Wannigan

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A portable camp used for storing supplies while away from home
2. a structure or container designed for keeping items secure while traveling or camping
3. an arrangement for temporarily housing equipment and belongings during outdoor activities

Etymology: Before it named a canoe-country supply box, "wannigan" meant a kind of trap. The word comes from Abenaki "waniigan," which referred to a pit trap or a container for sundries, and it is related to the Ojibwe "waanikaan," meaning a pit or excavated hole. Both Algonquian languages share a root for something dug into the ground, and the English form "wammikin," also drawn from Algonquian, reached the language earlier as a term for a wooden trap. The sense moved from the hole to what was kept in it. Lumbermen and woodsmen in the northern forests of North America used "wannigan" for a box or cache of supplies, often kept on a river drive or in camp, and later for a small shack or cook-boat carrying gear. A traveler's word for a hidden storage pit thus became the name for a portable store of necessities, which is why the term still means an arrangement for holding equipment and belongings on an outdoor trip.

Synonyms: camp kitchen, field kitchen, mobile kitchen