I have my Dad’s “smoking jacket” too =) [And I have my ex’s "SeAL panties also :D]
For larger-scale camping: Back in the 40’s and 50’s, my grandfather used to run camping trips into the Sierras. They’d get about a dozen guys, all on horseback, and a dozen packmules to carry all the gear. They’d be up there for a couple weeks fishing and set up a huge safari-sized camp. Their camp stove was an iron box he built that got set up on a table filled with dirt, and you’d build a wood fire inside it. On the way back down, they’d pack their last catch of fish in snow and it’s still be frozen a couple days later when they got back to their trucks at the trailhead.
Fortunately, all their trash is now deemed “historical artifacts”.
My dad had a massive canvas backpack; sort of triangular looking, with leather bits and straps. He used this for hiking and camping (and mountain climbing) in England and Norway just after the war. This back in the days when ski boots were big thick leather boots with thick soles, held on the skis by metal clamps. Pioneers and explorers were noted for their big thick leather boots, that as they wore out from frequent soaking eventually gave way to the natives’ more practical moccasins.
My dad used a small camping stove of metal, with a pressurized pump-up tank and used some sort of liquid fuel. Fuel was carried in thin aluminum cans, much like cooking oil and other liquids can be bought even today. Even 35mm film came in screw-top metal canisters before the ubiquitous plastic snap-on cans used up to now. Presumably you could also use screw-top cans for things like rice and dried beans. I even had a canvas covered metal (aluminum?) canteen from scouts days in the early 60’s. A useful scout tip (that I never say anyone use practically) was to rub a candle all over the inside of canvas bag to make it a bucket. Tents were fairly thick canvas before they were thin nylon.
I suspect the history of camping was the history of making metal containers ever thinner and lighter as time went on.
My father relates the story of someone on a camping trip who hung his wool gloves over the fire to dry… “It’s important to notice when the steam turns to smoke…” getting wet was always a hazard.