The Happy Camper: Goodbye Eureka!
I can’t say I was blindsided by the announcement from the Johnson Outdoor press release a few weeks ago stating they are “exiting its Eureka product lines.” I saw it coming a few years back when Jim Stevens retired from Eureka Canada.
Jim was the Sales Manager at Eureka Canada until he retired in 2020, and if you knew him, you’d agree that he was Eureka Canada. Jim had been designing tents and other pieces of camp gear for well over two decades.
The first time I walked into Jim’s office at Johnson Outdoors, it was like walking into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory or James Bond’s Q Laboratory. Samples of tent fabric were taped to the wall, sketches of canoe packs and camp chairs cluttered his desk and prototypes for packs and bug shelters were strewn about. He might have gone to university to become a gym coach, but he has spent most of his career getting people outdoors.
Jim has also been a good friend of mine for many years, and we’ve had a few canoe trips in the past. There’s no better person to have on a trip than the person who designed the exact gear you’re using, from the tent to the air mat.
Kevin Callan
Jim created the bestselling Eureka bug shelter which was originally used to save countless campground campers from the onslaught of early season pesky biting insects. I remember ordering one and asking him not to mail the poles. I wanted to use it in the background and just simply tie it to neighbouring trees. He had the same idea. And the rest is history. 
Kevin Callan
He also designed the El Capitan and the Midori tent, the two top-selling tents for backcountry paddlers. Both were well known to be very spacious and highly functional. Jim also created the popular waterproof canoe pack that we now see so many YouTube celebs using. And the list goes on.
Kevin Callan
Jim Stevens was also a key sponsor for my annual speaking tours across North America for a couple of decades. I couldn’t have presented at places like the Toronto Outdoor Adventure Show, Michigan’s Quiet Water Symposium, Midwest Spring Expo, Madison’s Canoecopia and countless local outdoor clubs, libraries and scout groups if it wasn’t for his help in paying for travel expenses.
So, needless to say, I was deeply saddened to hear about the closure of Eureka Canada. But again, I wasn’t surprised.
I won’t forget the Zoom meeting I had with Eureka US after Jim’s retirement. The meeting didn’t go well—through the conversation with them, I came to realize they had their sights set on front-country camping sales, not backcountry. What would happen to things like the bug shelter or waterproof packs? Would the renowned EI Capitan and Timberline be dropped from their sales catalogue? It was obvious to me that they were more keen on “consumers” rather than “customers,” and they perceived that Eureka Canada probably wouldn’t bring in a decent amount of cash flow with just canoe-tripping gear.
Kevin Callan
Truth be told, though, Canada sales were always up. Quality, until the end, was always up. So why the exit from Johnson Outdoors? Eureka was created far back in 1895, making canvas wagon covers, horse blankets and custom camp tents from its Binghamton workshop. Johnson Outdoors bought it in 1973. The Timberline tent—their bestselling tent which was a common shelter for Scouts Canada for years—was actually the first free-standing frame tent (with internal shock cords) made in North America. Eureka Canada has had a solid following for countless years. So, what happened?
According to the press release from Eureka:
“After careful and thoughtful consideration, we have decided to increase our focus on the opportunities in the Jetboil franchise and our strong position in the cooking segment. This was a very tough decision, but the right decision to make for the good of the company and its long-term success,” said Helen Johnson-Leipold, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
“We expect this will negatively impact Company sales by less than 1 percent for fiscal 2024. Additionally, the company expects to take a charge of approximately $4 million in fiscal year 2023 related to this decision,” said David Johnson, Chief Financial Officer. 
Kevin Callan
Johnson Outdoors are owners of consumer-preferred brands across four categories: Watercraft Recreation, Fishing, Diving and Camping. Johnson Outdoors’ iconic brands include Old Town® canoes and kayaks, Carlisle® paddles, Minn Kota® trolling motors, shallow water anchors and battery chargers, Cannon® downriggers, Humminbird® marine electronics and charts, SCUBAPRO® dive equipment and Jetboil® outdoor cooking systems.
To note, earlier in the year Johnson Outdoors made known the sale of Eureka’s military and commercial tent division to Rekord Group. The deal included Eureka’s original facility in Binghamton, New York, for an estimated price tag of $13.7 million. They added, at the time, that Johnson Outdoors said the deal would not include the Eureka brand name or the recreational side of the camping business. I’d be interested in knowing what happened with the military portion.
Some people on social media stated Eureka outsourced more lately and quality has gone down. I doubt that. Nothing seemed to have changed in regard to production in years. Eureka Canada sales were fine, but it was the US sales that dropped. I’m guessing Eureka US believed the big money was to be had with the masses of campground campers who shop at large chain stores like Walmart, not specialized backcountry gear purchased at top-quality outdoor stores.
Bad idea, I guess. Goodbye Eureka Canada. You will surely be missed. Hold on to your Timberline and El Capitan tents, everyone. They will certainly hold their value.
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What a shame, Eureka had the right combination of quality and price. I have the El Cap and Bug Zone because of Kevin introducing me to them.
Damn Yankees. Very sad to see Eureka exiting the tent business. I have a K2-XT and an El Capitan 3 Outfitter (I wish I’d kept the previous generation El Capitan I had, to be honest, but I liked the footprint covering the vestibule in the newer version). I was about to sell my K2-XT, as I have a Marmot Thor 3 and a Mountain Hardwear Trango 2, but then I realized that I can zip open 3 walls, 2 doors and part of the ceiling to make the K2-XT usable in the summer, and I’ll use the Thor and Trango in the winter, as they definitely don’t have the versatility of opening entire walls for summer use.. Such an awesome design, the K2-XT. I ended up selling a never used MSR Elixir 2 instead of the K2-XT. I think I made the right decision.
August 10, 2024
It was only yesterday that I found out that Eureka tents would soon cease to be sold! I was quite shocked, as in February, 2024, I went to the Outdoor Adventure Show in Mississauga and spent well over one hour exploring all the Eureka tents (and other equipment).
My friend and I have owned 3 since 2006, they’ve gone through plenty of canoeing and camping trips and have withstood violent storms, strong winds and pouring rain!
In 2021 I bought my most recent Eureka. Soon after, in my blog I posted a short movie featuring the new tent as well as wrote about my experience with all of my El Capitan 3 tents—which I’m posting below.
Eureka El Capitan 3 Tent
The first time I bought a Eureka El Capitan 3 tent in 2006, upon a personal recommendation of Kevin Callan, the legendary canoeist & author (whom I had met in Bon Echo park in 2003), and used it extensively while camping with Meetup groups and during numerous canoeing trips with my friend Catherine. In 2011 Catherine decided to buy her own tent—exactly the same model—and from then on we used hers, yet I still used mine whenever we were not camping or travelling together.
However, after 14 years of rather extensive usage my tent was getting a little too old and it was the time to invest in a new one. I had considered purchasing a different model, made by a different company, but after researching similarly priced tents, the El Capitan 3 was, in my opinion, the best one. Its main advantages were two very spacious vestibules (perfect for keeping numerous bags, especially during canoe trips), two separate entrances, totally waterproof fly and a lot of guy points to attach guy ropes to keep it secure in case of strong winds. We used the last feature many times; once we set up the tent on a top of a flat rock; at night the winds reached 75 kilometers per hour, yet the tent withstood such weather and kept us dry and warm. I think that a reliable tent is the most important piece of camping equipment and it makes no sense to buy a cheap one, which is going to leak the first time it rains.
However, even such reputable company as Eureka sometimes turns out a substandard product—unfortunately, Catherine’s El Capitan 3 was one of them. Just after she bought it, I realized that something was weird with the zippers, which did not work as smoothly as the ones in my tent. Besides, we could tell the workmanship was inferior—for example, the stitching in the fly pole pocket unraveled the first time we used the tent. After the camping season was over, I drove to Burlington and dropped the tent off at Eureka’s office to be repaired under the warranty.
The following camping season (2012) we noticed that the mesh was separating at certain parts of the door where the puckering occurred. Two or 3 tiny holes appeared which we taped up. Also the strain on the zipper caused it to break up for a 30 cm separation. Catherine was able to sew it shut so the zipper did not continue to unravel. But it did mean that we could not fully open the door though. In 2013 part of the door mesh totally separated and we had to perform an extensive repair which left us unable to fully open the door. On our first backcountry trip in 2014 in Killarney Provincial Park another segment of the mesh on the door gave way (at least one meter) and suddenly our tent was filled with black flies and mosquitoes. Luckily, we brought Gorilla tape with us and were able to repair the door by patching up the openings. Besides, we had noticed that the fine stitching in the mesh was running / laddering and we knew that if this process continued, soon black flies and then mosquitoes would be able to enter out tent. For all intents and purposed, the tent became unusable!
I wrote an email to Eureka Tents in Burlington, Ontario, describing our problems and attaching a bunch of photographs, clearly depicting the issues we described. Lo and behold, the Eureka rep immediately offered us a brand new tent! We drove to Burlington, dropped off the defective one and got a new one! He said that after reading our email, he was sure that indeed, we must have gotten a dud! And most likely he was right: the new tent has been working impeccably since 2014, the one I bought in 2021 so far has been perfect, and my old one, now 15 years old, is still quite usable and does not even leak! In any case, I was impressed with Eureka’s customer service—some companies will do anything to “save” a few bucks, yet they do not realized that in the long run they are going to lose a lot of customers!