I have read this whole thread, however, unlike last night when I wrote a very good reply today I will go write my reply and then copy and paste to this as an edit in short bit. Thus I will not lose my post. FYI, I guess there is a time limit on how long you can take to write a post and if you don't post it in time, without warning you lose everything you wrote. Very frustrating.

Back soon,

Mountainman.

I am back. Lets hope this works.

A Sense of Community

After reading the whole thread, I was impressed. I had written a very good post but that was lost. But, I will not dwell on that any longer. I will try to re-create my post.

There are challenges and advantages to creating this community. So, I will do my best to present my thoughts in a logical, organized manner. Here goes......

The Challenges:

#1 Opsec – everyone here is concerned for their own personal safety and security. That is not in question. Not even an issue. The question is HOW do we trust complete strangers?? With our safety?? With our lives?? And our Family's lives??

#2 Geography – we live in one big ass country. That is not a question, it is a fact. HOW do we connect all the like minded folks who are spread out over this huge country???

#3 Communications – we need to talk to each other. We need to meet each other. HOW do we establish communications with each other?? How dow we network with each other??

#4

#5

The Advantages:

#1 Safety – a community provides the numbers, to be able to be self-sustaining. Safety in numbers.

Damn, I had 5 challenges listed last night and 4 advantages. Now I am having trouble remembering them. Frustrating.

#2

#3 Resources – not everyone has the same resources to work with. Some have the land. Some have the money. Some have the food. Some have the guns. Some have the books. Some have the tools. HOW do we make it, if we are lacking resources?? What are the critical resources that each of us need to survive?? Can we get them??

#4 Skills – not everyone has the same skills. Some know how to grow food. Some know how to build. Some know how to purify water. Some know how to defend. Some know how to harvest the forest. Some know how to harvest the sea. Some know how to make power/electricity from water/wind/solar/mechanical means. Some know how to fix things. Some know how to design. What skills are critical to survival?? How do we get these skills??

Moving on. I will try to go back and filling the missing points if & when I recall them.

There is a lot of discussion about trust and strangers. So, I will start there. Trust. How do we trust?? How do we trust those we do not know?? We, as a society, are trained from birth NOT to talk to starngers. Why, because starnger could hurt us. Anyone not familiar with this?? I am sure every school, every church, every family teaches this. What is the solution??

If the problem is strangers, then we need to become friends. Why?? Because friends are allowed to talk to each other, in fact, that is expected behaviour for friends. How can we become friends, we are spread out over the whole country?? Well at this point in time we have a little help from technology and we are all using right now. The Canadian Preppers Network. This is how we start. We post our thoughts, our ideas, our concerns and ours fears. Is this as good as face-to-face communication, no. But, as each of us posts more and more, you put a little bit of yourself our there, little-by-little you trust a bit more. You expose a bit more, you trust a bit more. When you are being accepted for how and what you are, you trust a little more. This is how it starts. Once you are comfortable, then you entertain the idea that meeting face-to-face would speed this whole process up a hundred fold. Once you get over the societal blocks from meeting new people, find each successive meeting gets easier and easier. Now you are a group of friends not strangers. You can, without fear of rejection express ideas, thoughts, opinions, concerns and fears.

If I am allowed to digress and tell a story. I like to go hiking in the Rockies, to Berg Lake, behind Mount Robson. When you start the hike at the trailhead, everyone is in their own little coccoon. Memebers of each family or hiking party may speak with each other but there is very little communication with anyone around you. You hike in. The campsite we stay at is at about 5600' above sealevel and 24 KM's from the parking lot. Once you are there, people, all of them change. Their human survival instinct kicks in. They know, deep down, that their individual survival now depends on the people who are around them. There is only one safety net here, get to know these people, because if you don't and something happens you might not survive. People who are 20+ KM's from society in the bush are friendlier than when in the city. That is a fact. After spending 7 nights out in paradise it is time to return to the world. Those that are hiking out speak to everyone they pass on the trail. As you get closer and closer to the parking lot the people hiking in become less and less likely to respond to even a hello. Seasoned hikers are different, they ask lots of questions from complete strangers. Upon reaching the parking lot at the trailhead, the euphoric state lasts about an hour or so, before fading away and each person gets back into role expected of them from society.

So, what the heck does hiking have to do with prepping??? This story is an observation of how people respond when taken out of their comfort zone and are placed in new conditions. The rules change. And it is my opinion that during a SHTF scenario, that when preppers show up at the gate to your ranch or farm you will be letting them in. Even complete strangers. I am going to explain why:

#1 Fellow preppers will have some supplies, no matter how limited, on them. So, they will not necessarily deplete your resources. Except maybe water.

#4 Fellow preppers will not be offended if you do not have a use for their skill set. But they would appreciate guidance to the next prepper stonghold that may need their skills.

#5 Fellow preppers will not be offended if you do not have spare food to share. But they would appreciate know where the next fishing whole is or where they might have good luck on a hunt.

#9 Preppers expect you to do your security check and keep the new arrivals separated from the main group until you can varify their story/skills/references.

This networking we are doing is partly for today, but mostly for tomorrow. We all want, to some degree, to be able to count on someone to help each and everyone of us. We are taking thos first steps together by writing on this board/forum.

Now to those of you who are new or who have not written a single post. This is my mission to you, start writing on a topic that interests you. Write and post. Write and post. Write and post. If you do not write and post your thoughts, ideas, opinions, concerns, fears, how can you say you are a part of this community. You are merely an observer. Once you are posting, you are getting known. Try posting once a week. Then twice a week. For the people here to trust you to come into there safe zone they have to know you. If you will not even participate by writing a few comments here, how can you be trusted to work the land or pull protective detail??? We can't trust who we don't know. Get known!!!

For everyone else, I won't to say how good it is to see the amount of effort you are putting in to break down the barriers that keep us apart. I encourage everyone to setup community meetings. Even neighbourhood meetings. Regional meetings are great but we need to know who is closest to each of us.

I will digress one more time before closing. I think everyone who is visiting and posting knows that in the event of the SHTF, the government will not be coming to the rescue. It is not possible. Our country is too big. The people too spread out. The government is not really prepared for a large event. Be we as citizens can start to take care of each other. That is what we are doing here on this site. I am always amazed when traveling our country how similar we are from coast-to-coast-to-coast (Pacific-Atlantic-Arctic). We have more in common that we have in difference. However, we are told via the media that there is tensions/stress/distrust in our country between East & West, between French Canadian & English Canadian, between Native & Non-natives. These are lies. Lies told to keep you distracted, to keep you from trusting one another, to keep you from talking to each other. Because if you were to talk to each other you would know that the news reports told on the East about the West are not true. As the stories told in the West about the East are not true. Why would they lie?? Because those lies keep us from talking to each other and from being united. This gives them power. That power is yours and mine. It is given by us to Ottawa. Toronto. Quebec City. Edmonton. Victoria. Regina. Winnipeg. Charlottetown. Fredericton. Halifax. St. John's. White Horse. Yellowknife. Iqaluit. They work for us, we do not work for them. Unless, of course, we cannot get along. When we do not get along, they have the power over us, however, when we are all talking to each other and we know the truth we have the power. Lets keep an open line of communications between all of us from coast-to-coast-to-coast. Time to take the power back to the people. We will start with preparing ourselves to survive whatever is thrown our way. Taking care of each other. Yes, a sort of societal triage will take place during a major SHTF event. Sorry, but not everyone will survive. In the new order of things only those who can think and prepare will be around. That is not by our plan, it is the cost of those who have the power who failed to plan.

I see this is rather long-winded. Not quite aw well written as the one that was lost, but similar.

I will try to recall the missing points and edit them in at a later time.

Time for community is NOW!! Do what needs doing to make this happen, NOW!! It is a good idea to start posting on other boards, start to get known to fellow preppers in other regions. In a major SHTF event it is hard to say where the safe zone will be, it may end up a long way from where you live now.

Maybe I can drop in on one your meetings in July if I am near enough.

Take care out there.

Mountainman.

I found your post very interesting mountainman. But the thing is there are alot of people out there who make us distrustful because of the bad rap we get from the public and uninformed family members alike. This is where it comes in handy to get to the meetings and to meet face to face so we can see what skills and uses we can improve on to make ourselves into someone worth having around and who we can work with to have the best possible life after SHTF. I am new to this and I didn't not realize there were so many out there until last month when I found this website.

ClassyNewf:

That distrust is what we have to overcome. And yes, face-to-face meeting are a huge step towards accomplishing that.

I like the fact that, even though you are new to this you are posting. Keep up the good work.

Mountainman.

Wow Mountainman what an amazing post.

Next time you are in Ontario I would love a meet up

As for talking to strangers now, I have no problems it's the people that I know I have problems dealing with.

Great Post Mountainman, and I really understood your story, my DH has spent many a summer out in a bush camp over the years and while the first couple years he was one of the hired, for a number of years afterwards, he was the one that put together the crew for the camps and both he and I have a very firm sense of just how easy or how hard time spent "roughing" it can be depending on who you put together.. Thankfully most of the time, folks that want to take on that kind of lifestyle are as hard working honest peaple.

But one time up in Iqaluit, we had a fire that meant that all the water supply was used and there was no water for a few days, (not lets be clear, no treated water for a few days) and its not like anyone was going to bring in truck of water in a fly in an fly out zone.. Some folks in town was on tanks, and so they shared and some on the tanks, didn't, but mainly the folks in the area's that had to rely on the water system were all a flutter..

Well, the folks that were new or that were only going to be up for a couple months on contract where, the rest of us both native and non-native, just moved out onto the land till we got water back.. I had us packed up and out to a spot on the river within hours of the news and all day long the river camping spots just filled up on both sides and down.. it was very friendly and if someone forgot something, someone would give a helping hand..

Right or wrongly, I find the smaller the group, the more you need to pull together to get it done, the better it often will work.. I liked your list, and saved it.. Maybe someday we will get to meet in person..

#1 Fellow preppers will have some supplies, no matter how limited, on them. So, they will not necessarily deplete your resources. Except maybe water.

#2 Fellow preppers will not be offended if you offer them a place to setup their personal shelters in the pasture and not in your home. They too are looking for a safe place to rest.

#3 Fellow preppers will not be offended if you do not trust then outright to pull guard duty the first night they show up.

#4 Fellow preppers will not be offended if you do not have a use for their skill set. But they would appreciate guidance to the next prepper stonghold that may need their skills.

#5 Fellow preppers will not be offended if you do not have spare food to share. But they would appreciate know where the next fishing whole is or where they might have good luck on a hunt.

#6 Prepper are worth keeping around because they think the same as you and your group. Like minded.

#7 Preppers are worth keeping around because they are willing to work for a meal. They are willing to help out. They are willing to pitch in.

#8 Preppers are worth keeping around because most expect to pull guard duty, once they have been vetted and found trust worthy.

#9 Preppers expect you to do your security check and keep the new arrivals separated from the main group until you can varify their story/skills/references.

Awesome post mountainman. Some of us (for various reasons) don't have the option to form groups with other like minded people, but the feeling that you're not alone in your efforts to ensure your survival and the survival of the people you love can help to bolster up your commitment to the task. Since I joined this forum (and invaded other territories/countries) I have learned so much that I can put to good use. Being an info junkie does have it's advantages, but it doesn't help when a task is beyond your capabilities - some of the information posted on this forum has helped me to get around some of my "sticky" issues (ie alternative heating, portable solar panels, weapons etc etc). The more information that is shared on this board may result in others being just that bit more prepared to face whatever may come our way. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of the contributors for their input on a wide variety of topics, and also those people who ask questions that make us stop and think.

Good post gc_mountainman. Thought provoking for sure. I think that two words that you used summed it up; "like minded". Preppers for the most past ARE like minded, the rest of the population probably not so much. Let's take what we have in " like mindedness" and build on that to promote trust . If we can't trust each other in the group who can we trust?

I know your frustration with losing large posts. It has happened to me many times. Sometimes it is beyond my control like losing my internet connection. Sometimes it is my fault I just click on the wrong thing at the wrong time. If I am making a large post I usually write it in a word processor then copy and paste it into the post window on whatever site I am using . It also gives the option of saving what I have written on my own drive for later retrieval. 😉

Howdy Folks,

Thanks for your kind words. It sounds like this post may be helping to break down barriers and maybe, just maybe, there will be a few more alliances made or possibly groups formed.

I will try to keep you posted on my travels. Yes, meeting would be good.

Yes, we need to keep using this forum to our advantage, to discuss ideas, ask questions and express fears or concerns. This process of working things out helps everyone. Lets keep it up.

Thanks ICRCC, I have learned my lesson on long posts. Write it and save it elsewhere, then copy and paste into a post.

Thanks again folks. 😳

Mountainman.

This website needs a chatroom where we could ask question and get to know what each other thinks.

This website needs a chatroom where we could ask question and get to know what each other thinks.

I asked Denob awhile ago if there was a way. He was going to look into it.

DENOB any word yet?

Some people were saying, why bother prepping because as soon as somebody who did not prep finds out you have food stores and stuff that they will try to take it away. I really did not know what to say to that.

What do you all think ahout this? I know over the years that a food storage has helped me many times through hard times and job loss or illness. Having extra food is common sense I think, plus other storage essentials. It is how to find local preppers in your own town and create a community from that maybe.

www.thepantryshelf.shelfreliance.com/thepantryshelf

One of the guys on here said he didn't worry as much about food storage cause the sad truth was he had the guns to take what he wanted.

I prep for my personal SHTF. More then once, like now, I have gone through all of my canned preps. Thank goodness I had them to fall back on.

I think being part of a community would have softened the blow to my own storage.

This website needs a chatroom where we could ask question and get to know what each other thinks.

I asked Denob awhile ago if there was a way. He was going to look into it.

DENOB any word yet?

Sorry, it will not happen here....working on another idea for a chatroom.

One of the guys on here said he didn't worry as much about food storage cause the sad truth was he had the guns to take what he wanted.

Choking back my extreme revulsion to the idea that someone in this forum has that opinion, I am further resolved to prep and network with like-minded folks. We know that there are those out there who will threaten us. I for one will not let that reality stifle my action!

This website needs a chatroom where we could ask question and get to know what each other thinks.

I asked Denob awhile ago if there was a way. He was going to look into it.

DENOB any word yet?

Sorry, it will not happen here....working on another idea for a chatroom.

Test chatroom open here....
http://canprep.chatango.com/