I moved to Toronto (from a small town in British Columbia) in 1984 with about 9 different Art scholarships to attend Ontario College of art. I had spent most of my younger years trying to perfect high realism art re-productions, and it was my plan once I could master the technical part of this I would progress into “talking through art” with more abstract means. I found art school very boring, and to me it was painful “painting green triangles” that did not mean anything.

I had brought my ten speed bike with me to Toronto and started to explore the city. Quite soon after I fell head over heels in love with the bike, and wanted nothing more than to ride, for fun I started trying to beat my times on 100 mile rides. I quit art school so that I could ride more and took a waitress job. Still there was not enough time to ride, and looking in the paper that day, I saw an ad for a bike messenger job and took it right away. That was September 1985.

In the early years of messenger work, most of the “couriers” were just people who loved to ride or were looking for a job with a bit of freedom. There was nothing cool or trendy about being a bike messenger. It was a very great and innocent time. Money was very good as we had not seen the heavy use of the fax machine to send documents, much less the widespread use of the computer. A top messenger could make $3000 a month. I was quite confused when “messenger groupies” started showing up on the scene, I did not get what was so cool about what we did, and we just rode bikes and had fun.

I have the best of memories from my days as a messenger, some of the friendships gained there will last a lifetime. Even now, I have become a mom of 2 kids, and have lived in the country for the last 15 years, I still feel such a connection with the messenger community. I think there is a bond that lasts a lifetime. I have become new friends of some messengers that I did not know when I was a courier, there is some sort of bond that makes some of these friendships like family.

For most of my 9 years as a bike messenger I used a highly modified backpack.I have never actually used anyone other brand of messenger bag. My first designs were pretty much copied from Eric Zo bags ( San Francisco), but i found the bag awkward because of the way it would sway around and not stay in place. I also found the bag not as fast to swing around to get packages in and out, thus most of the modifications that I made to the basic messenger bag were made so that I could use the bag. I think I’m a bit picky about the way things work. Turns out that others liked the modifications I made.

- Please, tell us the reason to have begun to make messenger bag?

In the fall of 1989 I was off work as a bike messenger for 4 months due to an injury. It was near Christmas, and since I was not working I decided to make some Christmas presents for my friends. I had a very old home sewing machine that a friend gave me, and I made some messenger bags and Hip Pouches for gifts. After that more Toronto messengers asked for bags so I continued to make and sell them after I was healed and went back to work. In 1993 I opened a bike shop with a friend in downtown Toronto; I moved my sewing machine into the shop and made bags when I was not repairing messengers bikes or messengering part time.

In 1993 the Cycle Messenger World Championships ( CMWC) came to Toronto and that gave me a bit more exposure. In 1994 I went to San Francisco for the 1994 Championships and set up a booth there, it felt like we were rock stars or something, there was allot of frenzy over these new bags from Canada. The CMWC’s really helped with world wide exposure for PAC. It would have been fantastic to go to Japan when the CMWC was there.

When I first made bags, I didn’t have a name, but people called the first bags that I made “PAT-PACS”. I decided to keep the name and made up a logo. I decided to go with Red for Canada and the Gold color to symbolize quality. If you look at the PAC logo you will see that the “C” can either be a “C” or a “T” ( for PAT and PAC). I was going to keep the original PAT-PAC name but when I went to register with the government they said that I could not register with the PA-C image and that I had to use words. Europeans had already started to read the PAC logo as PAC designs so I decided to go with that. Some Old school messengers still call my bags Pat-Pacs.

There was nothing in Canada for sure being made, although there were a number of bags being made in the U.S., the ZO bag that I had seen was brought up by a friend who had visited San Fransisco. There were definitely no stores that carried messenger bags.

It’s actually been sort of a financial struggle since I started; I am naturally more of an artist than a business person, so the business side of PAC has always been difficult. I’d still rather make great bags than allot of money, at least I’d never want to sacrifice the quality.

That would be Eric Zo from San Francisco, he is still out there making bags, and really does things his own way.

I am very honoured to have such a reputation. I do feel that I have a fair amount of integrityAnd always try to find out exactly what a customer wants, what-ever I do I try oto do my best at it. I have seen our society go for quantity over quality, and that just leads to allot going to the landfills. Maybe because I have never had any formal training my mind is fresh and able to come up with new idea’s.

I just always looked for the week spots in the messenger bag, that parts that would wear out fast. In the 2 layer bags, the inner truck trap layer would always fall apart because although truck tarp is good for water-proofness, it does not stand up well to abrasion. With the 3 layer construction I can put in a very thin middle rubber layer, that has very light weight and flexibility. The innermost thin nylon packcloth takes all the abrasion.

The Anti Sway strap came to me in a dream in 1992-3, I was racking my brain at how to figure out how to stop the bag from swinging around, when I woke up one morning I had it figured out. The waistbelt that some bags had on them then just did not work at keeping the bag from swinging around.

The “X” strap, I had a customer requesting a second shoulder strap for the bag, so I just tried putting on the second strap and it worked. The “X” comes from the word XTRA strap and the shape it makes on your body when it is fastened.

D ring adjusting I came about in 1994, when I was working and sewing out of the bike shop, I was frustrated at how clumsy it was to adjust the strapping so I tried putting a screwdriver blade between the webbing and the buckle. It worked great, then I went through my buckles samples and found a “D” ring that would fit and stay in place.

Basically, any problem there was with the bags I just tried to think of a way to fix it.

I think the latest big modification I made to the bags is making replaceable reversible shoulder strapping on the PRO series bags. It took me a long time to figure out how to do this in a way that it would be very strong.

I can attach a word document with some of PAC’s innovations.

It’s cool when I see things like the anti sway strap out there on almost every kind of shoulder bag out there. Things like the “D” ring adjusting are also on alot of bags. There are even some companies using my method of replaceable shoulder strapping. I guess in that way I have made a bit of a difference in the world, maybe more than if I had stayed in Art School.

I guess in PAC bags we usually come up with some good idea’s first, and also I think we try to make the most durable bags out there. I also think we are the smallest of almost all the companies since I just have one other full time employee in my home. I’ve been working on some original backpack designs, but have not had the time to bring them into production. I also have other bag type innovations that I have not been able to market yet.

Right now myself and another person make all the PAC bags. We do have some cutters that can cut through many layers of fabric at once, so when we cut out the bags we can do quite a few at a time. I also have a sewing machine that sew’s a box pattern (what we use to put on the shoulder straps), it sews a double box shape with a double X to make sure the straps can take alot of abuse. I used to do that by hand, and after 2 days of putting the shoulder straps on my neck and shoulders would be sore, so I really like that machine.

Occasionally my kids help with some of the smaller jobs, like cutting webbing and tacking bits of webbing together. All the bags are made out of my home, and when my kids were small that was especially nice since I never had to put my kids in daycare so that I could go to work. Even now if my kids are sick at home from school their mom can be at home with them, since I am a single mom that is especially great.

Right now the bags are made on Manitoulin Island in northern Ontario. Manitoulin Island is a 100 mile long island that is situated near the top of Lake Huron, it’s a very special place.

- It had been already 20 years, since you started making bags. By now, How have you evolved your bag. and what do you think? something changed ?

I’m constantly trying to improve the bags I make, it is really cool to find a bag I made 20 years ago to see the way that I made it. I had never had any sewing lessons except in grade 9 home economics class where I had sewn a pencil case and a bean bag chair. I just sort of learned things as I went along, so when I see something I made 20 years ago I can laugh at how silly the way I made it was. I guess since I was not really sure what I was doing I overbuilt my bags to make sure they would not fall apart. I have definitely learned to make the bags faster.

This has changed very much over the years, there are only a hand full of messengers still working from when I was there. Right now PAC Designs is located about 7 hours drive north of Toronto, and I spend more of my free time going into nature instead on into the cities. There is alot of bike activism going on there though, many of my bike messenger friends are really involved in this. There are also allot of bike messenger events hosted by my ex-messenger firends. Toronto had the first alley cat races ever, and they are still going on strong.

- Tell us the USERS of Pac design in TORONTO.

Users of PAC Designs in Toronto are messengers and bike commuters,pretty much the same as they are everywhere.

I guess I don’t have a vast knowledge of Japanese bike culture, basically only what I have seen in magazines and on the web. It looks like Japan is embracing the love of the bike and is expressing it with uniqueness and pizzazz.

I feel fortunate to have been part of PAC for the last 22 years, it’s honouring to have become sort of “famous” in the messenger community. PAC is not a big company at all, we just have a big name.

I would like to be able to spend more time designing and less time just manufacturing, the bags, I have so many idea’s that I would love to make, but there is just not enough time. I think my talent is designing and maybe not so much running a business and manufacturing company, we’ll see what happens in the future.

It’s the customers that keep PAC going. I am still honoured that people want to buy something that I have designed and made. I am thankful for the support on every bag that I sell. I am always ready to hear what customers want, and if there are specific needs that the Japanese rider would like to see in a PAC bag I would be happy to hear any idea’s. We seem to be selling more and more bags to Japan.