thanks everyone for some great advice.

I actually was at MEC in Montreal yesterday (though we did drive around
about 5 times to find the place... i need to work on understanding that
"SUD" can sometimes mean North in Montreal.

Anyway, you are right -- they have a great assortment of packs and I tried
on about a million. I think I may have found a couple that fit, but I didnt
want to commit yesterday because there were a couple more I wanted to try
stateside. I suppose I should just bite the bullet, but I'll probably check
out a couple at Ragged or LLBean in the next couple of weeks.
So thanks everyone for the great advice

Lynnie