Swedish company Fjallraven has been making rugged outdoor products in Europe since the 1960s, but they’ve just recently started peddling their wares in the U.S. The Kajka, which is available in eight sizes, from a kid’s size to a whooping 100 liters, itself is not a new pack, and this is certainly not its first award. (It was launched in 2008 and has been heavily praised by European outdoor publications.) But the reason we picked it this show is because of Fjallraven’s decision this year to go old school—really old school. The company’s very first packs had wooden frames, and this year it decided to replace the pack’s aluminum frame with Finnish Birch wood, which reduces the pack’s carbon footprint by 90 percent. They say it is as strong as the aluminum and is processed the same way skate decks are made. So how does a pack with a wooden frame feel on your pack when fully loaded? We’ll tell you once we’ve had an opportunity to test it in the field later this summer.
