Category: Retreat Logistics

Letter Re: Prince of Wales Island, Alaska as a Retreat Locale?

Sir: I understand your comments on Alaska’s [poor] potential for survival retreats .Your logic is sound and I have to take seriously someone who has thought about these issues longer than I have. But there is always a but…What about Prince of Wales Island, Alaska? Backwoods Home magazine published an article written by a Jon Stram that I have not got out of mind. The article sold Prince of Wales Island very well, so [for counterbalance] I need an unbiased, expert opinion Thank you, – Russell: JWR Replies: You aren’t the first to suggest that locale to me. it. I …


Letter Re: Stocking Up on Prescription Medicines

James, I have just visited with our family physicians about a stockpile of prescriptions medications. Seems that two of them are "preppers" and are putting a plan together for their families. They physicians are more than willing to write scripts for meds, they really are supportive of the plan and like the Wal-Mart list. For some reason, they will not recommend specific drugs, they will prescribe but not recommend. I wonder if a pharmacist and Ranger Doc might be willing to put together a specific list of recommended prescription items and you could put it in the blog. This would …


Letter Re: Food Storage–Will People Ever Learn?

Hello Jim, Of [your oft-mention triad a of] Beans, Bullets, Band-Aids, I want to share some thoughts about the “Beans” category I read that a lot of folks prepping for the future. That’s great, we all should. The day after Hurricane Ike, I saw people in huge lines to get into grocery stores, hours of waiting. The day after! They did not even have one day worth of food in their homes. Then I read lots of info and blogs about people getting their emergency supply of food stored. There is a place for the MREs, beef jerky and all …


Health, Hygiene, Fitness and Medical Care in a Coming Collapse, by RangerDoc

Spiritual Fitness Let us start this discussion by confronting a stark fact of life: very few of us, living the life of North American citizens, are fit to survive for a generation in an austere, off the grid, world. First of all, few of us have the philosophical orientation to be survivors. I know in my bones that without God’s help, my family’s ability to survive in a prolonged state of austerity is worse than questionable. As an evangelical Christian, I understand that my own commitment to preparedness is a function of my ongoing submission to God’s will. It could …


Letter Re: Expanding the Family Larder with Coupon Shopping

Dear Jim, I’m a mom, and new to your site, but I’ve long been thinking that my instinct for planning should ramp up to a new level of preparedness to keep my family safe. Like many of your readers I’ve long felt an increased sense of alarm at the state of our world on numerous levels. And, as many of your readers – preparing within the parameters of my normal household budget along with the current financial challenges makes preparation challenging! … in short – I don’t have lots of spare cash around to go around buying pallets of food …


Letter Re: The Rush Has Begun for Flu Prep Logistics

Aloha James, To confirm your take on the need to prepare ahead of time, I realized last weekend that this current event (Mexican Flu) would be a good opportunity to actually measure public reaction to an emergency. Thus, once the government announced a health emergency on Saturday, I began watching the shelves at three local drug stores and Amazon. Here’s what happened in Honolulu, Hawaii (a city of 800,000 and an international airport hub). Saturday – all shelves full of flu meds & masks Sunday – masks half gone, some in the back of the store, shelves full of flu …


Six Letters Re: Adapting Family Food Storage for Gluten Intolerance

James, I found out last year I am gluten intolerant, and my little girl was symptomatic with me. In our case, we found we can’t tolerate any grains–not even corn or rice. Below are some ideas for those with either condition or who are on lower-carbohydrate diets for health reasons. * In addition to beans, other carbohydrate-rich foods that you can store include potatoes, yams, peas, beets and tapioca. To avoid the additives found in some dehydrated foods, I have freeze-dried potatoes, yams, and peas. I also have some home-canned yams and plan to grow more. Beets are only available …


Mexican Flu Update

I recommend that SurvivalBlog readers seriously think through the implications of successive waves of Mexican Flu sweeping around the globe for the next three years. From what we’ve already seen of its virulence after the normal “cold and flu season”, then the next couple of winters could bring very high rates of infection and overwhelm the healthcare system. Please take the time to watch Dr. Henry Niman of Recombinomics discussing”Swine” flu. His projections are disturbing, to say the least! Think this through folks, on a macro scale: How would a pandemic impact your work? Commuting? Grocery shopping? Church activities? School? …


Letter Re: Adapting Family Food Storage for Gluten Intolerance

Hi Jim, I wonder how many other preppers out there have the same issue we just discovered. My wife has always had trouble with her digestive tract. Recently we discovered that she is has Coeliac’s disease which means she is gluten intolerant. She can no longer eat gluten which it seems is in just about every type of prepared food. It comes from Wheat and is obviously in anything that has wheat in it, but it is also in lots of other things including vitamins, tomato paste, some candies, etc. It has been quite an adjustment for us! This makes …


Flu and Antibacterials, by David in Israel

James I constantly see recommendations for people to use hand sanitizer especially every time the flu-de jure becomes a problem. Over my years as a firefighter/paramedic many of my co-workers used hand sanitizer on a regular basis, the most frequent users often ended up with cracked skin and infections or scabs at the corners of their fingernails. These users even ended up occasionally spreading the fungus to me and other non antibacterial users due to their compulsive wiping of antibacterial compounds onto steering wheels and other surfaces. Your best protection is not to nuke your own protections and hope any …


The Mexican Flu and You

In the past 24 hours I’ve received dozens of e-mails from SurvivalBlog readers about the emerging Mexican Flu. Some news stories have included cryptic comments from heath officials, implying that the mechanism of infection makes this particular virus “very difficult to contain.” This leads me to conclude that those infected have a long latency period during which they are infectious, yet, they do not display frank symptoms. This does not bode well for any hopes of containing the spread of the virus. Then we hear a CDC official stating: “The swine flu virus contains four different gene segments representing both …


Letter Re: Learning the Details of Self-Sufficiency

Jim, None of us here can know the hour when 1 Thessalonians 4:16 -17, will come to be. There are Prophesies that seem to indicate that that time approaches. But we don’t know. We are not Prophets ourselves. We can just know to be ready. But until that time comes, there are also many other possibilities for which to prepare. We are in the early stages of a world-wide economic meltdown. As that grows worse, it can lead to all sorts of interesting events. Unemployment will likely lead to increased crime and even food riots. That can lead to the …


Save Money, Get Prepared, and Eat Healthier with Intermediate Term Food Storage, by Travis A.

In any emergency or survival situation food is a primary necessity. So naturally there are many discussions and advice here and on other forums concerning food and food storage. There is a lot of great information and products available for long term (10-15 year) food storage. I have read many articles comparing the various MREs available, poured over blog posts about the best freeze dried foods, and watched Google videos on the proper storage of whole wheat grains. Popular vendors such as CampingSurvival.com and other SurvivalBlog sponsors offer freeze dried meals and canned food with extended shelf lives such as …


Letter Re: Rethinking Uncommon Rifle Chamberings

Mr. Rawles- I read “Patriots: A Novel Survival in the Coming Collapse” a couple of weeks ago and enjoyed it. Thank you. I wanted to mention: I try to follow conventional wisdom about caliber choices for SHTF weapons. Interestingly, in the current ammo shortage, it’s still somewhat easy to get ammo for oddball calibers. For example, if one needs 7.5×55 Swiss, 7.65x54R Russian or 7.5×54 French, many online dealers have it in stock, while 9mm, 45 ACP, 12 gauge buckshot, 308, 223, 7.62×39 etc., are very hard to come by. For people who don’t have the budget to stockpile a …


Letter Re: Bicycles as Bug-Out and Utility Vehicles

I read SurvivalBlog almost every day. I see lots of folks talking about bug out vehicles, going to great lengths to describe storing fuel long term, stripping down vehicles and even planning on parking them out of the way when fuel runs out. But I rarely see much mentioned about one of the best long term, low tech tools out there for transportation: The bicycle, the cargo bike and the adult tricycle. Bicycles are inexpensive, ubiquitous and take only a pair of legs and half a brain to use. People in Third World countries haul huge amounts of stuff with …