Some thoughts on that:

Food, as much as you can carry... Anything that is on that "as much as you can carry" program is probably the sort of thing you can't personally carry enough of on your back and you need to be thinking pre-positioned supplies along with supplies on your vehicle and probably not venturing too incredibly far from your vehicle on foot. A mile or two at the most unless hiking in is mission specific, then if a mission is so critical that you can't afford to risk taking your vehicles along, then it is probably not campfire and griddlecakes time either. Energy drinks and power bars for the mission, feast beforehand and afterwards.

Something specific to AKs and any weapon where the predominant supplies of ammo are either steel core or have that "bimetal" bullet jacket material that has steel in it and in an environment that is both rocky and bushy, firing it means fire hazards. Even the lead core .223 and .308 have issues with bullets skipping off rocks and starting fires. If you are really in the middle of nowhere and can outrun a fire, then fine.

Up in Canada, my recommendation would be the Chinese M14s that are imported there at very reasonable prices, and there is one fairly popular model with a midlength 18" barrel that often goes under $600 on private purchase deals. Gun retailers not far from the border on the US side know the score and sell hicap mags for them. That's the "Plain Jane" version of the M14, which the Canadian laws apparently regard in the same class as the Garand and SMLE, but if it has all of that Tacticool stuff on it then the legal classification might change and NONE of that tacticool stuff does anything to enhance firepower on the weapon while nearly all of it adds weight.

I am told that those rifles can now be traded privately in Canada now legally, usually with few ten shot mags. The Chinese rifles differ from the US variant in that they usually have chrome lined bores. If that is the case, a little cross border discreet diplomatic pouch transaction type of trading will score you some good quality unpapered handguns from your brothers to the south. If you cant hook up with other freedom loving patriot types or they decide not to trust you, there are always the bikers and Indians. Several tribes ignore the border on a regular basis but the border security situation has apparently been stepping up to challenge their cross border sovereignty.