Posted 15 April 2016

Many people claim to have “invented” the sleeping bag. Our own research suggests that the first was developed by Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen and the first commercial one that we would recognise was produced with his guidance by the Norwegian company G. Fuglesang AS who had been producing “wadding” since 1855.

Before setting off to ski across Greenland in 1888, Fridtjof Nansen, along with five friends spent some time living with the Inuit in Lapland. They did this to see how Inuit people coped with the extreme cold conditions.

As a result Nansen and friends designed most of their own equipment including cookers, clothing and sleeping bags. Nansen had noticed the Inuit slept under sealskin blankets and in the first instance Nansen sewed some together making three-person sleeping bags. As the actual crossing took from August 15th to October 3rd 1888 we can guess they were good friends by the time they finished!

Starting in 1889 the manufacture of sleeping bags began in Norway. Fast forward to the 1930’s and the designs had developed into the shape of a child’s romper suit with arms and legs.

In the 1940s onwards the style developed into a mummy shaped bag and through the 1960s bags started having full length zippers for convenience. This trend started in the US and Scandinavia.

Synthetic fillings also became available around this time from the global chemical companies who developed lighter and warmer fibres. The drive to develop these fibres faded when production of bags moved to the Far East and high quality down bags became popular again for all the usual reasons.