Kodiak Canvas is a camping and overland brand founded in Utah in 2005. It is headquartered in Layton, Utah.
A 10 by 14 foot Flex-Bow Deluxe from Kodiak Canvas packs out at 79 pounds, and 6.5 of those pounds are stakes. It sleeps eight under a 6 foot 6 ceiling held up by 1-inch galvanized steel tubing. Kodiak Canvas is run from Layton, and this is a tent for the campsite you can back a truck into.
Bright Path Enterprises, the company behind the brand, registered in Utah on September 23, 2005, and the Flex-Bow followed in 2006. Founder Aaron Hill has said he built it out of frustration with cheap polyester tents on flimsy poles.
The ceiling is 10-ounce cotton canvas. New owners are told to wet the tent and let it dry before the first trip, because the water shrinks the canvas and closes the needle holes. The company calls that seasoning. One owner's letter on the brand's site likens Hurricane Leslie in Portugal to "being inside a washing machine on spin cycle for 6 hours." Her verdict: "The tent held."
The tents are made in China. In 2013 a Racing the Planet event in Iceland housed 350 people in Kodiak tents. The camp moved every day, stakes included.
After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Kodiak Canvas supplied hundreds of cotton canvas tents to relief groups, and the company says canvas proved better than synthetics for long-term camps.
