The Knife.  An honorable mention.  The knife makes it onto my Baker’s Dozen list because everyone includes it in their lists too.

A knife is a very personal choice.  Either folding or fixed-blades work. Doug Ritter’s site has an excellent article discussing how to choose a survival knife.

I am by no means a knife expert, but trolling though blogs and reviews has pointed me to these popular brands in no specific order: TOPS, Mora, Condor, Benchmade, Spyderco, Camillus, and Ontario Knife Company (OKC) , just to name a few that provide reasonably priced, excellent quality knives.  The Mora and Condor knives are the most value-priced in this list.  The great survivalist (from Dual Survival TV show fame) Cody Lundin has carried a wood-handled Mora for decades, and Surviorman (Les Stroud) works with Camillus and Helle of Norway, while Doug Ritter partnered with Benchmade to model his own knife design — based of course, off an existing popular Benchmade knife.

Currently I am proud to be carrying the Condor Kephart for my camping trips, pictured above.  I’m partial to Condor because of their price point.  I think its the best bang for the buck.  I have no relationship with them, and get no benefits from them.  Starting in 2018, I’m also carrying a blue plain-edge  Benchmade 535 Bugout as a neck knife, since it is so light-weight.  It is a surprisingly sharp and useful folder.  Very happy with it.

Condor Tool & Knife make very competitively priced knives in El Salvador.  What drew me to the Kephart knife was that it had a wooden handle with a rounded pommel (no sharp corners to poke holes in my backpack), a slightly longer 4.5″ blade that was just a bit thicker and more robust than a kitchen chef’s knife, and a gently curved finger guard.  For my personal tastes, I also liked the weight and balance of the knife and I prefer the drop point blade profile, which has a good “belly” for all the slicing that I do when preparing the steaks and veggies to be grilled on the campfire.  I also have the Condor Bushlore (large version) that I use for other purposes, and would consider the Condor Mayflower if it came in a 4″ version.

If this was my first blade, I would suggest a non-folder, with full tang, and at least a 3.5″ to 4.25″ blade.  It will remind you of a basic kitchen knife which everyone is comfortable using.  In fact, there is nothing preventing you from going to Target or Walmart, and getting a regular kitchen paring knife if you don’t want to spend $40+ on a heavier duty camping knife.  Two additional recommendations are the Benchmade 15006 (2020 version) or 15008 (pre-2020) Steep Country, and the Kershaw Camp 5, both of which are great slicers.

Survival knifes usually boast a very thick blade, so they can withstand being pommeled to split wood, but I don’t agree with this use.  You can always split wood by driving a wooden wedge into a log, and saving your knife blade for better uses.  That is why I ALWAYS carry an axe when camping.

Jay Fisher has written the definitive article on the anatomy of a knife, you are interested in reading more about how a knife is put together and the various terms.

This article is more about communication than a whistle.

You can carry around a mirror, or even a flare gun if you want, but most children don’t really know how to use these unless they’ve been trained.  An adult can figure out how to use a mirror or other signalling tool through trial and error, but if you’re with kids that are under 12, then chances are they can use their lungs better than their brains.

I always consider the lowest common denominator when I go camping, in terms of safety and knowledge.  Everyone needs to be able to use a signal device in case of emergency.  I’ve come to the remarkable conclusion — as many others have in their brilliant wisdom — that whistles are great emergency communication devices and happen to be very portable, cheap and come in lots of different colors.

The international call for distress on land would be 3 blasts from a whistle.

There are so many brands and types of whistles:  pea-less, loudest, compact, titanium, pink…you name it.

What I have found from testing about 40 different types of whistles with my kids, is that the best whistles — ones that everyone clearly recognize — are actually classic pea-based sporting event whistles, even though the pea is touted as a failing point.

Unless you submerge a really cheap pea-based whistle underwater for hours on end, the pea (usually made of cork and specially treated for moisture resistance to withstand all the water-rich air your lungs produce), will actually not deteriorate, expand, jam, or fail.  Some peas are synthetic, so they can only possibly jam, but the engineers have put some thought into preventing events like that from happening.

Pea-less sound is the key selling feature of brands like FOX40, Molten, and others.  Don’t get me wrong:  Pea-less whistles have no moving parts so they are indestructible, but there is something about the lower-pitch and dual-tone clarity of a pea-based whistle that you can’t miss when you hear it.

FOX40 has always been my go-to brand of whistle as they are readily available throughout North America, but recently I’ve switched over to the very popular ACME Thunderer (Model 60.5) which does contain a pea.  Mine includes a rubber bite-guard (aka. whistle tip guard) which is also useful for winter whistle use, especially on metal whistles.  The Thunderer whistle is top quality and has been made in England since 1884.

FOX40 has an equivalent pea-based whistle called the Super Force, used by the NHL and comes with its own patented mouth grip.

Most whistles are designed to produce loud recognizable sound between 95 dB and 120 dB.  The tone varies quite a bit, with most pea-less whistles registering higher pitch sounds, while pea-based whistles typically have lower, richer trill tone.  For example both the Thunderer and Super Force are quite loud at 110-115 dB when blown at full force and can clearly be heard in a packed arena of cheering fans.  In general, most whistles blown at full force can be noticeably heard at best, up to about a 2km or roughly over a mile away in a clear field or open space, but your mileage may vary in the woods.  In reality, expect to be heard only up to about 1/3 of that distance, or around to 800m (1/2 mile) in heavily obstructed areas.

The enormous Storm whistle boasts to be the loudest whistle in the world, and as demonstrated by my kids, I can attest it really is — ringing in at 120+ dB.  The Storm is also the largest whistle we tested, and is designed for marine use (it works under water and can be heard for about 50 feet in that medium).  I’ve included a generic decibel chart below for comparison.  The loudness is measured from about a foot away (except for the jet engine).