So here I am trying to sort through a tonne of junk in the basement, it never ceases to amaze me that even though I consider myself frugal, how much junk we tend to collect.

One of the first things that required a review was the Bug Out Bag, for those of you who don't know what one is, I give you a quote from Wikipedia:

“A bug-out bag is a portable kit containing all of the items one would require to survive for seventy two hours after evacuating from a disaster. It is also known as a 72 hour kit, an emergency kit or a disaster supplies kit. The focus on evacuation, rather than survival, distinguishes the bug-out bag from a survival kit.” - Wikipedia

Since we are planning on a big move, and our karma tends to get in the way, this is the first thing we should pay attention to. I have a little bit of a problem with the way most of these are set up, and the first thing is water.

Maybe because I live in Canada, and generally speaking there is water, water, everywhere ... in fact floods in the west are so common, I have a rust line in my basement. The other thing is the suggestion to have 1 gallon of water per person(4L) . First, we have a family of six, and carrying 24 litres of water would be insane. This is only true for British Columbia, I know there is as much water in Ontario as here, but you can't drink it safely. I do not know enough details in Quebec to comment, but I assume it is similar there as well.

I've done several 'walkabouts' over the years, and the most water I have ever carried is 1 litre. There are just to many fresh water sources to bother with any more. I also know that you need at least three thousand calories a day when your taking to the hills. That's a lot of calories folks, think about all the diet food out there that is only 100 calories. Forging for food in the bush isn't that hard for me here in BC, mainly due to the time of year I take to the hills, and also due to the richness of biomass in the areas I visit. But this wouldn't hold true in the prairies, in fact, if any of you readers out there take a plane trip across North America, try to do the bulk of it during the day light hours and look out the window. From province to province, state to state, all you can see are farm fields most of the time. There is no wild life areas left, I don't care what my fellow naturalists believe, a tree farm is not a forest. (There is one area of exception to this, and that is when one takes a flight from New York city across New Jersey, in that case all you see is concrete). From forty thousand feet in the area that, and a four hour flight at that, that is an enormous amount of area. I know that at ground level line of sight is at max 8 miles due to the curve of the Earth, I have no idea how vast that area is at forty thousand feet up. Anyway the point is, you can't just live on corn bread.

The amount of freeze dried food in you BOB is suppose to last you 72 hours. That's 9,000 calories per person. But how long that is suppose to last changes when you think that organizations like FEMA, and CDS are likely to fail. The real difference between a 72 hour kit and a bug out bag, is where you are going when you need to use it. The 72 hour kit is designed to help you out until some sort of emergency organization run by the government shows up to help you out. The bug out bag gets you to where you can help yourself out.

Therefore, you need a place to go.

In my situation, my bug out plan deals with getting the family to the hunting area I know. Even though I would use one of the jeeps I have access to, the kit is designed on the assumption that we would be on foot. It is important to note that this is a fall back position for us. The plan would not change much after we move onto the farm, only locations and distance. If you plan to set out to get out of the city at the 11^th hour, you should have two plans. One to get to where you plan to set up a more permanent base, the other encase that fails. That being said, consider moving out of the city, strongly.

I did some shopping around for some replacements for the MREs, and was greatly disappointed. I noticed that even thou the MREs were by Mountain House they were close to expiration. MRE packs last 4-10 years depending on storage temperature, longer than most canned food. This means that in order to get the high quality that is available from Mountain House, I'd have to order from them directly. (Side note: I believe that Mountain-Equipment Co-Op has these, and with their high turn over it is likely that you can get them there without being close to expiration, but I haven't checked yet)

Purchasing items off the net using your credit card is a security risk at the best of times, using the credit card to order multiple supplies for survival is guaranteed to raise red flags with Homeland Security, and CISIS. I strongly recommend investing the time and money into getting a mail drop, and looking for VISA gift cards. Vancity in British Columbia has the best for this purpose, but I've also heard that there are Master Card gift cards available from Macs Milk, always use cash to acquire these. If you know how to set up a pen name, and it is legal in your area use that as well.

When I go on a walkabout I tend to bring with me dry foods such as beans, mixed nuts, dried fruits, an instant chili and soups. (And lots of spices for fish, etc). The kits differ in having MREs because I do not think I'd have the time to do any hunting and fishing, and I know the wife, and kids don't like rabbit. Mountain House is the choice because the military surplus ones from A&N taste like shit, the trip would be hard enough for the kids.

For me the trip from our house on foot to the hunting area takes me about three days. That translates into about a week for the family. It's less the a one full day car ride in reality, but I'm thinking worse case here. That means my Bug Out Bags are out of date. I need to purchase 126 MREs. That starts getting into the realm of switching from MREs to straight freeze dried foods, to save on packaging weight and bulk. Taking that on foot would also slow us down, therefore our Bug Out Plans get help from Tim Hortons.

Tim Hortons is a donut chain in Canada similar to Krispy Kreme in the States, they make their own donuts on site in bulk every mourning, and the ingredients for those are delivered in food grade buckets, large ones. Unlike the one you can get from local Chinese Food Restaurants that contain cooking oil the ones from Tim's can be re-sealed fairly easy, most of the time the lids are intact. The added bonus being that they are not only free, but Tim's make the best coffee for the walk back with with ten buckets over your shoulder. Inside each of these, which my 16 year old was kind enough to start gathering, we've started placing food and bottled water supplies in that will last, including a few MREs for the youngest kids in order to cut down on costs.

The plan is to place them between the farm and the fall back in positions that are well hidden, buried, and evenly distributed for the week on the road if it ever came to that. The method is well known, basically you take industrial garbage bags, and line the buckets, then fill them, seal them, and then bury them inside another garbage bag. This helps create a water vapor seal, and provides protection against rodents. The plan includes doubling up the number I figure we will need, and placing them on route in even intervals.

That brings me back to the actual Bug Out Bag we carry.

There is only one type of tent that should ever be in a bug out bag, whether you live in the far north, or in the desert. It's called a Bivi, Bothy or Bivouac Bag. It is a little bit bigger then a sleeping bag, water and weather proof, light, and extremely fast to set up or take down. The best are made from rip stop materials, and allow both moisture to escape and breathable air to flow freely around your face with out the risk of frostbite. In Canada, I would only buy the ones they sell at Mountain Equipment Co-Op, I'm not sure where they can be bought in the States, but Gear Zone has them in the United Kingdom. Leave a comment on this article if you know anywhere else.

Next the BOB needs a water filter system, there is a great overview on water filtration on Mouth Shut by Arun Saxena [1] to use as a guide when looking into your own. The one I have used in the past was a ceramics based one, perfect for this use except for one thing, the device was made of plastic, and I worry about breakage. I'd like to see a stainless steel one.

I could go on about what else should be in a BOB, I'll likely post a list on this site soon anyway, but I just wanted to touch on the above, because not only is it on my mind, but I noticed that hardly anyone mentioned a Bivi. In the second part of this post I am going to get into detail about sleeping bags and hiking boots.

That's all for now thou.

- Wolfe