Independent buying guides
For readers buying a parka, boots or base layers for a real Canadian winter. One buying question per guide, figures sourced and dated, calculators that show their formula, and free-licence photographs rather than borrowed product shots.
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
Measurements, sizing systems and how to check before ordering.
What things are made of, and how long that lasts.
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Environment and Climate Change Canada's wind chill index tells you how long exposed skin lasts. Match the coat to that number and your longest wait outdoors.
Photo: Shixart1985 · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
A winter season is about 120 wearing days. Divide the price by that and a $450 parka beats both a $180 coat and a $900 one. Here is the full arithmetic.
Photo: Spinarak · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Fit and sizing
Measure over a mid-layer, test the hood over a toque, and know the drawstring rules for children's coats that Health Canada sets out in millimetres.
Photo: Shixart1985 · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
1
Photo: Spinarak · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Measurements, sizing systems and how to check before ordering.
1
Photo: Shixart1985 · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What things are made of, and how long that lasts.
0
Photo: Shixart1985 · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
1
Photo: George Fiske · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Keeping it usable for years instead of months.
0
Photo: Ximonic (Simo Räsänen) · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What changes with the weather and the shopping calendar.
0
Photo: AS Photography · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
Price divided by the number of wears you realistically expect, with cleaning and repair added.
cost per wear = (price + cleaning cost per year x years + repairs) / (wears per month x 12 x years)
Compares your own measurement against a product's stated measurement and shows the gap.
difference = product measurement - your measurement; ease = difference / your measurement x 100
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
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