The gear I recommend.

The number one need: aim for at least 6 litres per person, 12 to be comfortable. How you store it matters as much as how much you have.

Collapsible water jug

Lies flat when empty, carries easily when full thanks to its handle, and its tap lets you pour one-handed. The simplest way to add several litres to your reserve without taking up space.

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WaterBOB — bathtub reservoir

A 100-gallon food-grade bladder that unrolls into the bathtub and fills in about twenty minutes. When a storm is announced, you put more than 350 litres of clean water in reserve — without the problem of a bare tub, which gets dirty and drains slowly. Stores in a box the size of a book.

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LifeStraw — personal filter

Your guarantee of drinkable water even once the reserve runs out. It filters up to 4,000 litres, needs no battery and no chemicals, and fits in a pocket. It's the first item I put in an evacuation bag.

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Sawyer Mini — screw-on filter

Its big advantage over other personal filters: it screws directly onto a standard water bottle. You fill the bottle, screw on the filter, and drink normally — instead of lying down at the edge of a stream to suck water through a straw. It also attaches to a hydration bladder.

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Berkey — gravity purification

The system that makes a household truly self-sufficient: water passes by gravity through the filter elements, with no electricity, no pressure and no wear parts to replace often. This is the level 3 solution — the one that lets you treat water from a well, a lake or a stream for weeks at a time.

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Aquatabs — purification tablets

The lightest and cheapest solution: one tablet per litre, and the water is drinkable in about thirty minutes. Canadian format, long shelf life. Keep them in the kit permanently — they take up no space and they almost never expire.

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Stainless steel military canteen

A single-wall bottle sits straight on the coals to boil water — the purification method that still works when the filter is frozen or clogged. Definitely not a vacuum-insulated model: a double-wall bottle bursts on a fire. This one comes with a metal cup that doubles as a cooking pot.

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A reserve built from food your family actually eats — and the means to cook it without electricity.

Heavy-duty manual can opener

The most common oversight in all of emergency preparedness: thirty cans in the pantry, and the only can opener in the house is electric. This model is sturdy, it leaves no sharp rim, and its magnet holds the lid. A purchase that lasts decades.

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Dual-fuel butane and propane stove

Its decisive advantage: it takes both fuels. Butane is cheap and easy to find, but it loses power in cold weather; propane works well in winter and is sold in every hardware store in Quebec. With a dual-fuel stove, you never depend on a single supply.
Outdoor use only — never indoors and never in the garage.

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FoodSaver vacuum sealer

The appliance that changes a long-term reserve the most. Removing the air multiplies the shelf life of dry goods — rice, legumes, flour, coffee — and protects frozen portions from freezer burn. It is also what makes a rotating pantry genuinely worthwhile: you buy in bulk when it's on sale, and nothing goes to waste.

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Mylar bags and oxygen absorbers

The step above vacuum sealing. Mylar blocks light and moisture, and the absorbers remove the oxygen that remains: rice, legumes or oats packed this way keep for decades, not months. It's the method I use for the foundation of the pantry — the part you seal once and forget about.

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Food dehydrator

What turns a surplus into a reserve. Garden tomatoes in August, autumn apples, beef on sale: dehydrated, they keep for months without electricity and take up ten times less space. It's also the cheapest way to build a reserve — you only pay for the electricity used to dry the food.

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Long-life emergency rations

Five-year shelf life, no cooking, no dishes. These compressed bars don't replace your pantry: they're the baseline reserve you forget in a cupboard and that will still be good in four years. Note they provide about 1,200 kcal a day — a level designed for someone waiting for help, not someone shovelling snow.

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Freeze-dried meals

The opposite of ration bars: a real hot meal, but one that needs boiling water. It's the complement that makes a reserve bearable by day three, when morale counts for more than calories. Shelf life of 25 to 30 years, and you eat straight out of the pouch.

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Folding solid-fuel stove

The little brother of the tabletop stove: it folds flat, burns tablets or twigs, and depends on no canister you have to buy again. Slower — about ten minutes for 500 ml — but it doesn't freeze, doesn't leak and doesn't go flat after six months in a drawer. Outdoor use only.

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Solid fuel tablets

Fifteen grams, about ten minutes of clean flame, no black smoke. They feed the folding stove, but their second use may be the better one: they light even when damp and burn long enough to catch wet wood. Store them in a sealed bag — the smell gets into food.

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Lighting, charging, heat or cooling: enough to get through comfortably when the grid gives out.

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Have the panels but not the rest? A full page covers it: charge controllers, batteries, inverters and protection, organized by your system voltage — 12 V, 24 V or 48 V — with a table to help you choose.

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BLUETTI portable power station

The solution that settles the most dangerous problem in an outage: it can be used indoors with no risk of carbon monoxide whatsoever, unlike a generator. Silent, it powers the fridge, phones, lighting, a pump or a medical device. It recharges from the grid, in the car or from solar — it's the heart of level 2 self-sufficiency.

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Folding USB solar panel

As long as there's sun, your phones, headlamps and power banks will never go flat — even after a week without power. It folds like a document case and clips onto a bag.
Worth noting: its outputs are USB, so it powers small devices. To recharge a power station, you need a more powerful panel with a DC output.

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Headlamps — multi-pack

If you were only going to buy one thing, this would be it. One per person, children included. Having your hands free changes absolutely everything: cooking, changing a diaper, fixing something, going down to the basement. A flashlight takes up one hand; a headlamp gives you both back. The multi-pack settles the question for the whole household at once.

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Anker power bank

The bare minimum, and the cheapest item on the whole list. A charged phone means the Hydro outage map, weather alerts, and a way to tell your family you're all right. Keep it in the kit and recharge it twice a year, at the time changes — that's the only maintenance it needs.

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Staying informed and reachable, even if the cellular network goes down.

Midland ER310 — emergency radio

Three ways to power it: hand crank, solar panel or batteries. It picks up automatic weather alerts, so it wakes you if a warning is issued overnight. It also works as a flashlight and can put a little charge back into a phone. It's the device that keeps working when everything else is dead.

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Baofeng — programmable handheld radio

Communication that depends on no network at all: when the cell towers go down, these radios still work. They also let you listen to emergency service and weather frequencies.
Worth knowing before you buy: listening is always allowed, but transmitting on the amateur radio bands requires the basic certificate from ISED Canada. It's an accessible exam, and one I recommend taking if you want to use this kind of radio fully. To communicate with no certificate at all, GMRS/FRS radios are what you want.

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Rechargeable batteries and charger

They close the self-sufficiency loop: with the solar panel or the power station, you recharge your batteries indefinitely instead of running down a supply that doesn't renew itself. Choose a low self-discharge model — it holds its charge for years in a drawer, which is exactly what you want from an emergency kit.

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Battery organizer with tester

Nothing is more frustrating than perfect equipment with dead batteries — and nothing takes longer than rummaging through three drawers in the dark. Everything is stored in one place, by size, and the built-in tester tells you which ones are still good. It's the accessory that makes the time-change check genuinely quick: you test, you replace what's weak, and it's done in five minutes.

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Eight months a year in Quebec, hypothermia acts faster than thirst or hunger. It's the category people underestimate most.

Reflective emergency bivy

The sack version, not the blanket: it reflects heat back over the whole body and blocks the wind, whereas a blanket slips off the moment you move. The material resists tearing, unlike thin mylar that punctures the first night. One per person, plus one to insulate you from the ground.

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Reflective poncho

It covers the person and their pack, and its reflective lining also makes it a survival blanket once wrapped around you. Two functions in one item — rare when every gram counts. Note: no corner grommets, so this isn't a poncho you string up as a shelter between two trees.

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Insulated work gloves

Leather with an insulating liner: they hold the heat while still letting you handle sheet metal, broken glass or a frozen branch. That's what sets them apart from winter mitts, warm but useless the moment you have to work. Try them on with your coat: too tight, they cut off circulation and chill you.

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Stormproof matches

They burn in wind and rain, and relight themselves after being dunked in water. Gram for gram it's the most reliable fire insurance there is — a lighter freezes or runs empty. The waterproof case and spare strikers matter as much as the matches: the original striker is the first thing to get soaked.

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It isn't dramatic injuries that cause trouble, but the ones that stop you walking or that get infected.

Trauma kit with tourniquet

This isn't an ordinary first aid kit. Its difference comes down to one object: the tourniquet, which separates a kit that can treat a hemorrhage from one that can treat a scratch. Tourniquets sold individually on marketplaces are widely counterfeited — hence the value of a serious brand. A tourniquet is only worth having if you know how to use one, though: a day of first aid training pays off more than any purchase on this page.

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Certified N95 masks

Their most likely use in Quebec isn't medical: it's wildfire smoke, which made the air hard to breathe several summers in a row, and dust after damage. Insist on genuine NIOSH certification rather than a procedure mask. The foldable model doesn't get crushed at the bottom of a drawer over two years.

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The container decides everything else: too small and you leave the essentials behind; too big and you can no longer carry it.

50 L hiking backpack

The size that holds three days of self-sufficiency without turning into a move. The criterion that comes first is the padded hip belt: it's what transfers the weight onto your hips, and what makes the difference after an hour of walking. Rain cover included, which saves another purchase.

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Convertible 60 L carry-on

For evacuating by vehicle, where it's no longer about carrying comfort but volume and quick access. It opens flat like a suitcase, converts into a duffle, and fits as carry-on baggage. No hip belt, though: this isn't the one you carry on foot for an hour.

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Roll-top dry bags

Three or four bags in different colours and a pack's contents stop being a jumble: one for clothing, one for food, one for electronics. You find what you're after without emptying everything on the ground, and nothing gets wet. A roll-top closure holds better than a zipper.

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Waterproof document pouches

After a disaster come the formalities: the insurance claim, temporary housing, replacing identity documents. The people who come through best are those who had their papers with them. These are transparent — you read without taking documents out, and the touchscreen works through the plastic. Watch the size: a letter sheet fits folded in half, not flat.

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What makes the hard days bearable, and what lets you repair whatever breaks along the way.

Multi-tool with pliers

One tool only, but a good one. The pliers shut a water or gas valve, and the scissors cut duct tape and dressings far better than a blade. Buy a brand that guarantees its tool for life rather than three successive copies: this is an object you hand down, not one you replace.

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Compact duct tape

Nine metres in a case the size of a pebble, with a shell that keeps the tape from sticking to itself. It repairs a tear, a separated sole, a tent pole, and immobilizes an ankle in a pinch. Check it once a year: cheap tape adhesive dries out after two winters somewhere unheated.

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550 paracord with utility strands

It rigs a shelter, replaces a bootlace, hangs food out of reach of animals, ties a load to a car roof. This one goes further than ordinary paracord: alongside the seven nylon strands it carries fishing line, waxed fire-starter tinder and utility wire, braided inside. Three more tools, without a gram more.

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Pealess emergency whistle

It carries a kilometre and doesn't wear out your voice, which gives out after a few minutes of shouting. The pealess model is the only one that holds up in winter: a pea freezes and the whistle goes silent. Plastic rather than metal — metal sticks to your lips in deep cold. The cheapest and most useful item in the whole shop.

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Personal hygiene kits

The category people cut first because it looks trivial, and the one that most changes the mood of a third day without running water. Six complete kits: toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, soap, comb. You'll still want to add wet wipes, compressed toilet paper and contractor-grade garbage bags.

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