Shop around the corner

Into the wild

Whether you’re going native or just going on a camping trip, Uncle Dan’s, “The Great Outdoor Store,” is the place for you

By Ross Kennerly

Pop quiz, adventure campers.

Q: What was the second country liberated in the Western Hemisphere?

Give up? No prize for you.

Every morning, one of the learned employees of Uncle Dan’s Great Outdoor Store writes a “Question of the Day” on a markerboard behind the register. Subject matter ranges from current events to geography, and customers who answer correctly receive a gift on the house.

Carolyn Gale, who manages the store at 2440 N. Lincoln Ave., says that the trivia helps entertain customers waiting in long lines. Even the martial artists-in-training from the Tae Kwon Do studio upstairs come down to Uncle Dan’s every day to take a shot at winning some free gear. So far, they have never been right, but they guess anyway.

A: Haiti.

Yeah, I got that one wrong, too. I guessed Canada.

Uncle Dan’s was opened in 1972 by two brothers, Brent and Mark Weiss. It was initially an Army-Navy surplus store until declining customer interest in surplus goods caused the store to refocus.

“Over time, not everyone needed that one-dollar flannel and combat boots, so (the store) kind of started taking a different spin on the mix,” Gale says.

What they discovered was that their demographic had morphed into festival-goers who needed tents and other camping materials. Today, Uncle Dan’s three stores — located in Evanston, Highland Park (which is managed by Gale’s fiancé) and the original store in Lincoln Park — are now the go-to place for camping and travel needs. But, as Gale is quick to point out, they are much more than a typical camping store.

Each of Uncle Dan’s employees has experience in adventure travel (i.e. backpacking through Europe), camping, hiking or camp counseling, to name a few areas of specialty. Gale herself was formerly a counselor for two years at the “One Step at a Time” camp, affiliated with the nearby Children’s Memorial Hospital and designed for cancer patients and their families. Year-round, regardless of weather conditions, Gale walks to work at the Lincoln Park store from Wrigleyville, in part because her fiancé needs the car to drive to Highland Park, but more importantly to test her own merchandise. Everything you see in the store — ranging from tents to pupa-shaped sleeping bags straight out of a Jon Krakauer novel to riveted hurricane ponchos that can be converted into a makeshift emergency shelter — is hand-tested by Uncle Dan’s employees.

“All of the staff try it on and wear it,” Gale says. “We’re not just selling something that we have read from the Website or read from the tags. We actually know from experience.”

On the day I stopped in, Gale, wearing her dreadlocks pulled back under a baseball cap, shepherds me around the store, pointing out and explaining various interesting gadgets and equipment — much of which I had never seen before, being a fair-weather “car camper,” as Gale puts it — as well as the unique services provided by her staff. For example, hanging next to the polyester sleeping bags are travel packs, and for the less adventurous, backpacks and duffel bags. A woman and her daughter are getting a “pack fitting” by one of Gale’s staff, where the customer’s torso is measured and appropriate adjustments are made to the pack to ensure a correct fit and the most comfortable one possible. Similarly, a raised, carpeted platform in the center of the room allows customers to test out sleeping bags and self-inflating mattress pads, and in the footwear section, a pebbled ramp assists hikers in determining sole traction before purchase.

Other items of interest: a lightweight foam hat that, when flipped upside-down, can keep a six-pack afloat in water, and the most popular item, Crocs, which are rubber clogs that can be personalized with lettered “jibbitz,” little grommets that plug into holes in the sandals. And don’t forget the adventure travel bar kit, complete with shaker and shot glasses, and the outdoor-store staple, Columbia/Patagonia/North Face fleece jackets.

Uncle Dan’s customers vary from students at nearby DePaul University traveling abroad to vacationing families to more die-hard “super-lightweight” outdoor types, or car campers, like the one Gale describes came in that morning.

“She was gathering stuff, and she was loading up the car and (was going to) kind of see where it takes her,” Gale says. “She said, ‘I don’t know — I’m just going to hop in the car and just kind of go.’ ”

When I ask where she was headed, Gale replies, “She’s going to head north. And go camping along the way.”

A tradition for Uncle Dan’s satisfied customers is to send the store postcards, photos, or letters, describing or illustrating where they are in the world and how Uncle Dan’s made their trip possible. Gale affixes these to a blossoming collage under the counter, which I notice includes a photograph of a polar bear muzzle. It could be said that Uncle Dan’s influence is worldwide.

Uncle Dan’s provides a student discount as well as discounts to local customers from the Lincoln Park neighborhood and volunteers heading south to help rebuild homes and repair the damage from Hurricane Katrina last year. Which is good, because once customers visit the store, they’re going to need them. As one friend of mine (an avid camper) puts it, “I have a feeling I could drop some serious cash in there.”

Visit Uncle Dan’s online at http://www.udans.com.

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