Affiliate disclosure

Alberta Outdoors Academy Ltd. is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.ca.

Alberta Outdoors Academy Ltd.also participates in affiliate programs run by Canadian outdoor and firearms retailers and by affiliate networks such as Impact, which handles programs for Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops among others. The specific programs change over time as retailers start and end them.

It doesn't. The gear we list is kit we actually use in our courses or would hand to a student without hesitation. Specifically:

• We don't accept payment from a manufacturer or retailer in exchange for a listing or a favourable write-up.
• A commission never decides the ranking. If the cheaper option is the better one for a beginner, that's the one we say to buy.
• We'll leave gear off the page entirely rather than recommend something we wouldn't use, even when there's a commission attached to it.

Prices shown on our Gear page are what we saw when we added the product. The retailer sets the real price and can change it at any time without telling us — always check the price on their site before you buy.

Affiliate programs work by tagging the click: when you follow one of these links, the retailer or its affiliate network typically sets a cookie in your browser so a purchase can be credited back to us. That happens on their site under their rules, not ours. Our Privacy Policy explains what this does and doesn't tell us about you.

If anything here is unclear, or you think a recommendation is wrong, tell us at info@outdooracademy.ca. We'd rather fix a bad recommendation than keep the commission.