Enjoy a tick-safe summer in Canada

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Removal · ID · risks
Prevention — for Canada

·   Gear worth carrying   ·

The tick kit.

Five things worth having around once tick season starts. A small tool that grips a tick properly, a repellent your kids can wear, socks that fight back, and a lint roller for the trailhead. Most of it lives in a glove box or by the back door for the whole summer.

What goes in the kit

If you only buy one, start at the top.

You don’t need all five. The first two cover removal, which is the moment you can’t bluff your way through. The rest make next weekend’s hike easier.

Removal tool

Tick Key

The thing you actually want when there's a tick on your dog and one hand is holding the dog still. Slides under the head and lifts straight up with even pressure — no twisting, no squeezing the body. Lives on a keychain.

Doesn't replace fine-tip tweezers for poppy-seed-sized nymphs. Get both.

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Removal tool

Tweezerman fine-tip tweezers

The fallback your doctor will recommend if you walk in without a removal tool. Pointed tips — not the slanted cosmetic kind — let you grab a tick right at the skin. Pack two: one for the first aid kit, one for the car.

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Prevention

Natrapel Icaridin 20%

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) lists Icaridin as the preferred repellent for most situations — equivalent protection to DEET without the plastic-melting side-effects. Safe for children over six months. 20% concentration is the working strength.

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After-hike

Scotch-Brite Pet Hair Pickup lint roller (6-pack)

Sounds silly. Works. Rolling a sticky lint roller down your legs after a hike pulls crawling ticks off your clothes faster than any visual inspection. Keep one in the car for the trailhead, one by the door at home.

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Prevention

BushWear No-Tick Boot Socks

Thermal hunting socks with IR3535 (also called Si Repel) bonded into the fibre at the factory. Ticks climb on from grass at calf height — these treat the exact band where that contact happens. The treatment is chemically bound to the fabric, so it doesn't wash out for about a hundred cycles.

IR3535 is a different active ingredient from DEET or Icaridin — repels ticks well, but applies to fabric only. Skin still wants Icaridin.

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How to use the kit

A typical outing, end to end.

Before you head out: Icaridin on any exposed skin, treated socks on. Tuck pants into the socks if you’ll be brushing through tall grass.

Back at the car: lint roller down your legs, your kids’ legs, and the dog. Crawling ticks come off in seconds.

If a tick is attached: the removal tool comes out, with the tweezers as backup for nymph-sized ticks. Save the tick on tape in a Ziploc with the date and bite location — if you develop symptoms in the next 30 days, that note walks into the pharmacy with you.

Related

More from the field guide.

Last reviewed

General information only — not medical advice. In an emergency, call 911. Read the full disclaimer.

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