The Alaskan Leather History

We started in a one-room workshop in Anchorage back in 1986. Tom Hendricks learned traditional leatherwork from his grandfather in Montana before moving north, and quickly realized Alaska demanded its own approach. The dry cold cracks inferior leather. The wet seasons test every stitch.

Today, we're still in that same neighborhood in Anchorage with a team of seven craftspeople. Some of our bags and jackets from the '90s still come back for reconditioning—not repair, just a refresh. That's what we're after.

We source our leather from American tanneries in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Most of our hardware comes from a family supplier in New England we've worked with for 28 years. We live here, work here, and test every design in our actual lives before it goes up for sale.

How We Make Our Products

Every piece starts with full-grain vegetable-tanned leather—the stuff that actually ages instead of just wearing out. We hand-select each hide, cutting around scars and thin spots. You're paying for the best 60% of the hide.

We use saddle stitch construction—two needles, waxed poly thread, every stitch pulled tight by hand. It's slower than a machine, but when one stitch fails, the rest hold. We rivet, not glue. Install zippers by hand, stitching them in rather than using adhesive.

We condition every piece with a blend we mix ourselves—beeswax, neatsfoot oil, and carnauba. Our leather is stiff when it's new. That's intentional. Give it two weeks of real use and it becomes yours in a way pre-distressed leather never will.

Every item gets maker-marked with initials and dated.

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