Tumblehome Goods
The wanigan.
A wooden trip box, built by hand in Minneapolis, that carries your kitchen down the river and looks good doing it. Wanigans have hauled food and gear through canoe country since the voyageurs. Ours have survived thousands of miles of rapids, portages, and camp kitchens, then come home to work as end tables between trips.
The finishes
Natural, walnut, aqua, storm, and a driftwood gray, or ask us about a custom stain. Every box is birch plywood with hardwood trim, shock-cord toggle latches, and a catalyzed urethane finish that shrugs off abuse and weather.
Built to be used
The intended use is a kitchen and equipment pack. On trips we bring two: one for cooking and safety gear, one loaded with food. They ride in the canoe, carry on your back with removable straps, take a beating in the rapids, and double as furniture the other fifty weeks of the year. With reasonable care, keep it out of long sun and standing moisture, a wanigan outlives its first owner. Many of ours saw institutional camp use for fifteen-plus years with next to no maintenance and are still on the water.
The details
Hardwood toggle latches on marine shock cord. No hinges to rust, no clasps to snap, nothing you can't fix at a campsite.
Signed and numbered
Every wanigan is built in a small batch, signed, numbered, and dated inside by the builder before it leaves the shop. Not because it makes the box work better, but because we're proud of them, and someday, when yours has a few thousand miles on it, you'll like knowing which one it was.
How to get one
Each wanigan is built by hand, in small batches, by the founder. These are the same boxes that went down the Bloodvein and up to Hudson Bay. Natural finish from $895. Stained finishes (walnut, aqua, storm, gray, or talk to us) from $945. Built to order; current lead time quoted when we talk. Tell us what you're planning and we'll build for it.