I'm Travis Bader, and this is the Silvercore Podcast.
Silvercore has been providing its members with a skills and knowledge necessary
to be confident and proficient in the outdoors for over 20 years, and we
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it am joined by a retired RAF officer who among other things conducted
combat survival and rescue training.
After 23 years with the RAF, he retired and spent 10 years in Western Canada
as a project manager, supporting NATO Canadian and Australian defense
operations in Afghanistan, where he held CSUs top secret security clearance.
I'd like to welcome to the Silvercore Podcast, David
Hutchinson, or as I know him, Hutch.
Hi
Travis.
I am excited to be speaking with you today.
This all happened from a, I guess, a meeting that a past silver Corp
outreach coordinator, Nicholas Wong, who hasn't worked at silver court
for some time, but it's still always thinking about myself in the company.
And he says, Travis, you got to talk to huts.
He's got binders of information that he's been collecting and
co-leading, and putting together on his thoughts and ideas on tactics
and survival and preparedness that.
Would likely be of interest to the silver Corp club members.
So figured we'd sit, spend some time today talking a little bit about that.
And, um, if the podcast listeners in the club members say, yeah, that's
something I want to hear about then, uh, we can explore going further
and looking at what you have.
Cause you've, you've put everything together in a way that a British officer
would in a very well meticulously, organized and put together fashion, which
would make an interesting training program essentially for, for somebody interested
in, in preparedness and, and survive.
Right.
So before we get into that, I kind of want to know a little bit
about you and your background.
So you grew up in the UK and you always said, Hey, I want
to, I want to join the RAF.
Or how did that work?
No,
I actually grew up on a, on a market guard.
My father was a, um, ran his own horticultural business and I seen,
it seemed the obvious choice that I would as the youngest child, the only
son would take the business on, but my father realized my heart wasn't
in working the land in that way.
Uh, and he never pushed me and, uh, I wanted to travel.
I wanted to see the world.
So once I'd finished my education, I decided I was going to join the air force.
Okay.
So how old were you when he joined the air force?
19.
So he just jumped right into it.
Yeah.
And what.
You, you did flying with the air force.
Actually, I
joined as a technician and realized that wasn't for me, it was a,
it was not the way I was wired.
I was in the, I was a square peg in a round hole.
Yeah.
But I wanted to, uh, I knew I liked the air force.
I was enjoying the lifestyle and I, uh, cross trained to become an aircraft.
I became an air load master on heavy lift aircraft.
So initially on the sea, one 30, the Herc Herc, then Nikki bird, fat Albert.
I did that for, for a number of years.
And then I went into and flew other, other heavy lift aircraft as well, all
10, 11 try styles and things like that.
And so you were also, I think you were saying you did some
flying in Canada as well.
A
lot.
So I, I was fortunate.
One of the big advantages of being on long range transport aircraft is
that you get to travel the world.
The queen pays for you to travel around the world and see different places.
And some places I thought I liked this place and other places I thought
I never want to come here again, but they all added to my experience.
And my knowledge in Canada was somewhere.
I came to reasonably regularly, both from east coast, right
across to the west coast.
And I first visited.
Here in BC in 1990 and said, I'm going to live here one day.
I knew it was going to happen off your very first visit.
The
first visit was, it was a combination of things.
There's actually a guy I'd been through flying training with, and
we were sat at Granville island.
For those of you as people, you know, it sat there having a beer and he said,
you're deep in thought, what's going on?
And I said, I'm going to live here one day.
And he said, what are you talking about?
These is, this was just another night stop.
Or we were here for a few days.
I said, this has got the right combination of what I want in life.
It's got an outdoor lifestyle.
We'd been deceived David Bowie concert the night before we'd
been out with some great meals.
We'd been around Stanley park.
We'd been up grass mountain.
I said, this has got a good combination.
This is a suitable place for me to come with my, with my family.
So at that point you just looked at it and said, Hey, this is what I want to do.
And you just started what?
Putting.
Putting things in motion from there, it just kind of sat in the back of your
head is saying, well, it started as a, as it's just an idea, but that
was 12 years before I actually came.
And I really ramped the F the efforts up back in sort of 98, 99.
Yeah.
That's when I really started attending fairs and doing lots of research.
And where was I going to be?
What was I going to be doing?
What w what were my transferable skills?
Right.
Okay.
So you, I mean, like you, you could have stayed longer than the 23 years.
Yeah.
Um, I, I, my, my, uh, my bosses, and even like colleagues as to like,
you're crazy, why are you leaving you in a very good well-paid job?
And you you've got regression.
You can, can keep going up through the ranks.
And, uh, but I, now, I, I decided I wanted to live in Canada.
You got
to follow your heart.
Absolutely.
I mean, you've got one life to live.
And when you look back, I don't think you want to look back and say, man, I
should've, or I could've, or if only.
You really got to just jump on those opportunities when you see them.
Yeah.
So I, and I was fortunate that I had a very supportive wife, I should
say my late wife, she passed away back in 2009 from cancer, but she
and my two daughters were, yeah.
Okay.
Let's go and do it.
They came and visited on a couple of vacations and
thought, wow, this'll be fun.
And, uh, yeah.
Um,
w what a world of a difference it makes when you've got a support
network around you that can help you see those goals forward.
It was, it was also, it was also challenging because in many ways I
was leaving my support network that existed in the UK, but my direct
support network, my family unit, we were all in support of what we did.
Right.
So did you have many acquaintances or friends or family or anyone in Canada
or was this just jump in and go?
I
had on second cousin in, over on the island, but I, I went
to Alberto initially six years.
I knew other people in Ontario, I had knew a few people and acquaintances and
some ex-military guys as well that I knew.
So I had a couple, but nothing that was near to where I was
going to be, where I ended up, but
I came.
So when, when you take a look at the, uh, the survival training within
the, um, uh, ref there, what, what sort of scope do that look like?
What did, what did you do with that?
Well, it's a prerequisite.
I was, I held a position as a train, the trainer, the training officer Cranwell for
air crew training, M and air crew training for a number of years at the Royal
air force college, that RAF Cranwell.
And in that job, We, uh, we're required.
We train all the air crew in survival.
They have certain check boxes.
They have to do the military.
You're continually chasing, keeping qualified and doing things.
That's the way it works, whatever your skill sets are, you need
to do, but they have basic training, basic survival training.
And then there's further advanced courses that you can do, whether
it goes into desert survival or winter survival or jungle survival.
And I did the combat survival rescue officers course, some of
your listeners will be aware of.
So what, what would that entail?
Uh, was a couple of weeks that, uh, when I was at, I did it, it's the latter, when I
did the combat survival course was in, uh, it was done at RFC Morgan, which is where
the school of combat survival is now.
Um, it had moved there relatively recently and I'd done previous training down on.
Down on the south coast of other parts of the south coast.
Um, and we did, uh, we did quite a bit of classroom stuff.
And then you do practical stuff, which you actually taken out to dark mourn.
What you're, what you're standing up in is what you've got.
And maybe a little, like a little tobacco tin that was your, your carry pack.
That's what you got.
And then you did that for a number of days of survival.
And then it inevitably ended, uh, towards the middle half of the second week, you
ended up with, uh, a period of resistance to, uh, RQI resistance to interrogation
training, uh, which is obviously not something that we, that was discussed.
Why the end of something I wouldn't want to talk about, but I understand
to understand what if you were at risk of capture, what, what could you expect
and how could you best prepare yourself?
That's a huge psychological aspect of that as well.
I think that, uh, having the, the mental fortitude to withstand that, as well as
the, uh, the Headspace, just to be in a survival mindset, I think is probably,
would I shouldn't presuppose, would that, would that be the biggest outcome
that you're trying to instill in people, aside from just physical skills, but
building them that mindset of survival?
Yeah.
The mindset, it comes from deep within a person, and it's very difficult to
quantify, but there are, they, they come up with all these statistics of who
survives in a situation and who doesn't.
And there are people that have exceeded expectations incredibly, and it's just
through the strength of their, their will and their mind to overcome it,
that they will come out of this for whatever is, it could be faith based.
It could be a family based, it could be.
Based on so many different things, but it's something and it's
something that I explained to people.
It overrides everything.
You can learn all these skills.
You can have lots of equipment, you can prepare lots of different things,
but you have to think about the mental resilience to be able to cope with what
life throws at you and in a survival situation, you are dumped into it.
No kidding.
Yeah.
That's I think we were talking before about a, and I'm not, I don't recall if
this was a study, I read it as a child and I used to read a lot of popular
mechanics and a lot of the magazines, everything I had seemed to be from the
forties, fifties, sixties, I didn't really have too much current literature,
but, um, one of them was talking about the survival rate of, uh, soldiers.
And I think the situation was that they were lost at sea and they found
that they had some young soldiers of young bucks out there that were healthy
and fit and well fed and strong.
And they had some older soldiers out there as well.
And they figured, well, you know, the young ones are going to do well.
The old ones will probably die off, but they found the inverse to be true.
And they found that the younger ones were dying at a higher rate.
And I think they just use the example of this one loss at sea thing.
Uh, And the older ones were persevering because these are people
who've been through world war one.
And this was a world war II study that they're doing.
These are people who've been there and done that and have an idea of
what hardship looks like and realize I can overcome this in essence, I think
it was their mental mindset that was allowing them to persevere where, um,
those who didn't have that background.
We're flailing.
So like I said, I'm just going back on, on memory and recollecting that one.
I don't know if it was a story or as an observation hypothesis or an
actual study, but I remember reading it as if it was more of a study.
Um, ha is that something that you have seen or found within the survival training
and there's lots of records of people who have survived
and they seem to be anomalies.
How did this individual or these two people, how did they survive when they.
They had the same circumstances put in front of them as others who died.
And, uh, uh, not that there's a come to there to the conditions or
to the weather or whatever else.
Right.
And it's, it's such a tough thing to do.
And really, you don't know that you can do it until you've
been put in that situation.
And I mean, for real, I've never had to survive for real.
I've had to do it as close as I want the come.
And, uh, that's part of the thing that they stress when you go through the
training is that you'll, you'll probably come closer than you've ever been to
dying in over this period of time, but you're working in pairs at that time.
And, and to keep an eye on each other to, to, you know, if things get really
bad at this is a training exercise, but, um, interestingly, ideally.
I did a winter survival course in Bavaria and it was minus 20 and that
was out there for a couple of weeks.
And then just a couple of months later, I was doing my full combat survival
course and it was on dark morning.
It was only minus two.
And I was overconfident because it wasn't as cold as it had been in Bavaria.
But dark mode is a challenging environment.
It is wet and I went hypothermic there.
And, uh, yeah, that was, that was tough.
The brain starts shutting down.
You can't think clearly, but the colleague I was with, um, it was a fast
jet pilot and he, he recognizes me.
I think I said something to him and realized I was
deteriorating and he's ends.
We need to do something.
So we did.
And, uh, fortunately it was all okay.
Yeah, I've, I've never, you know, I've, I've been in situations where I've had
to push myself and in situations where if I didn't push myself through it, then
death would have been the logical outcome.
Uh, but I, I can't say I've ever been in like a truly sort of survival situation.
Like I can recall.
I think it was 16 years old and at my wood panel station wagon.
And I mean, that thing was what was it?
A 1978 Pontiac, like wood panel station wagon.
And I used to pull it out onto a number 10 highway, which is people
familiar with the lower mainland would know what I'm talking about.
And if I didn't let the thing warm up for, let's say 10 minutes as I pulled
out, the thing would just stall and I'd have to coast and try and get
the thing going and hope the cars go around me and, you know, Typically
did, but it was not a reliable vehicle.
And somehow I was able to convince a couple of friends of mine at the time to
go up, uh, past Kamloops, to an area where my family had a, uh, a cabin up there.
And, uh, I, in my heart of hearts didn't think that I figured the
vehicle would probably make it up there, but I didn't think it would
start up again and come back down.
Right.
And this is in the middle of winter is just after Christmas and, and, uh, never
used snow shoes before at that time.
But the guy at the local, I think they call it mountain magic.
You guys stayed up late on Christmas Eve to, uh, so I could get off working,
borrow some snowshoes anyways, totally under-prepared and get up there.
And this wood panel, station wagon, uh, leave sleeping bag and everything else
inside the vehicle, just in case, you know, we needed it to be back there.
We had.
In hindsight, it would have done us more good if I had that with me,
because, and then we had to go, I think it was just about 21 K hiking.
Most of it on a old logging road that wasn't plowed.
And, um, and then some bushwhacking.
And at that time, a, uh, a friend had provided, uh, satellite
photos and this was like, state-of-the-art satellite photos.
I was like, ah, this'll be great.
Cause he, he got it from a logging company.
I had no idea how to look at these sat photos.
I'd used a map and compass of the past, but I've tried to just
dead racking off the things.
Anyways, what I, what I didn't realize was as we walk in on this old logging,
Which wasn't plowed the main road.
It looks just like all the other side roads when it's snowed on.
Cause they're just as wide and he can't see which one look, the long story short,
we ended up getting lost and we spent a long time out there in the, in the cold.
And, uh, I remember, uh, at one point we've got all of our heavy equipment.
I got my knives and the course, he got to have some alcohol in the
back and all the necessities when you're 16 years old going out.
Right.
And, um, the sun was out and it was minus, I think it was minus five or
so, but when you're, you're going hard and the sun's out, I mean, I just had
a t-shirt on for, uh, for a lot of it.
And then I remember at one point when, uh, I figured I'll take a shortcut.
I think I know where this area is.
And it's, it's typically a, a fly-in or hiking cabin, any.
And I started walking down this steep embankment and this whole bunch of
deadfall and kept falling in it.
And it was a cold, of course I'm covered in snow.
When I remember when I came back up, uh, the sun was going down, but
for me it was getting really dark.
For some reason.
I was like, it feels like it's getting darker than it should.
And I didn't realize that I'd stopped shivering a long time ago.
And my body was basically shutting down and, and, uh,
felt like it was gonna pass out.
And I, uh, told the two people who I was with.
I said, look it, if I.
Pass out and I'm going to come back up.
The keys are in the top of my pack.
I'm pretty sure.
And I point over, if we just go that way down this and bank bang
and go through, you're going to hit a lake and then you can find
the cabin and we'll get over there.
Well, I started, of course I bundled up and wrapped up and got a few
layers on me, uh, and just kept myself moving a little bit, extra
warmth, totally changes the mindset.
Um, muscles are all very fatigued at that point.
Everything's seizing up in the, uh, hip flexors.
I got to a point where I felt okay, I'm good.
I'm not going to pass.
So my two friends, I'm like, okay, scale of one to 10.
How do you feel.
And, uh, I said 10 top of the world and one year on the brink of death.
Right.
I said right now, I think I'm a six I've I've.
I've got my energy.
I think I'm good.
I got some fluids and food into me.
I'm starting to warm up a bit.
One friend says, oh four, the other one says one, like all great.
Anyways, we ended up getting in, took us about half an hour
to walk this one distance.
When we finally found the lake, what should've taken us?
Oh, no, it actually took us 45 minutes.
It took us 45 minutes of walk this distance, which should have taken us.
I don't know, 10 max.
And, uh, I remember my hands weren't working and I'm trying
to get the, uh, uh, the door open and the keys weren't working.
Like everything was just like ice Fe.
You got this idea.
You get in the cabin.
Everything's going to be okay.
But it's the same temperature as it is outside.
We're able to get a fire going thankfully, and in no time at all,
you know, warming up and the world is good, but it went from a situation
which could have been pretty bad.
All of our survival gear really to keep us warm was left in the vehicle.
And it was a good life experience, but it also, it tends to build
a, um, I guess, a mental mindset of what you actually can Inder.
And, um, uh, one friend got, uh, we we're all somewhat hypothermic
and one friend got frostbite.
And, um, but it, it also gives you some checks and balances from
that ego that says, I'll be fine.
I got this black and white photocopy of a satellite photo and it's only 21 K.
Um, and that's something that I keep in the back of my head when I, when I
plan different, uh, Outings or when I think about, uh, different situations
is, is the whole, what F what do I have with me that I could use, but as well,
uh, the thought process in planning anything now, whether it's just going
out on an expedition or just going out in the wild, or even just going to
the store, I will tend to go through a mental process of, um, of planning.
Is that something that you find you do or that you find, uh,
That you would train others to
do.
I think it's something I do.
I think, I think it's something that's drilled into you, particularly in
the military, you know, um, prepare for the worst, but over the best.
Um, but it's always, if this occurs or actions on, if this
occurs, what am I going to do?
So if you've thought about it beforehand, you can have the right equipment with you.
You've already thought through what your options would be.
If I'm at this stage of, uh, talking about a Trek or something, or a hike across
over a considerable distance, if this happens, where's my, where's my getter.
How am I going to get out?
Where's the best place for me to be many.
It always happens at the worst place.
Where's the worst place on this journey where it could happen.
Our man, them mid midway between two points.
That way I've got to go through a river and this way I'm going
back up up a huge mountain.
And it's one of my options is going to be and who have I got with us?
And you've always then got to reassess what equipment you've
got and what resources you've got as far as people with you.
You shouldn't be on your own, but.
Team some might be more always somebody is going to be more
capable than others, right.
So it's obviously, it's always trying to prepare for the worst and just, if you
don't use it, it's not, it's not an issue.
Um,
you know, one thing that I see, so Ian Jones, he's with the Canadian
prepper podcast, he's been on a silver Corp podcast in the past, and he
had a whole bunch of great thoughts and ideas, and he shared a lot of,
a lot of really good information.
So if the listeners are interested in listening to that episode,
they can go back and check it out.
I don't off the top of my head, recall the episode number, but,
you know, silver for podcast in Jones, Canadian prepper podcast.
And in some of the things that we spoke about was like
different types of kit in gear.
And I think most people when they first get into, um, and we also
talked about mindset, but most people, when they first get into the
idea of being prepared or survival.
I think they're looking for shortcuts or the something that they can
purchase that will give them comfort.
Well, now I've got my Gerber.
Multiplayers I'm prepared for anything, right.
Or, or whatever it might be.
But I, I find that a lot in, in people that I speak with, they said, well,
I've got my emergency blanket or I've got ABCD and I've been guilty of that
in the past to thinking, okay, I need all these different things only to find
that the amount of kit that you end up taking with you starts slowing you down
to a point where you're now in a survival situation, based on the fact that you
couldn't go fast and go light and go hard.
Um, I don't know.
Do you have thoughts on
that?
Yeah.
I think an analogy I would use it's a bit like it's like cooking, you know,
there's lots of people can cook, but there's only a few people that are
good enough to be Michelin chefs.
You know, they can produce the most excellent meals to incredibly
high standards consistently.
And I think somebody who's never cooked before says, well,
that's what I would like to do.
Well, I can give you the best kitchen with the best knives and all the best equipment
and all the best fruits and vegetables.
And now I'll put you against a Michelin chef.
I'll give you some crappy old equipment raid.
Who's going to turn the best meal out.
Oh, absolutely.
So there's not a shortcut to it, but there's lots of things you can do it.
It doesn't hurt to have good equipment.
Don't get me wrong.
And you'll find that I think everybody who's ever been in survival situations and
training and particularly military people, they know that it's good to have a quick.
You can rely on and they've invariably own their own equipment issue stuff, but you
choose not to wear the boots you issue, or you choose not to carry that knife.
You choose not to use that compass.
You use something that you really have got a, um, an affinity with.
It does what you need it to do rave.
So it's not just equipment.
It's a combination of things.
That's what I like to focus on and giving people the confidence to
know that you can learn things you can learn and you can experience
things and improve your chances.
Yeah.
I'm always surprised.
I'm always surprised that people who, I know people who are afraid to go into the.
Just so here in the lower mainland, because of what may look below, right.
Sharks or, uh, CNN enemies or, or whatever, right.
And there's this, uh, fear of the unknown, or they're afraid to go to
the Bush because the, in their head there's bears everywhere in America.
But the, the knowledge, I guess, of actually starting to push yourself
out into these different situations will cause you to learn and cause
you to realize what the real threats are and what they aren't like.
You're the threat of you slipping and falling on.
Let's say the gross grind is far greater than ever encountering a bearer Cougar.
Right?
Um, um, the threat of getting lost in perhaps he needed to
spend a night over someplace.
And knowing how to keep yourself warm through the night.
And, uh, having that level of knowledge, I think breeds a, a,
a lot of comfort and security and
conflict.
Uh, confidence is the word I was going to use it.
You give somebody the confidence, you push them to what they think are their limits.
And that's the way very much of the training that that's done by the military.
They push you then beyond your limits, you get to a point where
you think I can't do any more.
I can't go any further.
I've been, you know, I'm, I'm at the end of my rope, but the reality is
we've all got extra stuff in there, but then they push you beyond that
so that you find you're doing more.
And then when you reflect on it afterwards, you have huge confidence.
You change personalities change within, through food, through training,
significantly pepper families.
Don't recognize their own, their own family member.
At the end of 2, 3, 4, 6 months, they say, well, how did you do this?
They completely changed.
Right?
So if somebody's.
Yeah, I guess let's say, just start out a urban city dweller and they
want to be a little bit more prepared.
And I, I think there's a, a folly that a lot of people will fall into when they're
looking at being prepared, they want to be prepared for everything and they want
to, what if there's the earthquake or the tsunami or, or a big power outage
or in the end, they make this huge, all encompassing, um, preparedness plan.
And then they get this idea.
I know I'm going to have a whole bunch of food and, uh, started stockpiling it.
So I'm good.
And I'm, I'm going to have all these different tools and equipment.
And, um, I, one of the ones that was, uh, was interesting that, uh, that you had
brought up in our past conversation was, oh, I'm gonna use some bleach to sanitize
water because I might not have heavy.
I sanitary supply.
And what I didn't realize was it, you said bleach has a shelf life.
Yeah.
Six
months.
Six to 12 months.
Yeah.
It effect the efficacy of it drops significantly after a year, but, uh, yeah.
So you need to have a long-term supply of bleach, not think, oh, I've got
20 bottles of it stored away in the garage or somewhere that's going to be
that's me good for the next 10 years.
Right.
There's a
work like that.
Great.
Well, where, where would you start have if you were looking
to be a bit more prepared?
Okay.
So I think what I was going to say, gee, we, you don't know what's coming, but
I think we, I think we could all agree.
We're living in a pretty weird world at the moment.
If you told everybody two years ago, we'd be going through
what we're going through now.
You would've said no, that won't happen.
There are things going on now.
I never thought I'd see in my lifetime.
I know you
told me one thing that was read before we went on air.
That kind of surprised me.
But,
um, but I think if you have concerns about things like natural disasters
or, uh, the instant, the stability or instability, potentially of society,
where things that people have been divided, uh, we've got financial issues.
People got jobs, security issues, inflation, supply issues.
All of these things are potentially.
Problems for the future.
So what I said, I think I mentioned to you before, if you've got no
concerns about any of this and you think, oh, everything's the
sun's going to go up tomorrow and everything's going to be good.
Then this is probably not a podcast for you.
Right.
But if you're the person who's got band-aids at home or some sort of
headache medication, or whether it's an Advil or something like that, Tylenol,
if you've got that wide, you got it.
You've got it.
Because you're thinking ahead, you're thinking, what if this
occurs, take me to the bandaid.
You know, nobody prepares to cut themselves, but if you do you
know that you need something.
So I think it's, um, the whole scenario of people talk, call it different
things, call it what you want to call it.
Where are you going to call it?
Preparing or prepping or being off-grid or homesteading, whatever it
is, give it your own title, but just know that's what you're looking at.
And then give yourself as much.
As much chances you can give you some cover as many bases as you can.
This is a huge subject.
And there were some great experts out there, uh, in particularly
particular areas that are so, so good at this and lean on those people.
I mean, people are used to using the internet.
Now.
There is some bad advice out there as well, but you just go
over the ones that you trust.
Um, but I think just to have an overview, what are the big hitting things?
What, what do you need to think about that?
That's what I would focus on.
I would always say the best time to start is right now, wherever you are
on this start now just start thinking about it and give a little bit of
mental energy towards what could happen.
But what do I need to do to prepare myself and to give myself the best chance
of survival, everyone, but everyone has got a different starting point.
And I'm sure that the people will be aware that this is, this varies
according to number of things.
And I'll just give you just some of them.
First one, your age, how old are you a lot, Jen, to be a lot
more capable physically at 25 to 35 than you are 65 to 75.
You're just not as good and fit.
Everybody has different experiences in life and hobbies and knowledge
that things that they've acquired over the years, um, Also the number
of people you've got to think about.
Are you just thinking about yourself or are you thinking about that?
You've got a partner, you've got children and you've got a sick, a
senior citizen or two or neighbors, or who are you going to try?
And are you just going to ignore them and say, no, I'm just, this is all about me.
I don't think that's the best thing.
There are also, people have medical, medical limitations, medical
limitations is a significant one.
Uh, some people have some things where they need.
Maintain medications in, in a core course situation, but then
frigerator and things like that.
Um, there's a big difference between your, your, your physical
location are you there's benefits, but there's also limitations.
Do you live in a, a desert or semi-arid or tropical location,
or are you located in the world?
So be aware of your surroundings and what are the strengths of being there,
but also what are the challenges?
Are there are strengths and challenges in both, right?
So I think once you look at all of those, I then say to people make us start create
your own personal review of what, you know, you obviously don't know what
you don't know, but if there's areas you think if we mentioned something,
you think, oh, I should look at that.
This is something I should look at, but then try and keep some sort of priority.
In a combat survival situation, they teach protection, location,
water, and food in that order.
And those are big encompassing things.
The location is I was arguing less of an issue that's location, where you're trying
to be rescued when you want somebody to find you, but certainly the protection,
water and food in that order is important.
So I would ask people to think about those, your protection covers 1,001
things I could just give you some, but just give you some right now, your
shelter, where are you actually going to be protected from the elements, right?
And that varies according to where you are in the world, the clothing you
have dressing appropriately and being able to dress up and dress down and
understand the importance of layers and how, when you're exercising, you're,
you're sweating more on, um, whether you need to keep a say, keep yourself warm.
Cause you're in a more challenge.
Uh, environment, as far as the cold weather and the winter months are
concerned, or also calling if you're in a place like a desert where you're, uh,
we're at six sectional heat, you've got to get out of the sun, join the mid day.
You do not want to be in the sun.
Uh, things like this is also still under the protection umbrella.
First aid first day is really important because you can't just pick up the
phone and dial nine one one, depending where you are, you know, there's some
you in the back country, you've got to do stuff to get somebody to aid.
Hopefully you're not, you know, it's not, you're not devoid of all support,
but you can't guarantee the cavalry coming over the hill to help you.
So that's important.
I would also argue, um, and this is a particularly good for silver called
armament and protection protecting you from what, if you're in an environment
where you've got animals that are trying to get in and see what food you've got.
You're going to have to protect yourself on what you've got.
Right?
Um, Finances, um, in the situation people think, well, if this, if there's a big
collapse of things and there's no power and there's no fuel or anything, well,
I just go down to the bank and draw some money out and go to the supermarket.
Yeah.
That's, that's, that's a nice idea, but that's not the reality of it.
Think about how you protect yourself with finances.
Do you have some cash on hand, as long as cash is still useful, but are you then
handing somebody a, you know, a $20 bill?
And he says, that's useless to me because I can't spend it.
Do you have another option?
Do you have something?
One of the things, people focus on things like precious metals, um, uh,
and then it comes down to understanding which are the better ones to have and
how you store it, where you keep it.
But is that something you could use in the future to, to purchase or to barter?
And there's lots of bartering will go on in the survival situations.
If it hits more of a so that, um, people can swap skills and equipment
and things between them and say, well, I'll let you have this.
If you can let me have that.
And I can see that we'll become a, we become a big, big, big thing.
Well, four
for that one, I go, I've always been a firm believer, gotta
have some cash on hand, right?
Some casts somewhere.
But we're becoming more and more of a cashless society and the value
of having cash on hand, like you're saying just, just might not be there.
And I've got a friend recently.
He says, Travis, can you come downtown?
I want someone with me to, uh, uh, to help me out.
I've got a, should I say, I'm not saying who the friend is $2 in gold making up.
And I'd like, cause he's, he's concerned about his, um, I perhaps what's
happening with cash and what's happening with the, uh, uh, the banking system.
And he says, they're just going to give him to me in golden.
I got then transported to a place, a location where it's
going to be safely kept.
Um, but again, I have to wonder if that concept of having, uh,
precious metals will hold much value to an individual in a, uh, He in a
society that is moving ever, ever more, I guess, cashless and sort of
decentralizing the, uh, uh, the banking.
I don't know.
Do you have thoughts on
that?
Yeah, I think you have to look at history, try and learn from history
and history is somewhat flawed.
It's just the recollection or the narrative of the winners in a scenario.
That's what they, that's what they let us know.
Um, but I think, um, I have a good friend whose family escaped from,
uh, Eastern Europe, between the wars that they're following the,
the October revolution in Russia.
And they basically had all their lands confiscated, but
they managed to get to Canada.
They have family managed to get there when they got to, and they were
trying to get out of Europe, but they.
Pay for their passage across the Atlantic.
And the biggest single thing that got them out was actually the children had had gold
coins sewn into the lapels of their coats.
They didn't check with children because they didn't think they would have them.
They, that the parents were strip search.
They checked, everything, went through all their paperwork, documentation,
all their luggage, but they didn't check the children, but these children
had little gold coins sewed all the way down through the lapels.
And when they got to Canada, they said it, could we get there?
So what have you got?
We've got gold.
Oh, wow.
That'll do nicely.
You know, they, they got farmland straight away.
They got equipment.
Um, one thing I would say.
Talking about your friend with the, uh, you know, a big single, maybe not a
single Bob's a gold ingot that's worth, you know, a few hundred thousand, $80,000
or whatever it's worth is less tradable.
So having some big stuff is useful, but having something that's actually
usable smaller quantities that will be swappable because people, uh, and
have paperwork printed off to show what it was worth before stuff occurred.
You know, that's a good point just to say, this is what it was.
This is what I purchased it for.
And, uh, one of the things that's good here in Canada, they do these,
um, on one gram coins in a pack.
Right?
And you can, if you just want one, you can break one off.
If you want to give him any of your trading for the
whole thing, you can do that.
Um, and it's all, it's all relative.
I mean, you're obviously paying a lot more for that goal, but it's
very tradable, very, very swappable and barterable with other people.
And there's a good point.
So give me yourself as many, many options as possible.
This is all comes under this protection umbrella.
So you're thinking about what do I do?
What's going to happen in six months, 12 months, and who knows
what the time scale will be, but how do I do something about this,
right?
Yeah.
And then of course, if you're known, I should suppose as the person
who's prepared and who can take care of themselves and who has some
stockpiles, you'll likely become a target at that point too, by
anybody who happens to know this.
So yeah, it would be something that I think would be wise for people just
to, to not advertise and maybe not get on all the different forums and,
and tell everybody what they know and what they have because, uh, you know,
time and time again, we hear, um, I hear people saying, oh, Travis, if
something goes wrong and you come to your house, No, you're not, it doesn't
work that way.
Right.
You get a lot of friends very quickly, but you can't help everybody.
You can't support the whole of the Western world, the whole of the
world around at Travis's house.
That's right.
And then I hear the other side.
What do I need to prep for?
I know where the preppers are.
I'm just going to go to their house and take it from them.
Yeah.
Well, you mentioned Nick before Nick says, and he says, you know, if you,
if, if you're storing and you don't have any way to protect that, you're
just doing it for other people.
That's right.
Yeah.
Good way.
Good.
All Mick,
and this is not about setting up.
You're not trying to set up a, uh, an armory or something, but it's just
being able to know that you've got stuff located that you know, where it is and
other people wouldn't know where it is and the hair, how are you prepared stuff?
So it's just being smart in my opinion.
I agree.
Um, So that's what I call the protection.
There's, there's other things that you and I and other people can think of
that would pull under that protection.
But I think that that protects you, that gives you the best chance shelter
and accommodation is very important because unless you're literally going
to just be sleeping outdoors, which you might get away with in some parts of the
world at some dark parts of the year, but you're not going to be doing that.
Long-term so you need to have a place think about whether
you are urban or rural.
Rural tends to be better for survival longer term because
there's less people or less there.
I see if there is a societal break and there's less roaming gangs going around,
so probably stand a better chance and you want to be as low key as possible.
Another thing that falls under protection is things like, can you
provide enough power for your 17 to you?
You thought you want to have generators or inverters or some
other means of generating power.
That's all comes under the protection under the protection umbrella.
Yeah, having a, um, a multi fuel generator, probably a pretty good idea.
Having a way to, uh, I guess just collect power from, let's say solar energy or wind
energy, again, not a bad idea, but you'd have to store that in, uh, in battery
banks or maybe, maybe some large capacitor bank that can have a slow discharge.
I'm not sure.
I'm just kind of thinking of.
Um, I know this is a, this is a scenario I've been through is what, w
w what do I need powerful, you know, do I need to be on the internet and
checking my emails and, and doing social media and no, what do I need?
I'd like the fridges and freezers to still be working.
I'd like a furnace to be working.
So you can tailor what your power requirements are.
Do I need to be doing, um, you know, running the dishwasher or the
clothes washer, you know, twice a day, no, you got enough clothes.
You could probably last a few months with the clothes that you've got right there.
Not doing a lot of washing at the end of it, but don't get me wrong.
But using other methods of doing things like cleaning, and this is, these are the
more of the niceties, the long-term, this is not a short term things, but can, do
you have the ability to wash things or the ability to do our grandparents or dare I
say a great guy in pounds would have just thought this was quite normal because
they had all the automation of stuff.
Great stuff there to said, well, that's the way we used to do it.
Well, we might end up, you could see it.
We ended up back doing it the way they used to do.
Yeah.
I
don't know if I'm targeted or what if this, uh, if the algorithm has taken a
look at my interests, I don't generally seek out survival and prep type stuff.
Uh, but I keep seeing ads scrolling through on Tik.
Talk about, try to sell some book about how things were done back in
the day, how to make your own lard.
How do you make your own soap and all of these basic things that
were pretty basic back in the day?
I think it was called forgotten skills here.
An advertising for self that I find see on, on a tick talk, but I
see that there is a desire in the general public, at least as much to,
uh, Necessitated facilitate these, these advertisements or the sale of
these different books or platforms.
So people can learn about these quote unquote forgotten skills.
I see that coming back in a big way, and I think COVID has really kind of woken
everybody up in a couple of senses, both in the sense that something could
happen, whether COVID is just a big, cold or not, or whatever people want
to look at, but the idea that something could possibly happen and society might
not be as stable as people think that they might, there might be some, uh,
instabilities that will require people to be a little bit more prepared.
So I think the general populace is really been turning its head towards.
How can I garden and create my own food?
How can I, how can I make sure that I, you know, if the power does go
out, that will be warm long enough and a bunch of these little things.
I think it's created some instability.
There's always been instability, but it's brought it to the forefront in people's
minds.
I think people are starting to look at it.
The smart people have definitely been looking at for a longer time, but,
uh, other people are just saying.
As I said to you before we, two years ago, we didn't predict
we would be where we are now.
Right?
You would have said, no, that'll never happen.
Well, things do happen.
We've got some unprecedented, uh, stuff just happened in the
last 24 hours here in Canada.
You know, we're going into the emergencies act, which is a
fairly serious, it's substantial.
It is substantial.
And people don't under stand just how substantial it is.
And I think can dismiss it and say, oh, well, that's what we're doing.
This is there's a significant impact.
And, uh, it will have impact on many people and it can, that will
have an impact down the road.
This is the butterfly effect.
It's going to impact lots of other, lots of other things.
Those things I mentioned before, as far as inflation and supply issues
and rate, it's not just a matter of going to the store and picking it up.
That's the fact we can still do it at the moment is nice, but
don't expect it necessarily.
I don't want to be a prophet of doom, but don't expect it to always
be exact like that it's happened.
It's happened in a longer history, but it's also happened
in recent history in Europe.
And we've got people even here in Canada, who've escaped from
regimes where they've said they didn't expect this to be happening.
It has
happened,
you know, I've, I've had that same conversation with a lot of
different people who have, like you say, escape, different regimes.
Um, and there's, they'll just call a spade a spade.
And they'll say, look, I've seen this happen before I've lived
through this before what's happening.
Isn't right.
And those who haven't been through it and don't have that experience.
They, they just aren't as, uh, open to considering the possibility of the
fact that things are going sideways or they could be really bad or there could
be negative intention behind it or.
There could be good intentions behind it, but we all know what
the road to hell is paved with.
Right.
Um, I don't necessarily think that everybody is out there.
Um, I don't think there's some diabolical, Macklin, alien, uh,
plot here that's been driving.
What's been happening in our social events.
I do think absolutely that there are some who will take full
advantage of what's going on.
Uh, and I think that the, um, let's say otherwise good intentions of many.
I have some friends who work in government and they are
salt of the earth type people.
Their hearts is in the right place.
And, and from my perspective, uh, some of them anyways are
very blind to what's going on.
Even if they have background and a background in history or philosophy or,
or what have you, and they should, and they should have an understanding of.
The fact that history repeats itself and the best predictor of
future performance is past before.
So human human
behavior is, is, is fascinating.
And it is very predictive.
We're a lot more predictable as a species than we sometimes like to think.
We think, oh, we're a lot smarter than we used to be.
We'll make the right decisions.
The reality is people are going to do what they gotta do.
And if people get scared, that's a big driver.
Fear is the massive driver of the population and has been
used forever to manage people.
And that you can get people moving in a certain direction.
You put a certain chain of events in place and it's then becomes
a lot easier for the next thing.
The next thing in that chain to happen.
Yes.
Yeah.
I looked at like Noam Chomsky's book on manufacturing consent, right?
Yeah.
And using the, the media there.
I, when you say people are predictable, that for me, Has been the most interesting
aspect of what we've been going through is watching the human response, watching
how people respond to the external events that are happening in a very group think
type of way, because inherently, I think people are so afraid of being outcast or
not fitting in with the rest of the group that otherwise intelligent people who
can formulate their own opinions on their own and come to logical conclusions will
just go in line with whatever the popular consensus is currently going out of fear.
I mean, it wasn't too long ago when everyone was talking about COVID and
hush breaths, if at all, for fear of being called a conspiracy Ferris.
Right?
Yeah.
And when you, when you look at, as a hunter, you look at game trails.
So you know that there's probably going to be a game that goes down
this trail because these animals will take the path of least resistance.
Some might bound over in areas that are off the path.
But for the most part, a good indicator is this path.
And people are just like that.
People take the path of least resistance.
They want other people to make decisions for them to protect them, to, uh, to
blindly assume that everything is going to be just fine because the consequence
of thinking otherwise would be that you have to prepare and you have to, um, work
can take responsibility for your actions.
I think just as you were talking, I was just reminded me.
I'm sure some of you, some of the listeners will know the
experiments they've done, where the people getting into an elevator.
And as you get into the elevator, everybody's facing the back of the
elevator, not facing the door and they walk in and they feel uncomfortable.
Let's see.
It's hilarious to watch them talk to them after.
Why did you turn around and face the ways everybody else?
I don't know.
I just, just wanted to fit in.
I just thought it was the
right way.
Did you see the beep one that in the doctor's office.
The electric shock?
No,
this was, um, I thought, so it is a variation on the elevator one where
they get everyone to turn around, but they took it one step further.
So they have a room full of actors in a doctor's office.
And a patient comes on in and a beep goes off and everybody in the room stands up.
When the beep goes in, they hear another beep and they all sit down in this.
Patient's like looking around like what the heck's going on here.
Right?
And then another beep goes, everyone stands up and they
sit down, they keep doing this.
All of a sudden, the chief standing up and sitting down and little by
little, a new patients come in.
These are people that are not the actors and they're not a part of the program.
And they keep doing this until they reach a point where there are no more
actors and it's just new people in there.
And the beeps going and they're standing up and sitting down on the
beach just because that's how it's.
Scare.
It's a scary thought.
Isn't it all very, it reminds me, I was listening to a thing
recently, you know, um, Dr.
Julie, Panesar the, uh, the, uh, professor, uh, from Ontario and
she was talking about one of them.
She does teaches ethics and she said she has the picture from 1930s, Germany.
We've got that to famous black and white picture.
The whole crowd is doing the Nazi salute, but there's one guy who isn't raised.
She used to ask her students and say, would you be one of the crowd?
Or would you be him?
And everybody likes to think they would be the him, but the reality is people
go to the line of least resistance.
Well, that's what we do.
We fit in.
Right.
You know what you're talking about.
People being in it for themselves earlier, right?
When you were like, are you going to just be in that for yourself
or going to look out after others?
I had a friend, a couple of friends over, um, a few weeks ago
and, uh, I mentioned that to her.
And I said, look it inherently, everybody, everybody is in it for themselves.
I says, she says, I don't believe that.
I said, okay, let's say there's a fire in here right now.
And I didn't even have to finish the sentence.
He says, I'm grabbing the Adelaide, her daughter.
Right, right.
At some point, everybody is in it for themselves.
Where is that line though?
Some people that aligns pretty far down, some people, their
day-to-day life, they operate right on that, on that line between, you
know, there's something going on.
It could be, you could be me, I'll tell you what I'm screaming.
It's me.
Right.
Um, but I, I firmly believe that, uh, everybody is in it for themselves
just based on the human condition, based on the fact that we are
creatures and we want to survive.
Um, Some people get a little greedy, a little, a little power
hungry or whatever it might be.
And you'll find, uh, you'll find that line pretty close.
But I guess, um, before I degress too far here, uh, your next category
that you're talking about was
water or, um, it's for people to think just how important water
is a lot of people, particularly when they start off in preparing
for whatever's going to happen.
They think that just means I just got to fill the pantry full of food and that's
not, that's not the way, way ahead.
Food falls further down the, uh, further down the priority list.
Um, know how much.
Water you need, and you've got to research this.
I wouldn't go into numbers now because it's a separate thing.
But talking that, you know, the, the volume of it that you will
need per person, there's ways you can reduce the volume that using.
I mean, if you have sort of persons having four showers a day that's or four Barts a
day, that's probably not going to be good.
Uh, it's not going to be happening, but you need the volume that you need and
the cleanliness and safety of it, because you've got to drink water, you have
to have fluids and you have to do it.
And you can't sub sorry to tell some people you can't survive
exclusively on alcohol or Coca-Cola, that's not going to work.
I know
some people,
some people give it a go.
I know I'm not saying alcohol and they don't have a role to
play because they are useful to have a very, very tradable items.
Interestingly, for, for tree, how coal is excellent for trading because you
offer somebody hasn't seen any alcohol.
A couple of months and he'd say, I would really like to
get some fuel for my generator.
What have you got?
Oh, I got this little bottle of vodka.
No problem suddenly happened.
So it can be very useful, but it's understanding how, how do you know what
options have you got again, it goes back to where do you live in the world?
Do you have a lab?
Ideally, I guess you'd be living on a, uh, off grid.
You'd have your own well, or you'd have your own river and you've
got your own cleansing system.
And you're used to doing this.
You've been doing this for years.
That's, that's, that's the, the, the sort of the gold standard.
But again, you're not just nipping up to the suit, the store and
buying a case of water, right.
That's not happening or potentially not just turning the tap on and getting
good, clean, drinkable, water out.
If that's not happening, what are you doing?
So you need a way to have a certain amount of water stored, and then to
be able to cleanse that, to make it drinkable, it doesn't have to all be
cleansed to the same standard as drinking.
Cause you could wash in it.
You could be washing clothes, right.
But the stuff that you're going to be.
You want to keep yourself hydrated, you know, from it back country, dehydration
is one of the biggest killers.
Oh
yeah.
It gets you a big time and it affects your physical performance,
your mental performance, your yeah, no, you, you need to see hydrated
and people think, then haven't really looked at this.
They think, oh, well, if it's hot day, I'll be sweating.
I'll lose it.
But it's a cold day.
So I won't, well, you're then called a you're wrapped up.
You're sweating inside.
You're still losing, even in winter survival, you lose you're sweating.
And the whole,
and I got to wonder, so if, if you look at a hydrometer and, uh, inside,
uh, a house during the summertime, it's going to be much more humid.
And in the winter time, of course, it's going to be much more arid.
Um, I've always kind of wondered about how much, uh, How much the body kind
of absorbs for moisture in the more humid environments that will, uh,
make the need for perhaps water less.
And how much in colder environments, just the act of breathing out is expelling
possibly more in such a dry environment.
Expelling more water.
Yeah,
I think to two totally different climatic situations.
See.
Uh, w one of the big killers, there is dehydration people that well I'm
floating around in the ocean now.
Surely I'm not going to be dehydrated, but you're not drinking a salt water.
I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.
But also jungle survival.
You're in the tropics and it's crazy wet.
It's raining all the time and sweating, but people come to you hydrated there
as well, because the stuff that's falling is maybe it's not drinkable,
or it's going to give you very sick, give you dysentery, which is not good.
So you've got an, either a means to cleanse that water,
right?
Yeah.
With a Homer Simpson, sea water, water everywhere.
So let's all have a drink
and he wasn't, he wasn't far wrong.
Um, so I move on to my next point.
Let's okay.
The next one, going back down that hierarchy and protection
water, the next one is food.
So think about.
Um, I would say to people make a start on this.
So having a store of food, start off general rule of thumb and there's
people who know way more about this than I do, but I would say a three
supply, can you survive with three days without going out to the store?
Most people say, oh yeah, I could.
But at the end of three days, if you're starving and not
functioning properly, it's not good.
But some people just have just what they want on it.
They rely totally on bringing food in takeouts all the time, which is not good.
So do a three-day then maybe a three week, then a three month
and then maybe up to a year.
So if you can provide, you've got enough stored away to survive for a year.
That's useful.
That's a huge buffer for you to see what happens with society.
And you're going to end up and you're going to end up
with a lot of friends as well.
If you've got food and you've got people leave don't, but you've got to be
cautious of that as well, but you want to have stuff that's going to be tasty.
It's got to be nutritious.
You want some variety in there, but also.
Some fresh stuff.
What can you go?
Even in the winter, in, you know, in the Northern hemisphere.
So in Canada, you can still grow things that, uh, with sprouting seeds
and things like that can provide you a huge amounts of vitamin C and
nutrients, which can, which can be done.
It's not that you don't have to wait until April may before the crop.
So in the, in the fields, just to learn how you can extend the growing
season, and I'm going to come onto my next thing, which is talking about
skills, but that's, that's one of those areas that skills are very import
well with the food one, you know, even just spending a week out in the back
country, on boil in the bag type food, it's amazing how, uh, unpalatable
the same flavor list type of food, or even if it was a good food, but
you're eating the same thing over and over again, despite being hungry,
he kind of have to choke it down.
Cause you know, you need to replenish the calories that you're expanding.
Um, so when you say it's gotta be tasty having that variation,
and it's also amazing how.
You crave fresh food or something.
That's some, some roughage, some vegetables and, you know,
food is one of those things.
I think a lot of people look at it and they say, oh yeah,
I got to have lots of food.
It's amazing how long you can actually live and still somewhat
comfortably without food.
I can't say the same without water.
I can say, uh, the first day without food is very, um, it's not fun.
Mind you, you go to sleep and you wake up and for whatever reason, I'm not
hungry the next day and your body, I guess, shifts into a different mode.
And then maybe I'll get a little bit hungry, but I find I really
don't need a hell of a lot of food three days without food.
And I'm actually feeling okay.
I've been in situations where unfortunately I've had to
go a few days without food.
Um, And I, I think food is obviously important, but when you're talking
about water, I think all of my attention would be on protection
and water with food as being okay.
I got an idea where I can possibly get
something and there's a whole lot to learn about what stores
well and what doesn't store.
Well, how are you going to do it?
I mean, you're not just going to have a freezer.
That's, you're just going to pack this stuff and that's going to be good.
The power's out.
If you've got no alternative power, you're going to lose the whole lot.
That's not good, but there's good.
It's understanding the different types of, and they'll come into that
and the skill section, the different types of how to, you know, food
preservation and things like that.
But having stuff that can be in tins, it can be dry products.
All you've got to then do is rehydrate it.
You've already addressed the water situation.
You've now got the water to rehydrate it.
And some of these things.
Long time, I'm talking decades, if you have stored correctly.
And, uh, once you start to learn about that, you can say, Hey, well, I can
put this away and I know it will be good for, it will be good in two years,
if I need to eat it into two to three years and he could have some rotation,
but I always view it that the worst it can come with all of this is you end
up with a store of food that you're going to use over a period of time.
And if you can cook it nutritiously, you've, might've spend a bit of
money to do it, but it's a huge, it's a huge investment in your future.
If things don't go well, absolutely.
You can't just nip out and purchase it.
I have some way to cover your backside.
Totally.
So then
you've got skills.
Okay.
Skills.
Yeah.
So skills.
This is something that needs to be a continual improvement.
You and I discussed this.
So I'm just going to give a number of headings for three people to think about.
Can you do this or can't you do it?
Um, I'll start with an easy one navigation.
Um, it was all goes well.
I'll just use my phone as great.
As long as the phone's working, GPS is working everything else.
But if you have to go from point a to point B and maybe more,
do you know how to navigate?
Do you know how to read a map?
Do you understand what the contour lines are doing and the terrain
and choosing different routes, which is the best way to go?
So that's one, another one.
I would say fire lighting.
That's something I love.
I have a order of a fire at home so I can have a log fire every
night if I want to, but how to light a fire if it's wet and rainy.
The equipment that you've got to do it.
How do you, how do you create spark and how do you build that fire?
How do you get ready to get kindling and Tinder?
And that build a fire?
There's a famous thing that used to teach us combat survival is the, I'd
say the, uh, the first native keeps happy sitting by the small fire keeps
himself warm sitting by the small fire.
Whereas the non first nations person keeps himself warm, running around, collecting
wood to keep this huge fire going.
Yeah.
Sweating like crazy.
Whereas you don't need a huge fire, but, but w we talked before
you mentioned before having a.
It can be the difference between life and death.
It's down under the skills.
It's not under the top three, but it's important.
It gives you warmth.
It gives you comfort.
It's it's really, really grounding effect of it's sitting around a fire
anybody's ever done it with, with, uh, you know, with, uh, smalls or something.
They know how good it makes you feel sitting by a fire.
It's just
some primal instinctual thing.
But even if you don't need it for warmth, all of a sudden
everything just isn't as bad.
When you get a fire going, all of a sudden those noises that you
hear in the dark, they're a little
further away.
Yeah.
It keeps things away.
It keeps nasty fires.
It keeps it away.
You could also use it for drawing things as well.
If you've got clothing, you need to dry.
It's a psychological thing too.
I know.
Growing up, I.
Lake a lot of people love making fires.
I love being around fires.
Right.
And, um, talk to any firefighter.
There's gotta be somebody who likes taking fires.
Uh, but I would challenge myself.
I can, I make a fire out of and just, you know, so it makes dry
lumber really dry, so, okay.
I can, can I do it with, um, uh, this wetter wit okay.
I can't, can I do it with a lighter, can I do it with just one match?
Can I do it without matches?
Can I, and I'd, I'd play these games.
Can I do it with a chemical ignition?
Can I do with an electrical ignition?
Can I, and just try all these different ways of just trying to make a fire,
whether it's a friction drill or a plow, or what have you love it?
And I think fire making as a skill, I, I think that's not only just from
cooking your food or from boiling your water or from, uh, distilling or, um,
drawing things out, keeping you with.
But I think that psychological effect of having a task at hand, that you're
working on and then the reward of sitting around that flickering light
of the fire and the warmth is massive.
I think it's actually a very useful thing for someone who's.
If they end up at a survivor situation and someone says, I don't know how
to do this, I don't know how to do.
I don't know how to do anything.
What can I do?
Go around, walk around the, you know, within a couple of hundred meters where
we go and find some wood that we can burn, that the strike that they've got
a job at, they go away, they come back, they feel engaged and we can now get
warm and maybe cook something as well.
Good point.
That's a fight fire.
That's one of those skills that's worth looking at the next two, which you love
hunting and fishing and Kim fishing.
It's so useful.
I mean, there are useful skills at any time, but they're very useful.
A lot of the equipment that you get with both hunting and fishing have a
lot of other purposes that they can be used for whether it's growing plants and
things or using twines or using ties.
There's a lot of things, but if you don't know how to hunt and you
don't know how to fish, maybe think about, maybe think about that.
Maybe this is the, this is the summer, maybe 20, 20 twos of the year where you
register for a course, do some reading, watch some videos and go and do a course
with someone who knows what they're doing.
Right.
Really, really useful.
And that's something you'll store away.
And it's then a skill that you've acquired was it's going to be too late.
Right.
Try and
learn it when you need to, how do I do this?
How do I, oh yeah, you haven't got time for that.
Um, first aid, first aids are really important.
One, if somebody's with you fours, if they've twisted their ankle or you're
worried, or, you know, they've got a bad cut or something, do you know what to do?
Have you got the equipment that comes in later with.
Do you know what to do to help that person, or maybe help yourself, do you
know how to put a tourniquet on, do you know what you need to think about?
I mean, obviously in that situation, if it's a severe injury, you'd love to
then take them to the hospital, which is what I hope you're gonna be able to
do, but this might be a longer term.
There are also some excellent, some really good experts, online
doctors, online and nurses that are, that are, do survival books.
That's something I mentioned, part the equipment is books and videos and knowing
what to look at, how do you do this thing?
And there's a lot of natural plants and things you can use out there as well.
Again, a whole area of skillsets.
People are good with plants that can be used for a whole number of conditions.
It's what a great grandparents used to use.
What they have.
Yeah,
I'm just starting to learn about, I mean, my wife's a red seal chef and she's loves
gardening and foraging and all the rest.
And I always looked at foraging.
Who'd want to do that.
Right.
And then I went out with, uh, with Hank Shaw in the Sierra Nevada mountain
range, doing some foraging with him.
I'm like, this is actually pretty cool.
I don't, I'm actually not, I'm pretty good at it.
Once people point me in the right direction and tell me what sweat, but
everywhere you look, when you're with somebody like Hank, this is edible.
Here's a muster.
This'll, here's the type of garlic.
Here's a wild onion and, uh, here's mushrooms that you can
eat and you're going to be fine.
Uh, it made me realize that there's stuff growing out of the cracks of our sidewalks
that is edible and that we could, that other people would just look at as weeds.
Yeah.
They
don't even see it.
It's, it's huge.
And, uh, you know, you've probably done more of that than I did.
I did stuff.
I tried to educate myself about fund guide, but it's a huge subject.
But if you particularly with first nations, they've
got such experience of it.
Wherever you live in the world, look at the fun guy that you have growing aware.
Does it grow?
It grows this part of the forest, particularly prolific
at this time of year, it grows off the rotting part of this.
And it's look above head height.
Oh, it's there it isn't and it looks like this, but don't have that one.
And once you learn it, you see someone who's good at foraging.
They go out with a knapsack and they come back with a load of food.
It's like, they've been to the supermarket.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, it's definitely cool.
And with the fun guy, what was an interesting one?
There are some that will kill you.
Most won't as a bunch of their little making sick.
Yeah.
But you're still up here.
Okay.
You're going to live through it and there's some out there that will be.
And
apparently allegedly there's some that you could smoke for
recreational purposes as well as
apparently I've
heard that.
So anyway, so that's a talk about first aid, growing vegetables, if
you've ever had a great, if you can't grow in a thing, learn how to do it.
Even if you're in an apartment, you know, learn what you can grow and what
you can, the things out there that, that work and learn what tools you need.
Again, that's a whole subject about what you need to do as far as gardening
and make this make let's make 20, 22 of the year where you actually do grow
some of your own lettuce or tomatoes or zucchini, what grows fast and which
parts of the yard or your garden or your house, I've got the best places, give
you the best chance to grow these things.
Yeah, that's a good point.
So there's a good, um, Food preparation and preserving some
people don't know how to boil an egg.
They do need to know how to do some food preparation and, and, uh, it's, you can't
just pick the phone up and order in it doesn't work like that and preserving
food, whether it's pickled or whether it's dry, he dehumidified and dried.
And there's a whole range of ways of doing it.
Some great websites on how to do it, what you've got lots of and, and how to do it.
And
there's some, and I'm surprised how many people don't know how to can food.
And I've looked at, I've seen some YouTube videos and some really suspected
type, uh, uh, tutorials on how to, how to can your own food, which is only
going to lead to bacteria growth in some very unhealthy, unhappy people.
But the process of it is actually really, really simple.
If you, if you just follow the step-by-step through the numbers and.
Um, and dehydrating and, uh, like you say, preserving
through salting or pickling that
came ceilings and other great ones, a great way to remove the oxygen.
Now that's one of the th the light, the light and the oxygen, how to
store products would store things.
Whether it's something like lentils or things that are rice and things like that,
store them in a plastic tote where the heirs there's not getting in there, but
then the light's not getting in there.
It's in a food grade tub, you know, there's this whole load of things you
can do to give yourself lots of options.
Um, but also I've got water purification.
I mentioned briefly before it's a skill set to learn what you need to do, how
you can, how you can purify water.
So you've got 10 gallons of water that you think is drinkable because you
got it off the roof of the house, or, um, but how are you going to clean it?
How are you going to actually make it so you can drink it and
not make yourself really sick?
Um, and then knife and tool sharpening, things like that.
If you've got a knife or you've got garbing implements or loppers
or sores or whatever, once it's blunt, what are you doing with it?
And have you any idea how to do that?
So these are all skillsets you can learn and now's the time to be doing that.
It doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be number one on your priority
list, but these are all little skillsets that you can pick up.
I love it.
Well, I'm looking at the time right now and I'm conscious of the
literacy time and of your time.
Of course.
And I'll put the question out there.
If the listeners are interested in learning more and having Hutch delve
into in a deeper way, what he's covered here today, because he's got one of his
binders in front of him right now is a wealth of information inside here.
If their listeners are interested, let us know in the comments, give an email over.
And perhaps we can look at putting some sort of a series together
for silver Corp club members where we, we really get into this.
That sounds
wonderful.
Can I just do a wrap up and things go up?
So my final thoughts, I would say, think about getting your affairs
in order weathering from, uh, um, finances to acquiring skills that
we talked about, create your own emergency documents, binder that
you can have, things like that.
And then longer terms talk about tools.
Equipment with an equipment section would be a separate one, but
above all, keep a sense of humor.
Don't allow this to dominate your life.
It can become a big part of it.
As you get set up, keep learning and help others, because it's very
important that you're not too hard on yourself, but help other people.
It could be that the person who lived next door to, you know, the old saying that it
takes a village to raise a child right.
In the future, we are social animal.
And it's going to be the guy next door, who you don't know particularly well,
but he might have a really useful skill.
He mean, might be the guy who does the, your tool sharpening for you.
He might be cleaning his water for him or showing him how to do it.
So be willing to work with people.
And, uh, then I think people can get through this.
What is massive
Hutch?
Thank you very much for coming on this silver Corp podcast.
I really enjoy
this.
It's my pleasure.
It's been great talking to you, Travis.