Remember kids: guns are the sexy part of survivalism. There’s still a lot of other stuff involved that isnt nearly as fun or sexy. Case in point:

One

One of Canada’s few leading exports that isn’t toxic… (Canaduh is North America’s leading exporter of asbestos, acid rain, and Biebers.) The Scepter cans have a decent reputation and for water storage I rather like them. I don’t like them for fuel storage but then again I am not a fan of any plastic fuel container. When it comes to fuel, it’s Wavian/Valpro or nothing.

Anyway, I was thinking that it was time to replace my ancient surplus British water cans that I bought about 15 years ago. Or, at least retire them to secondary status. The thing I like about these Scepter cans is the enormous mouth on them. It’s large enough that  I can fit the end of a stirrup pump in there and have five-gallons of water for firefighting anywhere I can haul this on an ALICE frame. And, of course, the large  mouth makes it easier to get in there and clean.

I’ll rinse these out with hot water and dish detergent, and then it’s a fillup of clean water and baking soda to eliminate that annoying plastic smell. Then it’s time to fill them, hang them from the rafters with some newsprint on the floor below them, and check on them the next day for leaks. (You do always check your liquid containers for leaks before you commit to using them, don’t you?)

These cans aren’t cheap. I can get cheaper ones from Winco that will probably do just as good a job sitting on a shelf in my basement. But the apocalypse doesn’t always look like a simple trip to my safe, secure, well-lit, temperate basement. Sometimes it looks like heaving 40# cans of water into the back of a truck and bouncing them down a fire road as the bang up and jostle with other gear. Thats what I’m paying the extra for…survivability. Its a virtual certainty these will sit on the shelf in the basement until such time as I need them and their contents….and any reasonably well made plastic water container will work for that. But for that (waitforit) dark and stormy night at 3am where we’re tossing ammo, water, fuel, packs, and food in the back of a truck with the goal of getting outta here now now now….well, thats where the extra money is going.

Hmmm. A package of four Lifestraws for $35. That’s..uhm…carry the one….$8.75 ea. Thats not a terrible deal for something that you should have in your truck, go-bag, hunting pack, and elsewhere. My local CostCo also had some Goal0 stuff, but I was more interested in the deal on the LifeStraws. If I didnt already have a dozen of these I might pick up a package of these to use as Paratus gifts.

This is rather interesting, if true:

Again, I have no idea if this is true or not. But if it is, then it seems to suggest the LifeStraw is living up to it’s advertising.

These things come up on sale at Amazon once in a while and I always keep one in my bag when I’m out in the woods. While it’s true you can “last three days without water” you’ll really, really wish you died on that first one when you drink bad water. Being in a ‘survival situation’ is already fraught with hazards…why add ‘dying of a terminal case of the runs’ to it?

Advertised as being good for 1000 gallons of water, that would mean you could drink about 2.75 gallons a day for a year outta this thing. But, be real…most emergencies that require this sort of device are going to be of much shorter duration…a few days or a week. At which time, with a replacement cost of less than twenty bucks, toss it and get a new one.

As I said, I’ve seen these come up for sale on Amazon every so often and I think they’re a piece of gear thats worth having around in quantity. For real convenience, they make a water bottle with the filter built in…which means when youre on the run you just scoop your bottle through the creek or river, cap it up, and start drinking. I can see that as being a very handy thing.

I usually wait for a sale on Amazon but, geez, with the way things are going these days you have to juggle ‘supply chain issues’ (Read: shortages) against saving a few bucks.

I hate hot weather. I mean, I really hate it. I love the dress code as women in this college town suddenly start running around in sundresses and sports bras (summer is only second to Halloween for ‘lets dress skimpily because its socially acceptable at this moment’) but that’s barely enough to make the discomfort of the heat worth it.

And, of course, when it’s hot ya gotta ‘hydrate’…or as we used to say in the less-woke days, ‘drink’.

In the heydey of 70’s and 80’s survivalism your water toter of choice was the GI canteen. Plastic ones were just starting to turn up and you most likely had a metal one that could have been carried by grandpa in WW2 or Uncle Billy in ” ‘Nam “…(Why do people shorten it to ‘Nam’? Why not ‘Viet’?..”Yeah, we served together in Viet back in ’68”)  They were durable but they were loud and sometimes leaked at the seams.

As the 80’s rolled in, we got basically the exact same canteen but now made of green plastic. With an NBC cap. An improvement? Depends on who you ask. Some folks didnt like that youy couldnt heat up the plastic canteens.

Fast forward a bit more and the Middle Easy is now where the action is. ‘Hydration bladders’ are the thing…basically a giant IV bag and tubing. Convenient? Yes. Carries a lot of water? Yes. Bulky? Yes. But, no two ways about it, its a handy way to drink on the go.

For the survivalist who isn’t fetishicizing military gear, the ubiquitous Nalgene bottle, with it’s amazing aftermarket accessory support, really comes pretty close to being Numbah One choice. The accessories available make the Nalgene bottle the AR-15 of water storage – modular, adaptable, and cheap.

Another alternative that I highly recommend are the collapsible Nalgene/Platypus ‘water bottles’. These are basically hydration bladders that are used by themselves as drink containers. Their huge advantage is that a) when empty you can roll them up to take up virtually no space in your gear and b) as you drink from them you can squeeze out the air so there is no sloshing noise like you’d get from a half-filled canteen. Big improvement.

And, interestingly, splitting the difference..the guys at Nalgene make a version of the GI canteen that comes pretty close to replacing the GI model, but with the convenience of lighter weight and transparency. Nalgene also makes a bladder-like product that uses the same screw-on lids as the rigid Nalgene bottles…which means that you can use all your accessory lids with it. Handy.

My preference? For static places like in the vehicle or at a temporary base, I like the 64 oz/ 2 L. size large bottles. For day-to-day use I like the regular rigid 32 oz, bottles. However, for tromping around in the boonies, I prefer the .5L or 1.0L Platypus for its stealthy properties and space-saving potential.

Another nice thing about the Nalgene and Platypus is that its extremely convenient to fill them about 1/3 of the way up and then freeze them. Once frozen, fill the rest of the container with water and go about your day. Very refreshing.

As an aside, the water I keep in the vehicle is store-bought bottled water. Why? Because those little plastic bottles are darn near impervious, cheap, and handy. They freeze/thaw without damage, and are handy to throw in a pocket if needed. In the summer, when i travel, I don’t screw around..I throw a 5-gallon water jug in one of the gas can racks in addition to the usual on-board water supply. I don’t mind being hungry for a day or two, but nobody likes being thirsty for a day.

Whatever you choose for your preferred water-carrying container, get a bunch of them. More than you think you’ll need. I’ve a collection of Nalgene bottles that must number almost a dozen. Theyre cheap and work perfect for their given task…why wouldn you have extras?

In storage I have a couple of milk crates that hold nothing but various water containers. Some of these things go a ways back. Over thirty years of being a survivlist has given me the opportunity to try all sortsa things…some worked, some didn’t; some lasted; some didn’t.

I distinctly recall, as a young and wildly stupid lad of 14 or so, when the first hydration bladder (“CamelBak”) hit the market. I can’t recall the brand name but it was the most novel and bizarre contraption. It looked like something you’d find in an emergency room rather than in a back pack. (Trivia: hydration bladders got their start from repurposed IV bags and tubing.)

Of course, starting in the 80’s, everyone’s go-to was the ubiquitous military canteen which had just been transitioned to plastic.They were somewhat inexpensive, seemed to work, worked with the ALICE gear which was all the rage at the time, and were widely available. Drawbacks? The die-hards never quit wailing about how because it was plastic you would melt it when you mated it with your canteen cup if your canteen cup was still hot from boiling up some water. Also, they tended to smell rather strongly of plastic. Nalgene makes a version that I have tried and can endorse, although they don’t fit quite right in a military canteen cup and cover.

Moving forward, Nalgene bottles started migrating from something that was almost exclusively a backpackers piece of gear to something a bit more mainstream. They were capacious, modular, and very durable. Drawbacks? The BPA scare that caused people to turn towards stainless bottles and forced bottle makers to reformulate their plastic with, according to some people, a decrease in durability. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the Nalgene bottles. There are all sorts of aftermarket accessories and pouches available for them and I will often use them when I need a ‘hard’ water container.

Continuing along the evolutionary highway, the hydration bladders showed up and these pretty much still dominate the hydration-on-the-go market. Eventually the military caught on and started issuing them. Their biggest advantage has been the ‘hands-free’ usage of them, the ability to carry a large quantity of water, and the reduced bulk since as they empty they can be compressed. Drawbacks are that theyre sometimes tough to keep clean and, depending on circumstances and manufacture, they can suffer damage.

A nice byproduct of the evolution of the hydration bladder was the collapsible water bottle. I remember exactly when I first became aware of these. I was in Alaska visiting some glacier and the park ranger was drinking from one of these. I was immediately fascinated and asked her if I could examine the product. It was, as I recall, a Platypus of some kind. I had no idea such things existed but I knew I was seeing the future of on-the-go water carriage. These things are my go to for carrying water when out in the sticks. The biggest attraction is that as you drink, you can squeeze the air out of the ‘bottle’ so that there is no noise from water ‘sloshing’ around. This was always a headache with rigid canteens and water bottles. And, when empty, you can roll the thing up and tuck it way where it takes up no room. I keep two of them in my Bag O’ Tricks so that in a crisis I can load up on water and take it with me. In an emergency, when you’re on your feet and moving, you may not know when and where you’re next opportunity to get water may arise. It’s nice to have extra containers along, that take up no room when empty, so that when you do find that hose bib or lawn sprinkler that works you can load up. (Tangent: I have always hated those scenes in movies where someone is stranded somewhere, they drink the last drop of water, and then they look at their empty canteen in disgust and throw it away. Idiot! If you find another water supply how are you going to carry the water????)

And, interestingly, there’s a rather neat hybrid system that I’ve found extremely useful. Made by Source, this kit turns your Nalgene water bottle (or other water bottle) into a tube-feed hydration system. Highly recommend. (The Source ‘tactical’ line is probably one of the more survivalist-oriented lines of these types of products.) Nalgene makes water bottles in larger sizes that still use the same diameter cap, so you can have a nice big jug of water in your pack or in the seat pocket behind you and plenty of water. The Source products also feature modular attachment points for bite valves and bladder connectors, which allow you to fill you reservoir without taking it out of the pack. Good stuff.

And finally, for ease of use, disposability, and all around convenience, a couple cases of cheap bottled water are handy. Shove a couple in your pack or in the trunk of your vehicle and leave ’em there. I’ve had them go through dozens of thaw/freeze cycles and never had one fail.

When Im out on my bike or running around tow, I usually just have a Nalgene bottle with me…I can abuse it and know it’ll be just fine. When I’m out in the woods, I have some sort of hydration system like the Platypus to keep things quiet and compact. And for just general hand-out-to-the-unprepared I have plenty of surplus military canteens floating around.

By the by, the Nalgene and Platypus product freeze quite well. In hot summers like we are having now, I usually fill them 1/4 with my preferred beverage and let them freeze solid. Then fill the remaing 3/4 with whatever I plan on drinking. Keeps things cold all day…especially if you’re dropping that hydration reservoir into an insulated pouch.

Anyway…if you’re still rocking the OD plastic canteen from 1985, more power to you. But, you may wanna examine some of the newer options out there.