Frost River Bags Review: Waxed Canvas Correspondent Brief Tested

I’m going to share my experience with the Frost River Correspondent Brief, a handy, medium-sized waxed canvas and leather briefcase made in the USA.

Waxed canvas is an underappreciated briefcase material, and you’ll see fewer on the market than nylon and leather briefcases. But I’d say it’s superior to nylon because it’s durable, water resistant, and develops a unique character as it ages.

It’s a fairly casual material and may not work for all offices, but the Correspondent is positioned as the kind of briefcase that might be used by a professional journalist, or some kind of swashbuckler. You’re swashbuckling, right?

After three weeks with my Frost River Correspondent Brief, it’s become my go-to for the daily commute. It easily fits my laptop, notebooks, pens, earbuds, and flashlight, and when caught in a rainstorm, the waxed canvas keeps everything perfectly dry.

I’ll break down the specs, functionality, price, alternatives, and a couple of criticisms I had while using it as my daily driver for commuting to and from the office.

Pros and Cons

Here is a breakdown of where this bag shines and a few things you should keep in mind if you’re interested in buying one.

What I Liked

• Great size for a daily commute to an office
• Great value for a US-made bag with these materials
• Cool vintage look without being too large or heavy
• Made in the USA with solid 18 oz. waxed canvas, S.B. Foot leather, and brass hardware
• Well-laid-out interior with plenty of slips, pockets, and pen holders
• Thick water-resistant waxed canvas holds up in light showers
• Fast service: mine arrived in under a week and they take less than 10 days to make you a bag if they’re out of stock
• Customization options available for your initials or state

Downsides but not dealbreakers 

• Color choices are limited to just black and brown (Field Tan); I have the Field Tan
• Rustic and vintage-looking aesthetic may look out of place in some professional environments
• The canvas is insanely thick at 18oz; I love it, but you might see it as unnecessarily increasing the bag’s price and weight.
• Hinged pin buckle closures make front pocket access slower than velcro or slide releases
• No padding to protect electronics or other fragile items 
• Shoulder strap is unpadded; you have to buy a padded one separately if you want one
• The metal zipper tabs make a lot of noise, sound like coins jingling in your pocket

About the Brand

Frost River, headquartered in Duluth, Minnesota, utilizes leather from Red Wing-owned S.B. Foot tanning company. (Many consider S.B. Foot one of the best tanneries for boot leather in the world.)

The company makes a wide range of canvas and leather bags including backpacks, satchels, luggage, purses, and briefcases. The canvas bags are almost all tan or black, and the leather components are brown or black. Flashy colorways aren’t part of the brand.

Frost River also offers limited customization options: monograms of your initials, a patch with your choice of any state in the USA, and different types of shoulder pads for some of their straps.

Frost River’s Correspondent Brief: The Specs

The Correspondent Brief is part of Frost River’s Shoulder Packs line. The specifications are as follows: 

SIZE	11in H x 17in W x 5in D (About 15.3L)
WEIGHT	3.5 lbs.
CLOSURE	Coil zipper with 2 pulls
EXTERIOR POCKETS	2 gusseted with leather strap and buckle closure
INTERIOR POCKETS	1 slip, 1 zipper pocket with smaller organizational pockets and business card holder
SHOULDER STRAP	1.5in cotton web, adjustable slide, snap hooks
HANDLES	Rolled leather
BASE	Leather
MATERIALS	18 oz. waxed canvas, premium oil tanned leather from S.B. Foot Tannery, solid brass hardware

First Impressions

• The bag oozes quality from the moment you unbox it
• Field Tan color is a handsome grey/green
• Shipping times can be faster than quoted

I received my Correspondent Brief four business days after purchase; shipping was quick with zero issues. If they’re out of stock and must make your bag, you’ll wait just 7 to 10 extra days.

After opening the package, I was greeted by a handsome Field Tan waxed canvas bag with leather reinforcements and front pocket straps. The bag is olive-drab, or grey-green, and the leather components are rich and dark brown. It’s also available in black the brand occasionally comes out with limited colors like Grey or “Old Glory Red.”

When you start manipulating the bag, the waxed canvas begins to patina.

Functionality

• Plenty of storage space for the overall size
• Useful and unobtrusive handles and shoulder strap
• Easy access to the front pockets

I bought this bag to replace an old messenger bag that was falling apart after 10 years of service. As my daily office commuter bag, it holds a work laptop, notebooks, pens, markers, earbuds, a small flashlight, and other assorted items.

Pockets and Storage

The Correspondent Brief has two front pockets with leather straps and brass buckle closures that are accessible without unzipping the main pocket. They’re the perfect size for an AirPods or Pixel Buds, a small flashlight, or anything else you want to be able to access without opening the main compartment. The buckle closures aren’t the quickest to open or close, although they’re easy to manipulate.

It also has an open pocket on the back that runs almost the full length of the briefcase. This pocket could hold a book, magazine, or overflow storage.

The Main Compartment

You access the main compartment through a metal zipper featuring two metal zipper pulls. The pulls hit each other and make noise, sounding like loose change bouncing around as you carry it. Contrast this with the deliberately soundless design of Cravar’s bags, which never have metal touching metal.

Once the main compartment is opened, you have a large open space, a large slip pocket, and a zipper pocket. The zipper pocket has tabs where you can store pens, markers, and similar items. The zipper on the zipper pocket and the zipper tab are metal.

The zipper pocket is large enough for a 14-inch Dell Precision laptop or a 16-inch Lenovo Legion Slim 7. It would also easily accommodate a 14- or 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Note that none of the pockets are padded, so you may want to invest in a pad or padded laptop sleeve.

Handles and Straps

You have two options for carrying the Correspondent Brief. The first is the two leather carry handles affixed to the bag with brass fixtures and stitching. They are great for shorter trips and aren’t too bulky or too delicate.

The other carry option is a 1.5-inch wide cotton shoulder strap. The strap features all brass hardware and attaches to brass D-rings on the sides of the zipper track. It can be quickly removed because it features snap hooks on either end.

Note that the shoulder strap you get with the bag is unpadded cotton . As an add-on, you can buy a $12 plain leather pad, a $25 buckskin pad, or a $45 leather shoulder strap with a pad. Those actually aren’t bad prices (Filson charges nearly $100 for theirs), but it would have been nice if it came with a strap that was padded.

The Waxed Canvas

The waxed canvas has a degree of water resistance inherent to the waxing. Although the bag isn’t advertised as waterproof, splashes of water or other liquids should bead up and run off the waxed canvas sections as long as the wax coating remains intact.

I can personally attest to its water-resistance after walking in a rainstorm on my morning commute recently, and everything in the bag was dry.

At 18 ounces, this is extremely thick and heavy canvas. Competitor Filson uses 14 ounce waxed canvas on their bags, and that’s considered on the higher end.

How I Used the Frost River Correspondent Pack

• Daily Office commuting
• Weekend visits to my parents’ house

I used the Correspondent Brief for a week, replacing my 10-year-old 5.11 XRay Messenger bag, which is no longer in production.

The Correspondent was my daily office commute bag and a weekend bag for trips to my parents. This meant it carried my work laptop, a paperback book or two, a notebook, pens, a Sharpie marker, my earbuds, and a flashlight every day to and from my home to the office.

It also carried books and my 16-inch gaming laptop to and from my home to my parent’s house without issue.

Something you might notice during use is that as a heritage bag, there’s no velcro or plastic clips — the buckles and zippers take more work to use than your average modern bag, and it’s heavier than your typical non-heritage bag as well.

But it carried all necessary work items without issue while being slightly smaller than the old 5.11 bag, making it handier.

It also looks and smells far better. I’d consider the Correspondent Brief a “business casual” bag, not a “business professional” bag. While it looks nice, it doesn’t look as fancy or refined as an all-leather briefcase. But it does look more mature and high quality than an all-synthetic bag festooned in reflective elements and bright colors.

Price

• Lower priced than other MiUSA competition
• More than some foreign competition, but not by much

The Frost River Correspondent Brief retails for $295. They make a few other Briefcase style shoulder bags starting at $190 with the Simple Brief, to the Navigator at $280, and the Pilot Brief at $295. 

Competitors

For some similar bags with similar capacity from similar competitors, Bradley Mountain’s USA-made Courier Briefcase is $395.

Filson has the 24-Hour Tin Cloth Briefcase for $395, although it’s no longer made in the states.

Finally, Cravar makes the C.O 15 in Waxed Twill in multiple colors, including Olive, Mocha, Navy, and Black, for $280 — in Indonesia.

Criticisms

• Noisy zippers
• Unpadded body and laptop sleeve
• No shoulder pad included
• Heavy

The bag has a few cons. First, the body and laptop sleeve have essentially zero padding, so be careful not to be too rough with it, or something fragile you’re carrying might get hurt. 

Second, the bag’s surprisingly noisy. The pull tabs clang off each other and the bag jangles as you walk. Some brands, like Cravar, purposely make their bags to never have metal touching metal specifically for this reason.

Like most bags that avoid synthetic materials, the Correspondent is heavy: 3.5 pounds when it’s empty. If you’ve got a lot of walking to do and you don’t have much practice carrying weights, you might feel it.

Lastly, you need to purchase a shoulder pad if you want one with padding or just one that’s made of leather.

Conclusion

All that said, the Correspondent Brief is a good buy at $295 for a made-in-the-USA waxed canvas and leather briefcase. I look forward to more Frost River bags in the future.