Transcript

Travis Bader: [00:00:00] I’m Travis Bader and this is The Silvercore Podcast. Join me as I discuss matters related to hunting, fishing, and outdoor pursuits with the people in businesses that comprise of the community. If you’re new to Silvercore, be sure to check out our website, www.Silvercore.ca where you can learn more about courses, services and products that we offer as well as how you can join The Silvercore Club, which includes 10 million in North America wide liability insurance to ensure you were properly covered during your outdoor ventures.

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[00:01:56] So today I’m speaking with Ian Jones who spends his time as an airline captain flying all around the world, working on a hobby farm, and as a panelist for the Canadian Prepper Podcast. Ian, thank you for being here.

Ian Jones: [00:02:08] Thanks for being on Travis.

Travis Bader: [00:02:09] The Canadian Prepper Podcast. That’s an interesting one. When I first heard about that one, I just get these visions of doomsday, preppers.

Ian Jones: [00:02:18] Yeah, alien abductions, all the other regular stuff that the, the media likes to push absolutely.

Travis Bader: [00:02:23] After listening to it a bit, while there are some really interesting things that are talked about, I’d say that you guys are far from the doomsday preppers and zombie apocalypse types. How did you get into the prepping world?

Ian Jones: [00:02:38] Well, I think when they say the word prepping, it’s more of a, kind of a media concoction the last 20 years or so. In reality, I mean, I’d say 30 years ago, if you were just a regular farmer, you were a prepper and everything but name, but they’ve attached that label to it to almost stigmatize somebody.

[00:02:53] But,  in reality, it’s more just an everyday thing and it’s a natural progression when you do get something like a hobby farm going. You just happened to become a prepper by nature, simply the fact that you have to deal with power outages, you have to deal with, you know, food shortages for the animals, for yourself if you can’t get out of the farm.

[00:03:10] If you’re in the Prairie’s and big snow storm happens, naturally, you’re gonna want to have food in the, in the pantry or else you’re not going to be able to eat for the next few days cause you can’t go to the grocery store every day.

Travis Bader: [00:03:18] Totally.

Ian Jones: [00:03:19] So it, it, I think has been a lifelong thing for me as well, starting out from early age, my father, well, I don’t think I can get much more Canadian than this. So my father, the Mountie, met my mother, the immigrant on an Indian reservation. So and then the, a in the typical Canadian fashion, they got married soon thereafter, had kids, they were living on the prairies and of course, living on the periods we had to deal with extreme cold weather, power outages.

[00:03:45] They did have a small hobby farm as well. I’d say after that, for me, it was a interesting early introduction to hunting from my father, a shooting gophers for money on the farm for other farmers, because a gophers, gophers create the holes, damages the horse hooves. And so they wanted me to get rid of the gophers as a means to protect their livestock. So that was one of my first jobs with my brothers when I was in my single digit years.

Travis Bader: [00:04:07] Good for you.

Ian Jones: [00:04:08] So, early introduction to firearms, but at the BBB guns and all words and then, as I got to be a teenager in the middle of the, the cold war era, there’s always the, the, the menace of, imminent destruction or anything else, which of course is going to play in your psyche a little bit.

[00:04:22] But I mean, as I got up through high school, we were still hunting after schools. This is back in the day when you could actually have a 22 in the back of your pickup truck, at the high school parking lot, and nobody even batted an eye.

[00:04:33] Matter of fact, the high school teachers would come out and show you their 22 or whatever they had in the back of the truck and you’d come compare notes and we’d go wherever, hunting, wherever you want right after school.

Travis Bader: [00:04:40] The good old days.

Ian Jones: [00:04:42] The good old days yeah. So then after that, of course I, when I got into aviation, I finished up college at relatively, I was out of college by 19, and I got sent up to the Northwest Territories. And there, of course, I’m flying a single engine airplane over the bush and, you know, any minute now that engine could, you know sputter.

Travis Bader: [00:04:58] Right.

Ian Jones: [00:04:59] And then you’re in the bush. And so you have to kind of start thinking of the, what ifs. So between the aviation and the, the location where I was, natural progression, you’re going to have to have backpack full of supplies that you’re comfortable carrying around in the back of the airplane.

[00:05:11] And it’s typically, it was very normal thing, this is back before 95 as well, so firearms rules, a little different. And so you want to have at least 22 with you to hunt ptarmigan or whatever. And then so yeah, after I finished up with that, got it down to, back into civilization, but of course, old habits die hard. So I continued hunting.

Travis Bader: [00:05:30] Right.

Ian Jones: [00:05:31] Continuing shooting. It just never really left me after that. So after, after a little bit of a break from firearms after a C68 went through and the registry and everything else, I did keep a couple of my father’s firearms because he didn’t want to register them. So he gave them to me, so I registered them and complied with the law, as a law abiding gun owner should.

Travis Bader: [00:05:48] Sure.

Ian Jones: [00:05:49] And so anyways, yeah, I just held on to those until I was actually able to get back into it. So once I left Ontario after a stint of about 13 years out there, I wanted to move back out to the West Coast. And the only place I could afford was a Vancouver Island which we managed to secure a hobby farm there.

[00:06:04] And so it’s great. We back onto Crown-land where we are, we have, you know, a nice privacy and ample hunting opportunities. And now, ever since we took over the hobby farming, we’ve gotten back into livestock and more and more hunting.

[00:06:18] And now of course, dealing with regular power outages, we do get snow storms on the Island. It’s just progressed. And then, so yeah, we just carry on with the prepper lifestyle.

Travis Bader: [00:06:27] You’re essentially living the dream over there.

Ian Jones: [00:06:30] It’s, it’s sometimes a dream, sometimes a nightmare, depends on the day.

Travis Bader: [00:06:32] Lot of work, lot of work.

Ian Jones: [00:06:34] Yeah. It’s a funny cause they don’t build a lot of buildings to handle cold weather out here and so when you do get, it might only be minus five, which is like a, a normal summer day in the Prairies. It’s a, yeah, it gets a little bit hard to deal with the frozen waters and everything else when there’s no power to these, some of these chicken coops and stuff.

[00:06:49] But yeah, so we’ve, we’ve carried on and have to still work full time, as well as managing the hobby farm. And so I got talking with a couple of guys that, how did it actually progress? Cause a couple of guys, I used to do Krav Maga with, I was talking with, which is a martial art we used to do in Ontario.

Travis Bader: [00:07:04] Right.

Ian Jones: [00:07:04] And in the course of the conversation, the one guy mentioned who is gonna start a podcast and he did a couple episodes by himself and it was Eric, the, the host of the podcast. And he asked, he asked if anybody wanted to join him and I just kinda on lark said, okay, I’ll do it, but I’m not qualified.

[00:07:21] Remotely compared to most guys like I’m no, you know, Les Stroud or anything else. But when we got talking about it, there’s actually a few people that are actually doing the actual lifestyle. Like a lot of guys like to talk about it, like we call it LARPing or live action role playing.

Travis Bader: [00:07:33] Sure yeah.

Ian Jones: [00:07:33] A lot of guys like to talk about the zombie apocalypse and what’s the best tactical for a bug out and everything else, but it’s all theoretical. And very few people are actually homesteading, modern day homesteading.

[00:07:43] I mean, it’s, it’s not as hard as it used to be. I mean, when you can just run down 10 minutes down the road and get it to a feed store, but there are some challenges and it’s been a huge learning experience. So we’ve been at it for about seven years now and been podcasting a little over a year. And I’m still learning and it’s been fantastic.

Travis Bader: [00:08:00] That whole zombie apocalypse thing always has me chuckling. Recently I was reading, some guy says, what makes you think that in a zombie apocalypse, you’re going to be one of the guys who isn’t a zombie.

Ian Jones: [00:08:11] Yeah. I guess there’s a lot of problems with that too. You know, everybody has the fantasy of the, the prepper fantasy of having, you know, like the, the M60 in one hand on the prepper concubine and the other one, you know, with the scantily clad girl.

[00:08:22] And who’s like perfectly quaffed and everything else. Thinks it’s more like zombieland, where the power stays on in the gas works for the last 10 years. It doesn’t work like that right? I mean, there’s a lot of misnomers. Like he looked at the walking dead and assist a, a, a cavalcade of errors, you know, when you think the cars are still running years and years later, and after about three months in reality, they’d stop.

Travis Bader: [00:08:40] Yeah.

Ian Jones: [00:08:40] Cause the gas would go bad. So.

Travis Bader: [00:08:43] So the term prepper, I mean, you, when you hear prepper, you think doomsday prepper, you think kinda kooky. But you don’t really associate prepper with just, yeah I’m a hobby farmer, I’m a guy who likes to be prepared for an eventuality. I’ve got a knife in my pocket or I have a first aid kit in my truck.

Ian Jones: [00:09:02] Yeah, I think 30 years ago, they said if you were on a farm, it was just called normal life. But, thanks to the doomsday prepper show and everything else, people are a little afraid to attach that logo. But, I think Jack Spirko actually, on the Survival Podcast did a great little episode on that saying that, you know, listen it’s, it’s a natural occurrence that’s going to happen.

[00:09:20] You’re going to be a prepper if you’re a farmer, because you have to be. Because you’re going to lose money if you’re not prepared for a, a feed shortage, or you’re just not going to be successful. And you know, whether you just want to have a supply of screws on hand rather than, you know, making a run to Home Depot, cause it’s gonna take half a day to get there and back.

[00:09:37] You just want to be prepared for a lot of I guess, what do you call, eventuality’s or you know, things that just to po, happened to pop up.

Travis Bader: [00:09:43] So right now we’re in the middle of COVID we’re talking about restrictions being possibly loosened, but there’s also talk about a second wave. Nobody really knows what’s kind of going on there.

[00:09:56] What sort of things, aside from stockpiling toilet paper, which we all know is a prepper number one thing they should be doing. I don’t believe, I really don’t understand that one.

Ian Jones: [00:10:08] You know, you can’t poop if you don’t eat. And so by stockpiling on toilet paper, that’s means you’re gonna have an extremely clean, you know, rear end, but you’re not going to have anything to, to soil it left either.

[00:10:16] So I think it’s just something that’s cheap, easy to get and makes people feel a little more secure. So there’s a psychological aspect to grabbing toilet paper and something they know they’re going to use.

Travis Bader: [00:10:25] Sure.

Ian Jones: [00:10:26] But in reality, if you were a true preparedness minded person, you’d want to get like something that you’re gonna use, like say instead of one can of beans, just buy a second can of beans, which is a term they call ghosting.

[00:10:35] So if you happen to go to the grocery store and you, and you eat Heinz beans instead of grabbing one case, grab two cases so that maybe you just have a little extra backup for next time. It’s a slow progression where you slowly build up food stores. And before, you know, it, you’ve got a six months supply of food in the background.

[00:10:49] It didn’t, like you didn’t really notice the increased cost because it took a long time to get there.

Travis Bader: [00:10:52] Yeah. Ghosting, never heard that one before.

Ian Jones: [00:10:55] There’s a couple of bad terms associated that with that as well, but.

Travis Bader: [00:10:58] Fair enough.

Ian Jones: [00:10:59] Only people that go to the urban dictionary for that one. But, yeah, no, it’s, It’s not a hard thing to get into. It’s just, I think a lot of people think it’s overwhelming to start when they say, well, geez, I’ve got to get gas, I get food, beans, bullets, band-aids. You know, just one bite at a time, just like eating an elephant.

Travis Bader: [00:11:15] Right. So I think most people will associate prepping with hoarding. With having a bunch of stuff, but wouldn’t training and a proper mindset be the first thing that somebody should really be looking at for a prepper.

Ian Jones: [00:11:29] I think the best thing a person could have is what’s in their mind because nobody can take it from you.

Travis Bader: [00:11:34] Right.

Ian Jones: [00:11:35] So if you get knowledge and training, that’s something that’s yours to keep and share.

Travis Bader: [00:11:39] Right.

Ian Jones: [00:11:39] As you see fit. I mean, so the best money that you can spend instead of getting like 20,000 rounds of ammunition and 10 guns, get one gun, thousand rounds of ammunition, as a stock pile and then lots of training involved and shoot like another 5000 rounds to train. You’d be much better off because that training can’t be taken away from you.

Travis Bader: [00:11:55] Like the old saying goes, beware the man with one gun.

Ian Jones: [00:11:58] That’s right. And so yeah, we, we talk about hoarding. Oh, we can talk about guns too, like I mean, for myself, like I said, I had a minor’s FAC back in the day when they had those, at age 15, let me see, go up by myself 16, I had an FAC.

[00:12:10] Switched over to a PAL just by nature of having the FAC ahead of time. Course the RCMP, they still have them. If you listen to the RCMP briefings lately, one guy mentioned the FAC.

Travis Bader: [00:12:19] Yeah, I heard that.

Ian Jones: [00:12:21] Yeah, that was pretty sad, but that isn’t strongly associated with prepping, but you know, you have car insurance, you have house insurance. The way I look at it, if you have a couple thousand rounds of ammunition, you know, stockpiled away, that’s just ammunition insurance, because it’s not so much even a shortage. It’s a price hedging, you know, ammunition is only going up in price.

Travis Bader: [00:12:39] Yeah.

Ian Jones: [00:12:39] If you can get a sale and you get a thousand rounds for a decent price, you don’t have to use it. You can just sit there and then, you know, eventually use it up. And, yeah, for example, like right now, we’re going through ammunition shortage, gun shortage, thanks to the COVID.

Travis Bader: [00:12:51] Right.

Ian Jones: [00:12:52] I went to Cabela’s the other day actually to pick up some reloading gear and at first I thought well jeez, is this, is this shortage at the, at the gun rack, is that because of the, you know, the panic going down the States?

[00:13:04] Or is it because of the prohib’s maybe they took down a bunch of prohib’s the other day and other guys were like, no, it was all COVID-19 panic. And he said, couldn’t get a gun for the longest time. Just got the  ammunition restocked.

Travis Bader: [00:13:15] Have you found that people approach you differently since COVID? Like there, I’m sure some people will have that in the back of their mind. Prepper, ah you know, it’s a little cookey, I’ll make a joke about that right? I know, I know you, you’re a good guy, but I’ll, I’ll joke about it. And afterwards, they come to you looking for advice.

Ian Jones: [00:13:33] A lot of guys at work, I’ll mention, I’ll get a feel for them first to make sure they’re kind of open to the idea, and then I’ll kind of mention that I have a hobby farm and then it kind of progresses from there. And you know, eventually we get talking, a surprising large amount of people are very interested, before COVID.

[00:13:45] But now the guys that, you know, like they were interested, we talked and then we went our separate ways, but then now you’ll get random texts or calls from guys like, Hey, what would you recommend to do for this? And one guy, he called me over, we did kind of a consult on the property and just kind of pointed out a couple of things where he could maybe improve things, and he was just thrilled.

[00:14:02] And I think it just, it, it like under that peace of mind aspect, you know, like a, on top of saving money, if you have stuff, you know, price hedging, food sales, you got the cost savings, you got the less reliance on the man. You don’t have to worry about like going to a bread line because you had a little bit of food insurance, that’s great.

[00:14:20] But then the, the feeling of a peace of mind is huge. So like, if you also have to have like 100 N95 masks, well maybe 10 N95 masks even, and a pandemic happens to roll by, do you really feel the need to run down and panic buy anything? No. Little bit of peace of mind.

Travis Bader: [00:14:34] Being a prepper, one of the rules I should imagine is don’t advertise to everybody that you have a stockpile and you have all of these things. Cause if the shit does hit the fan, you don’t want anyone coming to your place. It’s a little counter intuitive being the guy with the answers, being the guy on the podcast.

Ian Jones: [00:14:52] And here I am talking about it on a podcast.

Travis Bader: [00:14:54] You got it.

Ian Jones: [00:14:55] It’s a fine line between a paranoia, OPSEC, and wanting to get the word out because really, by getting more people on the plan, quote, unquote, you’re actually reducing the burden of the government. If it comes down to emergency situation, the government has to, you know, lay out less supplies. They have to worry about less people. And, but you don’t have to sit there like I said, go crawling up in line with cap in hand, hoping that you can get a handout.

Travis Bader: [00:15:17] Right.

Ian Jones: [00:15:17] So it’s doing everybody a favour by talking about it. And I think with that stigma attached to it is a little tougher, but eventually you get used to it. I was very close lipped for the longest time and it wasn’t until I started the podcast early on that we said, okay, well, I didn’t really say my last name for the longest time. And then all of a sudden, the Slam Fire, I think they mentioned my last name and a couple other ones. 

Travis Bader: [00:15:35] Whoops.

Ian Jones: [00:15:37] And then, you know, like the guys at work now are pretty much aware, maybe not the bosses, but I don’t know, but it doesn’t really matter really. I mean, it doesn’t affect the way I work or anything else. It has nothing to do with work.

Travis Bader: [00:15:48] Right.

Ian Jones: [00:15:48] It’s just something to do on the side. People, some people like to shine up Corvettes. I like to just like, you know, maintain a generator. Well I mean assist.

Travis Bader: [00:15:55] Yeah. I mean, the amount of hobbies that spring off of that are, are endless. Whether it’s woodworking, metalworking, construction, animal husbandry, foraging, hunting, fishing, it just goes on and on.

Ian Jones: [00:16:08] Well, we, we signed off every episode with, you know,  be prepared to stay safe and keep learning because it is a side effect of being a prepper is, you’re gonna learn. No matter what, whether it be just how to run a generator, how to maintain a generator, how guns work, like the best thing you do is, you know, apply this mat right here.

[00:16:25] Learn how to take apart your, at your firearm, service it, fix it. And then also, if you have a few spare parts, you don’t have to go running to a gunsmith to, to fix it. Cause you’ll know exactly what’s wrong with it.

Travis Bader: [00:16:33] Where would you start somebody off? Ghosting? Would that be the first place where you’d start?

Ian Jones: [00:16:37] Yeah. That the guys, on Slam Fire asked me one thing about, you know, five things right now, what would you do? And so, of course.

Travis Bader: [00:16:45] And there’s never five things.

Ian Jones: [00:16:46] Yeah. It’s such a hard thing to do on the, especially on the spur of the moment.

Travis Bader: [00:16:49] Yeah.

Ian Jones: [00:16:49] And that was for bug out bags and everything else, which is another whole story. But for prepping food insurance, just like car insurance, house insurance, everything else, why not just have food insurance and it’s not even a, again, it could be price hedging.

[00:17:01] Maybe just get a good deal on rice and get a few bags instead of one. Or you just want to have something in case you’re locked in the house for a snow storm and, you know, Winnipeg in the middle of winter, just common sense. It’s not, it’s not paranoia. As I’d say, food first.

Travis Bader: [00:17:15] Yeah.

Ian Jones: [00:17:16] And it really, as long as you’ve got even two weeks worth of food, if you’re, if you really want to minimize it. Yeah. Within two weeks, I’d say the government could probably organize something in two weeks. They do advertise a 72 hour bag, but let’s face it, the government never works that fast. They could, they could never arrange a mass relief organization in 72 hours to save their life. And it’s not, that’s not a knock on them, it’s just a, it’s a slow inertia machine, right.

Travis Bader: [00:17:37] It is what it is.

Ian Jones: [00:17:38] Yeah. And so the best thing you could do for yourself and your family, especially if you have one, is just to make sure that you at least have a week’s worth of food. Work from there. You know, and once you’ve met that goal, okay, well maybe get a couple of weeks.

[00:17:49] And then of course the natural progression is, well now I have a couple weeks worth of food. What happens if my neighbour comes to knock it and it’s like, well then, okay. Then I gotta worry about like, you know, maybe security systems, better window  coverings.

[00:18:00] Maybe just filing a couple of thorn bushes underneath your windows before you even worry about firearms. And then, you know, firearms for self defence as we know is not a, it’s not a great thing in Canada.

Travis Bader: [00:18:08] What about a dog?

Ian Jones: [00:18:09] A dog. Exactly. We call it biologicals, right? And so we have, we have a few dogs on the acreage for different purposes. We have one that’s like outs, outside all the time guard dog, and he actually is a livestock protection job dog.

[00:18:19] So he actually protec, protects the chickens, protects the alpacas and warns us of intruders. And he actually chased one off about a month ago, just after the COVID things started going a little bit.

Travis Bader: [00:18:28] Oh really?

Ian Jones: [00:18:28] Yeah which is actually, I saw the flashlight go running off the property so.

Travis Bader: [00:18:31] You see, they know, they know.

Ian Jones: [00:18:33] They know.

Travis Bader: [00:18:33] Never prepared.

Ian Jones: [00:18:34] They’re always on duty and they don’t need batteries and they’re fantastic. So after dogs, of course, we’ve got an inside dog, for the same idea and a companion dog for when I’m not there. So got, actually got three of them. So yeah biologicals is a great idea. Biologicals before the firearms, firearms for us. Food procurement, that’s basically when you’re looking at a preparedness thing, you want to be able to get your own food.

Travis Bader: [00:18:54] Hmm.

Ian Jones: [00:18:54] And that of course, that’s going to lead to the hunting aspect, which is going to be very educational.

Travis Bader: [00:18:58] Absolutely. What about water?

Ian Jones: [00:19:00] Well, water. It depends on where you are. If you’re a, you know, if you have Deas Slough nearby and you can filter water, fantastic. You know, you’ve got a great you know, unlimited water supply there. If the water table’s a few inches deep, even better, you can do shallow well. If you’re in the middle of say Kelowna and you know, when you’re downtown and you know, you’re not near the lake, but you’re in a desert climate, that’s a problem.

[00:19:21] So, I wouldn’t even say Kelowna, that’s a bad example, say you know like, I’m trying to think of a desert

Travis Bader:[00:19:25] Or more arid area.

Ian Jones: [00:19:26] Yeah like Asoyoos and nowhere near the lake or something. But yeah, no it’s a, water is a thing like, you know, the rule of three’s. Three days or sorry, 3 days without water, 30 days without food, 3 hours without a proper, like a clothing or, or shelter, 3 minutes without a hope.

Travis Bader: [00:19:43] Hmm.

Ian Jones: [00:19:44] 3 minutes without air, maybe 3 seconds without hope, something like that.

Travis Bader: [00:19:46] Yeah. I’ve heard something like that before.

Ian Jones: [00:19:49] Yeah. So water, absolutely. You know, just whether it be just a filter that you might need for the local water supply or actually stored water. Some people actually really firmly believe in having stored water in the property. For me, I’ve rainwater catchment systems. So we get 48 inches of rain per year where we live.

[00:20:04] Sooner or later it’s going to rain and if you have enough catchment ability, then you don’t have to worry too much cause the next brainstorm is only a couple of, couple of days away. Our well is 400 feet deep, so without power, we’re kind of hooped, but.

Travis Bader: [00:20:14] Sure.

Ian Jones: [00:20:15] So rain water catchments are a big thing, but some people just have like a, a swamp nearby, a river nearby. Some people have, in the apartments they have to have some stored water because it’s all electric pumps. Power goes out, no water. Makes sense. It is, so no two situations are the same, but obviously without food, you’re going to need water as well.

Travis Bader: [00:20:33] See I always figured, we’ve got a hot, hot water tank, that’s a big storage thing of water and we’ve got a hot tub, I mean, it sounds disgusting but you can distill that right? You got something if you need it.

Ian Jones: [00:20:43] Yeah, you can distill it, you can filter it. I mean, if you’ve ever cleaned out your hot water tank and done that flush out of the bottom, that brown stuff comes out. So I do that fairly regularly, but, it is a supply, absolutely. I mean, even over worst-case now the top of the toilets, I mean.

Travis Bader: [00:20:55] Sure.

Ian Jones: [00:20:56] It is freshwater going in there. Unless somebody left an upper deck in there, so. Might want to edit that one out.

Travis Bader: [00:21:03] Or not.

Ian Jones: [00:21:04] Or not, yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:21:07] So food, water, when we started doing these what if scenarios it gets, I find people get carried away. What if you’re in this situation, but you have no access to A, B, C, and D, and you can only do this and it gets a little silly.

[00:21:23] If we want to take a look at what’s reasonable, that we can kind of prepare ourselves for, I think food supply, the supply chain, that’d be one of them. Obviously in the middle of a pandemic, there’s certain things that our access is limited to now.

[00:21:38] What about during a pandemic? If there is an emergency, what if we, the big one hit right now right? What if there’s flooding, earthquake, fires? We live in an area where there’s propensity for forest fires, right?

Ian Jones: [00:21:52] Yeah. So, I mean, you look at the doomsday preppers, and I used to laugh at that and because I, I don’t think, I only watched the first season, but it was always like I’m preparing for the mega earthquake.

Travis Bader: [00:22:02] Right.

Ian Jones: [00:22:02] And nothing else. Or I’m preparing for the zombie apocalypse, I’m preparing for an economic collapse. They’re all always preparing for one thing. But in reality, and I’m going to steal a line off of one of the other guys on YouTube there, The Prepared Mind, John his name is. Anyways, he always says food, water, shelter, clothing, means of self defence and a plan. If you have all those things, you’re probably good for about 95% of the actual emergencies that are going to happen.

Travis Bader: [00:22:26] Yeah, totally.

Ian Jones: [00:22:26] I mean, because let’s face it, you know, you’re far more likely to have a pandemic, an economic collapse, or even say an earthquake here in Vancouver then you are to have like the zombie apocalypse, government overreach, you know, whatever, whatever else do people might be comparing preparing for.

[00:22:42] But I mean, as long as you’ve got the basics covered, I mean, really you’re you’re doing yourself a huge favour and you’re going to be prepared for most the eventualities. I mean, first aid thing is one of these, I don’t think you could ever really overdo first aid, especially with training, not just equipment. But training is kind of a critical, and I don’t think anybody’s ever going to hold up against you for being a first aid guru.

Travis Bader: [00:23:01] I would think so. That would hope not.

Ian Jones: [00:23:03] You wouldn’t think so. Because at the very least you’d be able to help out, in case of some major calamity or whatever, right.

Travis Bader: [00:23:09] On the list of priorities on the training side, what sort of things do you like to spend your time learning and educating yourself on?

Ian Jones: [00:23:16] Well, it’s a, again, a natural progression with all that stuff when I was paying for my flight training back in college, I worked at a, what was overweightea foods, became Save-on Foods. And, I worked in the store there and they would offer free courses and they said, well, Hey, we need a industrial first aid attendant.

[00:23:31] And so if anybody’s willing to become the industrial first aid attendant to help us out with our WCB needs, we’ll pay for the course, we’ll pay your wages while you’re on the course. And we’ll give you a raise for having it if you pass.

Travis Bader: [00:23:39] Sign me up.

Ian Jones: [00:23:40] Yeah. Sign me up. And that normally knocks up your preparedness level, but it’s better for your career prospects at the time. And it makes you more valuable to your employer and everything else. It’s something that can tie into life really well. So when stuff like that came up, I always stuck my hand up.

Travis Bader: [00:23:53] Mmm.

Ian Jones: [00:23:54] So there’s a lot of free training that came along with various jobs. As far as everyday stuff. I mean, I’m pretty busy on the farm right now, but I’ve taken a, took a Stop The Bleed last year at the podcast, a podcastor charity shoot.

[00:24:05] Both my daughters  I ran through the standard first aid course, so for me, it’s a refresher, but for them it’s the first time, but I always say, I’ll run the first one with you and you have to do what your recurrent on your own.

Travis Bader: [00:24:13] Right.

Ian Jones: [00:24:14] And so regular first aid courses, I’m actually wanting to take one of those Triple C here next year. But with all this COVID stuff going on, it’s very hard to try and arrange course dates

Travis Bader: [00:24:22] Yeah, a little difficult isn’t it? Tell me about it.

Ian Jones: [00:24:24] As far as firearms courses. Yeah, again, I wanted to actually get into a little bit more, but now with this latest, OIC came through, it’s going to put a hitch in a lot of people’s plans and a lot of training courses I’m sure to.

Travis Bader: [00:24:33] Sure, yeah.

Ian Jones: [00:24:34] But it was more about entertainment and a, in a sporting aspect than anything else, but actual, real preparedness stuff. I mean, for me, I’ve been learning how to can, vicariously through my wife mostly cause she was doing most of the canning.

Travis Bader: [00:24:45] Yeah.

Ian Jones: [00:24:45] And we have a couple of neighbours, they are very old and they actually have a lot of skillsets, that are very surprising. One guy around the corner, he’s a hand operator and he’s like, anytime you want to come over and learn more about hand radio, you just let me know. And I, I just love to take him up on it, I just don’t have the time right now.

Travis Bader: [00:24:58] Yeah, those guys there, they’re big time preppers. They’re all preparing for when all communications go down and they’ve got their safety net.

Ian Jones: [00:25:04] And they’re old enough to live through world war two. So they know all about food shortages.

Travis Bader: [00:25:07] That’s right.

Ian Jones: [00:25:07] Because they were over in Italy and yeah, fantastic people. But yeah, there’s always such a learning opportunity to be had, it’s just a matter of trying to organize them. But there’s no wasted learning opportunity.

Travis Bader: [00:25:17] What do you typically keep? Well, maybe not in your vehicle. Do we want to talk about where you typically keep in your vehicle?

Ian Jones: [00:25:24] Sure why not?

Travis Bader: [00:25:24] What would you typically keep? What would you recommend a person would typically keep in their vehicle? Just to be moderately prepared for, for life.

Ian Jones: [00:25:33] Okay. So, I mean, obviously we’re going to talk about the obvious here for a second on C, every CGN thread available on Canadian Gun Nutz, they’re always talking with their favourite truck gun. I mean, in reality, I mean, in a place like here, you’re not going to need it.

Travis Bader: [00:25:44] Right.

Ian Jones: [00:25:45] If you’re living up in the Northwest Territories, it’s, it’s, it’s a valid thing, especially during hunting season. It’s, if you are stuck in, you know, you have the opportunity to hunt some Ptarmigan, yeah great. A little 22 in the truck, fantastic. But for the most part around here, it’s, it’s going to raise more questions and raise more eyebrows from the local constabulary then it’s going to actually provide any service to you.

[00:26:02] So seasonally appropriate clothing, all the time. When you’re waiting for the ferry to go over to the Island, there’s nothing better than having a blanket and a pillow in the car, believe it or not.

[00:26:10] Travis Bader: [00:26:10] Mhmm, yes.

Ian Jones: [00:26:11] Stopped vehicle in middle of winter. So for me, I always got a first aid kit in the truck of some sort, as well as a tourniquet. Because if you happen to drive along and happen upon a car accident, which is extremely common and certainly more common than a lot of other scenarios, you can think of.

Travis Bader: [00:26:26] Sure.

Ian Jones: [00:26:26] Having a good first aid kit, tourniquet, and you know, even a blanket for those, the shock aspect is fantastic here to have. So I’ve got seasonally, appropriate clothing, a blanket, first aid kit, a little bit of food, because whether you’re stuck in traffic, you got kids that are upset in the back because they’re hungry. A little bit of water can’t hurt.

Travis Bader: [00:26:43] Yeah.

Ian Jones: [00:26:44] As long as it’s not going to freeze solid on ya. And it’s, for me stuff that makes my life easier when it comes to changing a tire. So I’ve got a proper tire iron, like the big X shaped ones. I’ve got, you know, a little, cigarette lighter powered air inflator, you know, a couple of little old truck bits in there.

[00:26:59] Even a sweet saw because when I go actually the forestry roads, I don’t bring a chainsaw, but if you happen to come across the log, that’s down across the road, it’s much easier to just sweetsaw that bad boy out of the way and just.

Travis Bader: [00:27:10] Yeah, good point.

Ian Jones: [00:27:11] Because sometimes you can go out into the road and come back, there’s a tree down.

Travis Bader: [00:27:16] So bug-out bag or bug-in bag?

Ian Jones: [00:27:19] Well, I’d say, I’m going to say bug-out bag only for the simple fact that 99, 98% of contingencies, I’m gonna be bugging in.

Travis Bader: [00:27:27] Mmm.

Ian Jones: [00:27:28] And really everybody should, because you’ve got all your gear there. You’ve got all your supplies there. You know what’s there and you know how to organize it.

[00:27:34] And unless the place is on fire or somebodies pounding down your door to come in and harm you and your family, there’s really no reason to leave. And I’m having trouble actually come up with a good scenario that would, you know, justify it. Like you look at the Fort Mc, Fort McMurray fires back a few days ago, or a few days, a few years ago now.

Travis Bader: [00:27:49] Yeah.

Ian Jones: [00:27:49] Absolutely, those guys had a valid reason to bug out and they didn’t have a whole lot of notice to do it. They had about 10, 15 minutes, so they had to leave. That’s where the bug-out bag would have just been worth its weight in gold. Anybody bug-out bag for a car should have couple of jerry cans because you’re not gonna stop for gas on the way out. And if you haven’t kept your tank above half, boy you failed as a prepper. But also.

Travis Bader: [00:28:10] Yes.

Ian Jones: [00:28:10] But also you should just so that way you don’t have to stop the gas and then lineup like everybody else. So the bug-out bag, if I was to design it, it would definitely include gas and cash.

Travis Bader: [00:28:21] Okay.

Ian Jones: [00:28:21] And that’s something that you’re going to use every day and it’s not hard to do to get, and it’s not gonna raise any eyebrows for having, and it says common sense.

Travis Bader: [00:28:28] Gas and cash, anything else in there?

Ian Jones: [00:28:31] Oh, there’s going to be food, seasonally appropriate clothing.

Travis Bader: [00:28:34] Yeah.

Ian Jones: [00:28:34] First aid kit.

Travis Bader: [00:28:35] So all the regular stuff that you will have with your vehicle anyways?

Ian Jones: [00:28:38] But the bug-out kit, shouldn’t be a, you know, comprised of a whole bunch of weapons, a whole bunch of cooking gear and everything else. It should all  be pre-cooked because you’re not going to stop and start a lil campfire on a bug-out. You shouldn’t because it’s, you know, you’re gonna.

Travis Bader: [00:28:51] Because you’re bugging out.

Ian Jones: [00:28:52] You’re bugging out, you’re going to give away your location. You’re going to stop to start a fire and get it up to boiling temperatures. And everything else should all be pre-done. So that’s just my opinion anyway, someone’s gonna argue with me on that one.

Travis Bader: [00:29:01] You know, you can’t stop that.

Ian Jones: [00:29:04] No, exactly. That’s going to happen no matter what, but, you know, bugging out to kit is really actually extremely simple. And, if you can deal the realistic stuff, flat tires, tired people, hurt people. You’re kind of going to be covered for a lot of scenarios.

Travis Bader: [00:29:18] You’re looking to be as lightweight and mobile as possible. You’re not looking at packing down just a whole bunch of everything, putting your whole house on your back and moving out.

Ian Jones: [00:29:26] Well, when you go for a weekend camping trip, you know how full your truck gets?

Travis Bader: [00:29:30] It can, yeah. Depends on the type of camping, yes.

Ian Jones: [00:29:32] Yeah. Say if you’re going out to the hot springs or whatever, you know one of the local campsite, and you’re going to bring your Coleman camp stove and your propane tank, everything else. In reality, you’re going to carry that on your back.

Travis Bader: [00:29:39] Right.

Ian Jones: [00:29:40] So if you are going to carry stuff on your back, it’s going to be very light and, you know, as little as possible. If you’re bugging out in a vehicle, okay, you can carry a lot more, but you still have to fit the family pets, probably you, your family, everybody else in there. Less is more, I’d say in this case.

Travis Bader: [00:29:54] Did you have a background in Boy Scouts or anything else looking at this whole be prepared model that the, the podcast has?

Ian Jones: [00:30:01] Yeah, that kind of gave it away. So, Beavers, Cubs and Scouts and yeah, I went all the way through and a buddy of mine, he was trying to get me the Air Cadets and I was like, Ack, what would I ever need Air Cadets for, it’s not like you gotta be a pilot or anything. Oops. So he was right on that one.

[00:30:14] But no, all the way through, and it was fantastic. Cause that was my first winter camping experience. And I think I was maybe 12 at the time and it’s a bit of a wake up call there too. Cause when your used to sleeping in a nice warm bed every night.

Travis Bader: [00:30:26] Yes.

Ian Jones: [00:30:26] It’s not always like that. And I had my eye on the RCMP and the, the military for a while as well. So, that was kind of a good lead in, but at the time they weren’t hiring, simple as that. Early nineties, when you’re trying to get at your first major job and there was huge cutbacks back then so.

Travis Bader: [00:30:41] So first camping trip, 12 years old, you’re going out into winter camping trip and you froze your but off, did ya?

Ian Jones: [00:30:48] Oh yeah, absolutely. And I found out the, the value of changing clothes inside sleeping bag and the value of not wearing the same clothes to bed that you wore during the day. Because, you know, you’re, you’re too lazy to take off those clothes because you are, you know, you’ve got them warmed up, but then all of a sudden when you stop moving that sweat starts to get cold.

Travis Bader: [00:31:03] Yes.

Ian Jones: [00:31:04] Ooh, life lesson.

Travis Bader: [00:31:06] You still do a fair bit of camping?

Ian Jones: [00:31:08] Glamping, glamping as my wife would call it, because we basically leave out in the, in the wilderness as it is right now. There’s not a whole lot of thrill to it. So when we do go, we actually go a couple of times a year to a set of Hot Springs here just North of, or just South of Pemberton.

[00:31:22] But we bring in everything, we bring the Coleman stove, we bring the tent, we bring everything else because we’re there to relax. We’re not there to like rough it.

Travis Bader: [00:31:28] Right.

Ian Jones: [00:31:29] If you want, like every day I’m out roughing it because I’m out, you know, working with my hands. I go on a 5K hike to start the day with the dogs and everything else. So I’m busy enough, but.

Travis Bader: [00:31:38] That brings up a good point, physical fitness.

Ian Jones: [00:31:41] Best preparedness thing you can have and there’s no way to get into it fast. You know, you have to build that up over the long term. I mean, actually got to say I’m actually out of shape right now cause the COVID thing because, you know, you sit around and eat and you don’t work half as hard as you used to.

[00:31:55] But, yeah, we actually did a whole episode on that because that’s, that’s one of those things where as a, as a means of longterm preparedness for yourself, rather than having to run to the hospital for various procedures that would come up as, as regards to ill health, eat ill eating or everything else, the best you need to do is keep your body in shape.

Travis Bader: [00:32:11] Mhm.

Ian Jones: [00:32:13] And if you do have to outrun the zombies, cardio is key.

Travis Bader: [00:32:16] It’ll help. It’ll help. You’ve been raised in an environment, you’ve been raised around firearms raised in, on farms, you’ve been with the Boy Scouts and you’ve been really prepping your entire life, essentially, whether you were planning to do it, or is this something of a byproduct of your environment.

[00:32:35] If you were to try and distill everything you had right now and tell somebody else, some Vancouver urbanite who is interested in being more prepared, who’s now realized that things can go sideways. What would you tell them?

Ian Jones: [00:32:51] Well, you’re absolutely right, things can go sideways as we’re currently witnessing right now. Like nobody saw this coming a year ago and you know, it’s affected a lot of people with their jobs.

[00:32:59] So from a financial preparedness aspect to health with some people, I mean, some people not only the, the infected with the COVID-19, some people are getting their surgeries delayed, which they didn’t see coming, or you know, maybe they can’t get to a doctor. So as far as distilling it down to one thing.

Travis Bader: [00:33:13] Or not even just one thing. Like if you wanted to distill all that information, everything that you’ve learned over the years, can you, can you shortcut it for people? There, there’s some things that you’ve found that just were a waste of time and other things that you’ve looked at and said, man, I really, if I doubled down on ghosting or if I doubled down on my physical fitness at this point, that would have made, it really pays dividends.

Ian Jones: [00:33:34] Physical  fitness, I would say actually is number one, because I’m still struggling with it 20 years later. Like I I’ve, I’d had a very sedentary job after I left the, the bush flying. And after I joined like a scheduled airline a long before this major one that I’m at now, it becomes a very sedentary lifestyle and, I’m having to fight that along ways to with it. 

[00:33:53] It’s a lot harder to get back in shape when you’re older and I’m pushing 50, than it is to, you know, just to maintain your shape, if you already in shape. So, I would say physical fitness is not something that anybody in the city can do. Like, you know, I don’t want to draw the comparison to the hamster in the wheel there, but I mean, even if you’re on a spin class or if you’re in a go skateboarding around Stanley Park or like just do something and I mean.

Travis Bader: [00:34:15] Sure.

Ian Jones: [00:34:16] If you do something today, you’re better off than you were yesterday, so it doesn’t have to be anything major. It doesn’t have to be like, you know, do your, your, WCB. What do they call that? It’s not an industrial first aid anymore, it’s WCB, something.

Travis Bader: [00:34:29] OFA, occupational.

Ian Jones: [00:34:30] Yeah. Occupational health right? You don’t have to get that out of the way right away. But if you took a standard first aid course, that’s one thing. Okay. So you’re, you’re better off than you were last weekend. Just do one thing at a time.

[00:34:39] So physical fitness, and then start doing one thing at a time. Don’t feel overwhelmed. The world’s not gonna end tomorrow and, in the meantime, If you can just gradually build yourself up, you’ll be fine.

[00:34:50] Travis Bader: [00:34:50] Just one step at a time.

Ian Jones: [00:34:51] One step at a time, and don’t let your ego get in the way of being willing to learn something because, just because you are the expert, coding guy at your local IT shop doesn’t mean that you can’t learn how to do first aid. Because and just cause you’ve never done it before doesn’t mean you can’t ask somebody because most people are more than willing to share what they know or what might be their passion.

Travis Bader: [00:35:08] I like that. That’s really good advice. For me physical fitness is very important. Mental fitness is just as important if not more so. And I find that physical fitness will help with the mental fitness. It will help with the perspective it’ll help with the problem solving.

Ian Jones: [00:35:23] Well as one thing leads to another. When you have physical fitness, it’s going to lead to good mental fitness.

[00:35:28] Travis Bader: [00:35:28] Sure.

Ian Jones: [00:35:28] And like you said, so there is a lot of, interoperability with a lot of those concepts. And when you have positive mental attitudes, which again, it’s hard to overcome that mental inertia if you’re sitting on the couch playing Xbox and you don’t want to do anything that day. 

[00:35:40] By going and being a little more physically active, you get a positive feedback from that, you feel like you accomplished something, then you might want to accomplish something more. It’s gonna lead to more and more productivity down the road. It’s amazing how these things are intertwined quite a bit. And so, as you know, everything’s a mental game.

Travis Bader: [00:35:54] And I’m, and I’m finding that. I’m watching people during COVID and some people are just having no problem with it. And some people it’s really affecting them.

Ian Jones: [00:36:02] Are losing their mind because they didn’t see it coming and they didn’t want to think of, they, they don’t want to think about it because the normalcy bias. You know, just because they were able to go to the grocery store and get today’s food only yesterday doesn’t mean they can’t do it today. Right.

Travis Bader: [00:36:14] Or they blow it up 10 times bigger in their mind and they just, they’re falling apart. Or they’re extremely social creatures and they’re finding it difficult to not be socializing like they were before.

Ian Jones: [00:36:24] Yeah. And if so, if you can learn to inoculate yourself with some stress, you know, play the mental game. So you know, when you talk about physical fitness, leading to a good mental game, mental, mental game comes into play when you’re sport shooting, whether it be skeet, trap, competitive, executing, everything else, there’s always a mental game involved.

Travis Bader: [00:36:40] Huge, huge.

Ian Jones: [00:36:41] And if you start thinking about potential, what if’s down the road, and there’s some serv, scenarios in your mind that are, that worry you, earthquakes, forest fires in BC, water shortages even. Maybe if you’re worried about terrorism, it’s something you should think about, that way when the day comes along, you’ve kind of inoculated yourself or at least developed some sort of a plan in your mind.

[00:36:59] Here’s what I would do and make a list. If you really want to make a list, make a list of, you know, steps you would take in case of X happens. That mental game is huge and it would lead to a lot of people now. I actually, I’ve seen a lot of it myself, you know some people, in like friends, family, whatever that are having a different adjustment reactions to this and some farewell, some, some don’t.

Travis Bader: [00:37:21] Right.

Ian Jones: [00:37:22] And we actually had one girl come over to buy some hatching eggs off of us because now all of a sudden everybody’s into chickens, right?

Travis Bader: [00:37:28] Of course, yeah.

Ian Jones: [00:37:28] Everyone wants to get their own chickens because it’s a good idea to have some food self-reliance.

Travis Bader: [00:37:31] Yeah.

Ian Jones: [00:37:32] And she came over and she was talking with us for about two or three hours and we’re expecting her to be there for 10 minutes and we love, we love her, she’s great.

Travis Bader: [00:37:39] Yeah.

Ian Jones: [00:37:39] And we were having a grand old time chatting away, and after a while we realized, she’s just bored. She doesn’t want to leave cause she doesn’t want to go home because, you know, she’s just missing the social interaction. Cause her, you know, I think her mental game was just not prepared to handle the, the isolation that this has brought upon people.

Travis Bader: [00:37:55] Yeah, that’s tough. The biggest way you can prepare yourself is mental role play. Those lists, great idea. Put your lists down, write them up and check back a week later, maybe you have fresh thoughts on it, but the more that you prepare mentally, the better you’re going to be when, when the shit hits the fan.

Ian Jones: [00:38:10] Yeah. Also because it’s very tough to find somebody to spitball with, things with, because being naturally closed, guarded people and a little paranoid type of thing, it’s hard to find time that’s likeminded and, and you know, that you can bounce stuff off of, but I tell you being able to talk with somebody about potential scenarios,  it takes a lot of the stress away from there. A lot of the, the overwhelming nature of it. So that’s huge.

Travis Bader: [00:38:31] Yeah.

Ian Jones: [00:38:32] And leads to a better performance under pressure.

Travis Bader: [00:38:35] Well, I think we’ve got something else really important that we should be talking about.

Ian Jones: [00:38:37] Oh?

Travis Bader: [00:38:38] And I think we have some things that you’d like to plug.

Ian Jones: [00:38:40] Absolutely, yeah. So, first things first, we should talk about the one thing that’s remaining. I think everything else has been canceled this year, but we should talk about Taccom coming up in September.

Travis Bader: [00:38:48] They haven’t canceled it yet have they?

Ian Jones: [00:38:49] No, not at all. So, so far I think they’re the lone holdout. That’s gonna be early September, September 11th, 12th, 13th I believe. Hopefully, I didn’t get the dates wrong there.

Travis Bader: [00:38:59] Yeah, we’ll put it in the show notes.

Ian Jones: [00:39:00] You’ll put in the show notes and it’s going to be in Mississauga right by the, Pearson Airport and its the equivalent of shot show for Canada. And it’s gonna be the biggest one yet, so hopefully it’s still going as long as this COVID-19 has not effected them that way. But I just want to give a quick shout out to, to Fred at Taccom cause he’s been really good with us. He’s offered us a place to plug our podcasts.

[00:39:19] Also, now for myself, every Sunday evening, we try and record our podcast, which is Canadian Prepper Podcast. Sunday evenings at 6:00 PM Pacific, 9:00 PM Eastern. And we are actually wide open to topic ideas, so if there’s something you want us to cover, if something you want to learn more about, or that hasn’t been covered in our previous episodes, just drop us a line.  you can email me at [email protected] and also feedback at PrepperPodcast.ca.

[00:39:45] And you can find us on iTunes, Spotify, anywhere fine podcasts are sold. And then now of course, I also do a little more of a political commentary on Monday’s under Canadian Patriot Podcast, which is also at 6:00 PM Pacific, 9:00 PM Eastern. That’s recorded, both of them are recorded live to Facebook and YouTube. So you can watch us do our hiccups here live, which is always embarrassing.

[00:40:06] But, both good shows. I think the Patriot Podcast is a little more salty and you know, if you, if you get your feelings hurt easily, probably don’t show up to that one. But, but as far as learning, it’s more of a how to show is definitely a Sunday evenings for the Prepper Podcast.

Travis Bader: [00:40:20] That’s

Ian Jones: [00:40:20] fantastic Ian. Thank

Travis Bader: [00:40:22] you very much for coming on the show. Really enjoyed having you.

Ian Jones: [00:40:24] It’s been a pleasure to have this. Thanks.