A former U.S. Army sergeant living in North Vancouver is now imparting his knowledge to B.C. civilians..Jeffrey McCaskill, founder and facilitator of the Ready to Thrive Survival School said the uncertainty and looming world crises prompted a high degree of interest..As advertised on ReadyToThrive.pro, McCaskill offers two levels of urban survival and two levels of wilderness survival training. The Urban Survival I course runs three hours on a Friday evening, then five on a Saturday, starting in the morning. It teaches how to prepare and secure vital documents and valuables, safely store and purify water, establish a secure pantry, assemble a bug-out bag, find terrific gear for bargain prices, conduct a proper home assessment, and other key skills needed to survive the first 30 days after a disaster. .“As soon as you talk 30 days worth of food, [people] start thinking really primitive, like, I've got to get a big bag of rice and big bag of red beans. Well, if you don't eat those regularly, don't get those because you're not going to know how to cook them and you're going to grow weary of them,” McCaskill said in an interview with the Western Standard..“I just tell people go to the grocery store, buy doubles of core things, comfort foods.”.McCaskill said serving in countries where the economy collapsed taught him how people act in desperate situations..“People become monstrous, and it's in all of us. It's a very primal thing we get reduced to. Just minimize contact with people who are desperate because they absolutely need these things and they didn't take the time to acquire them when it was safe to do so,” he said..If it’s necessary to move, use stealth, don’t travel alone, and go at dusk. In the meanwhile, make sure your house looks uninhabited..“Even the way you cook your meals, not using aromatic spices, really limiting smells … I even teach my students how to camouflage their homes, their front yards to make their places look like they've already been looted. You go to the store with a shopping cart, and you come to the front yard, you lay it down, and you throw debris and trash about and make the place look like it's been ransacked already,” McCaskill said..“The first 30 days are really, really critical for you to just lay low, and it's a very hard thing for generous-hearted people to do. Let's say someone comes to your door completely unprepared. If you lend a helping hand in those early days, and someone across the street who's got a gun and nefarious intent sees you doing that, you're going to become a target, and you weren't even a blip on their radar before that encounter.”.McCaskill said water goes bad quickly in many disasters. He recommends filling containers and even a bathtub of water early. He also has a three bucket system people can use to ensure their water is safe to drink. He encourages people to get to know neighbours and create a “mutual aid network.” That way, if an emergency happens, such as an earthquake, EMP attack, or flood, people can help each other out. On the other hand, he cannot overemphasize how necessary it is to protect provisions from strangers..“You may hear awful things outside your door. And genuinely awful things may occur in your neighborhood. But you've got to resist the urge to go outside to render assistance. And that's not to be un-Christian, or unhelpful, it's just you probably won't make it if you expose yourself like that. That time [it’s safe to help] will come. It could vary, it really depends on how fast these idiots burn themselves out.”.Urban Survival II teaches urban movement, geocaching, grey man theory, guerrilla gardening, urban foraging, and fortifying a home against intruders. Wilderness Survival I lasts two days and covers basic shelter construction, fire making, map reading and land navigation, animal tracking, basic bush crafting, wild plant foraging, simple traps and snares, and water catchment techniques. Level two lasts three days and teaches advanced shelter construction, tracking, long-distance dead reckoning, night movement and surveillance, advanced traps and snares, and improvised weapon making..The survivalist has a bug out property with a greenhouse near Princeton, BC. He said flooding a year ago cut him off from his route to get there and began to expand the nature of threats he prepares himself and others for. It also led him to bump up his former recommendation of maintaining 14 days of supplies to 30..The 58-year-old is not the only one offering survival skills. The website of Vancouver’s North Shore Emergency Management offers workshops. Its website says, “If there is a natural disaster or other emergency on the North Shore, it could take emergency crews several days to reach you, so it's important that you're able to take care of yourself and your family for at least 72 hours.”.McCaskill says advising three days’ prep is “ludicrous,” but typical for government agencies..“For whatever reason that dumb number has persisted. I've gone to meetings with these people and demonstrated how absolutely absurd it is,” he said..“If there was an earthquake, for instance, the amount of rubble and the obstacles that would be created by gas line breakages, power lines down, broken rail and roadways, and rubble from collapsed buildings—there’s no bloody way that emergency services could get to people within 72 hours or restore anything remotely resembling normalcy, no way on earth.”.McCaskill graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1994 with a B.A. in English and served 23 years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserve. Having taught survival to thousands of military personnel, he remains unimpressed with most online prepping advice and resources. He wants to write a book to help people do it right..“I don't want it to be so weapon- and ammo-centric. A lot of these preppers that are online and all-too-visited are very successful, but I think their messaging is completely off. What they're influenced by is way too much Walking Dead and dystopian, post-apocalyptic nonsense,” said McCaskill..“It's American individualistic Bootstrap Bill bologna where it's up to you to save your family from all your neighbors. Instead of seeing them as an asset, you see them as a liability and threat to your survival. So, you end up with these knuckleheads that are building bunkers in their backyard.”
