I found the article below while doing some historical research in the archives of out local newspaper. It describes packbasket use during that time and even recounts the role of the baskets in the exploits of a few scofflaws. I retyped it to include it here:
AN ADIRONDACK INDUSTRY
Where Baskets are Made – Interesting Story of the Manufacture
of Convenient Article – Indians Make Them in the Primitive
Way – Are a Novelty to Tourists
This is the season when local dealers get a considerable demand for pack-baskets. The pack-basket is peculiar to the Adirondacks, where it probably originated with the Indians.
Many of the baskets sold in this section are hand made by the St. Regis tribe, a remnant of which still remains on the St. Regis Reservation. The baskets are made from ash splints in primitive fashion, by pounding an ash sapling until the wood splits off in thin splints along the cleavages of the grain. The splints are then drawn against a stationary knife, which splits them to the desired widths. The basket is fashioned with a slight hollow to conform to the shoulders and makes a convenient receptacle for campers to carry their belongings in.
In the larger cities, there are perhaps one or two sporting goods houses where the Adirondack pack-basket may be bought, but it is not uncommon for people in various parts of the country to send in orders to the Adirondack villages for baskets.
An instance of this occurred last winter. Some people who had been here during the summer were about to start for Florida and wanted some pack-baskets for their outfit. They found that they could not buy them in their own state and the order came to the Adirondacks.
A pack-basket is somewhat of a novelty to the tourist, and he uses it for a few days or week on his trip, so niceties as to shape or adjustment don’t matter much to him. With the guides it is different, as they use their baskets a great deal. Much attention is therefore paid to the shape, and its adjustment to the shoulders, as these points make a great deal of difference in the ease with which loads may be carried.
The pack-basket occupies no small place in the hunting lore of the Adirondacks. Last winter C. M. Daniels of Sabattis, was offering large prices for mink, otter and other fur-bearing animals delivered to him live. A guide succeeded in trapping an otter without hurting him, but the problem was to secure him and make a good delivery uninjured. The ever ready pack-basket was his solution to the problem. By no mean strategy he succeeded in getting the animal into the basket; putting his coat over the mouth of it, and transporting it to a safe place, although the otter fought every inch of the way. The tough ash splints withstood the attack of its teeth but were in sorry condition.
Again there are times when somebody shot the wrong kind of deer, that is, a doe, which in recent years the law has prohibited. There are some hunters willing to take a chance and the quartered doe meat has come out of the woods in an innocent looking pack-basket.
Perhaps the best story of this class is that of an old guide who used to be in this section. He claimed that when the law prohibiting the hounding of deer went into effect he trained a small fox hound to jump into the pack-basket and remain perfectly still at a given signal. In this way he got the dog out of the village when starting on a hunting trip, and concealed when necessary during the hunt. He claimed that he had ridden on one occasion in the same wagon with a game protector, with his accomplished dog in the basket.
Chateaugay Record Chateaugay, NY September 11, 1914
