Day: January 6, 2026

Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — January 6, 2026

January 6, 1799 was the birthday of Jedediah Strong Smith, one of America’s greatest trapper-explorers. He was born in Bainbridge, New York. Smith explored a huge area of the American West during his short life. “He began his western voyages in 1822, when he joined the pioneering fur trader William Ashley on a trip up the Missouri River. Unlike earlier fur traders, who depended on Native Americans to actually trap or hunt the furs, Ashley eliminated the Natives as middlemen and instead sent out independent white trappers like Smith to do the job. To escape dependence on Native Americans, though, …


Lessons From a Fight at a Restaurant, by Robert E. Downing

(The photo above, courtesy of Openverse, was taken by “Terren in Virginia“, a witness to a 2008 baseball team “fan rivalry” brawl at a New York sports stadium.) The following is what I learned about security at lunch one day: Scenario One Tuesday, about six weeks ago, I stopped for a late lunch at a local upscale family restaurant in Virginia Beach, Virginia, that is part of a well-known chain.  It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and it seemed to be a quiet place to have lunch and prepare my Sunday school lesson. I selected a seat near …


SurvivalBlog’s American Redoubt Media of the Week

This weekly column features media from around the American Redoubt region. (Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and Wyoming.) Much of the region is also more commonly known as The Inland Northwest. The photo above was shot from the east side of the Snake River Canyon. The United States Congress designated the Hells Canyon Wilderness in 1975. It measures 217,927 acres, with about 83,811 acres in Idaho, and 134,116 acres Oregon. The wilderness is jointly managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service. (Photo courtesy of the BLM.) Redoubt News Links: Adventuring down the deepest …