things inside of its pockets. There are multiple pockets in the school-age backpack but we shall talk about only two of them. First is the smaller front pocket of the backpack which when unzipped, uncovers a horizontally shallow pocket adorned with numerous smaller slot pockets on the inside. There are the slender and long vertical pockets to place pencils and pens in to keep them in an easily accessible area when just cracking the pocket open in order to find one to take notes with. Next to these, there is a wider pocket with a tightened band on the entrance to it to keep things inside when moving the backpack while still making it easy to slide your hand in to find what you need. In this pocket I normally kept my change, my different sizes of lead for my mechanical pencils, a small pencil sharpener for my Ticonderoga #2. Some people may slide their cellphone into this pocket or use it to keep their TI-84 calculator in place. The rest of this front pocket could be used to keep smaller items in that may easily be lost in the much larger rear pocket of the backpack. The larger pocket of the backpack unzips from the tiptop of the backpack itself. It is held together by zipper, as is the smaller pocket, which consists of two strips of metal or plastic with interlocking projections that close or open by pulling a fastening slide back and forth. This larger pocket is where your big items go such as your school books, your notebooks, your daily planner. Smaller items should not go into this pocket as, in my experience, they become lost and in order to find them, you must remove nearly all of the larger items in the pocket in order to find what originally had gone astray. During the school week, this bag is filled with notes, school books and the such but when the weekend would hit and I was off to a friend's house, the school items would be left at home and in their place would be fireworks, bags of water balloons, video games, a notebook for writing or sketching, snacks, and a jacket or an extra shirt. During the school years, it seemed like my whole life was confined and defined by what was in my backpack. School in a small town was not so much about learning of the world as it was about learning to be around other people and how to handle them. It was something that I never realized back then, and I wish I had, but the illusion of knowledge was quite important to my K-12 experience. And the backpack was essential for that. The school backpack gives you the image of being scholarly, of being ready to learn, of being ready for the next adventure.

Another type of backpack that is often used is a backpack that is supported by an external or internal frame that is typically used for backpacking. These large packs usually have numerous pockets all over them, many big and many small, two heavily padded straps as to keep the wearer comfortable in carrying said pack for hours on end through harsh terrain, a large padded horizontal strap for supporting the bag around your hips, and a metal and/or plastic frame shaped closely to one's spine curvature in order to help keep its shape and to aid in supporting the bag as well. I have a large 3966 cubic inch Gregory backpack that I have taken on many trips into the great outdoors over the years. It is made out of recycled materials, features a ventilated mesh back panel that helps to keep my back cool during the hot days of summer, and fabric that helps to inhibit the growth of odor. It has a small and tight back pocket where I can insert a full water bladder and loop out a hose to attach on the left strap near the top of my shoulder when I wear it to allow me to drink while I am on the move. In the larger back pocket I place my clothing for my trip, food stuffs, my compact and obnoxiously yellow Mountain Hardware sleeping bag (larger sleeping bags, like my older North Face one, could easily be strapped to the bottom of the bag but then you have to feel it hit your butt nearly every step), my tent and tent poles, and my cooking set which includes pots, pans, a stove, and a gas tank or two for the stove. It is a very deep pocket and it would be tough to quickly find something in there to pull out without removing every item above what I am looking for if it was not for a large wrap around zipper with large loop zipper pullers on the front of the pack that opens up the entire back pack from the front face of it and allows me to find the item I need from the immaculately packed items in the bag. This segment of the backpack also has another zipper that opens into a smaller pocket in which I place my lighter, my lint, my headlamp, and my books. On either side of the backpack are large open pockets that I place my full Nalgene water bottles in. And on the padded strap that goes around my waist, there are numerous small pockets I use to hold my wallet, my phone, and other items I may need to easily access while I am on the trail. Along with the plethora of pockets comes a few lash points such as webbing loops and notches in order to strap things to the side and bottom of the pack. Other than backpacking, I also use this bag as my luggage as I travel by airplane. These bags are large and made to live out of for multiple days and nights.

A fire pack exists to provide an arguably comfortable system with a hefty structure for a wildland firefighter while they are out in the field. I was a firefighter for the Idaho Department of Lands from the summer of 2010 through the summer of 2014. Throughout four fire seasons, I was shipped out to numerous large fires across the western side of the United States including the Wallow Fire of Arizona and New Mexico in 2011 and the High Park Fire of Colorado in 2012. I was also sent out to numerous fires in Boundary and Bonner county in North Idaho when I was stuck back at the station in which I was Incident Commander on two very small burns. Throughout these four years with IDL I used the same fire pack that I had been issued my first day. The fire pack rig I used was black and silver and consisted of one large pocket and two smaller pockets on the front of it, somewhat like the average school backpack I described above. However, there were also a number of differences. First off, the style of the fire pack is much more geared to the utility of the job they are used for as they should be. The shoulder straps were padded, and there was a slightly padded hip strap like a backpacking backpack for support and a thin chest strap to help distribute the weight of the pack throughout the torso. These helped to provide a good structure and adjustability to the pack to allow for as much comfort as one could have. Underneath the pack were two straps which held the best tool that the firefighter could have when deployed to a fire: the fire shelter. These highly expensive but equally as imperative items were something that a firefighter never wanted to deploy but could save a life if one was to deploy them at the right time. The device is used as a last resort when the firefighter is trapped by a wildfire. The “burrito foil” that the firefighter goes under cannot withstand a sustaining contact of flame on it, but it can protect a firefighter from the radiant heat coming from the wildfire by reflecting it and protecting the user from convective heat. Most importantly, it is able to trap in breathable air as a high amount of firefighter deaths are from inhaling the hot gases from the fire. These shelters swing on the bottom of the fire pack and add about 4 or 5 pounds of weight to the pack. As a firefighter, it was recommended that we have 4 filled quart bottles of water in the side pockets of the fire pack which added another 8 pounds to the packs weight. An MRE that we kept within the pack added another pound or more. A group of files to sharpen the hand tool, or chainsaw chain as was my situation my last year when I mostly worked with the sawyer group on major fires. Inside the pack would also hold an extra Nomex shirt and a fire scarf. Along with these items, I typically held a pack or two of Camel 99's and a can or two of wintergreen Copenhagen. I kept a basic first aid kit in the main pocket as well which included band-aids, alcohol pads, some gauze, iodine, and some quick clot. I kept in my fire pack a headlamp with extra batteries, my Red card, flagging tape, parachute cord, Tylenol, a GPS unit, a compass, an extra pair of sunglasses, a deck of Bicycle cards, and most importantly toilet paper. You could never have enough toilet paper while working in the field for 16 hour shifts. With a full pack, I was usually carrying around 35 to 40 pounds and the fire pack was relatively comfortable the whole time. But the thing with the fire pack is that while there are some materials that every firefighter must carry into the field with them, the rest of the bag space is all up to them to fill. Before I continue, I must explain what a Laker girl was in North Idaho. A Laker girl was a female from the fire departments, whether IDL or Forest Service, in Priest Lake, Idaho. These girls were tough. Most of them horseshoed chew and talked better shit than any man on the field. Total bad ass chicks. But I heard a story of one who truly believed in the mantra of 'Pack it in, Pack it out'. While we kept our trash with us in our bags until we could find a garbage can to dispose it into responsibly, most of our shits out in the woods started with digging a hole into the ground, doing our business squatted over it, and then covering it up. But this one Laker girl, she packed it out. Every shit in the woods she had she picked up in a bag like you would with your dog's shit in the city and tied it to the bottom of the pack to continue on her way. It must have been a rough breakfast for her one day, but as she was leading a hike up the mountain, she had three tied bags dangling on the bottom of her pack by the time they reached their destination. As she led the hike up the mountain, and back down the mountain, I can only imagine how unfortunate it must have been to be one of the seven people following. But the backpack was there for her to carry what must be carried comfortably on her back.