Review: Dual Survival Season 2

The bloom is off of the rose. Season 2 of Dual Survival has run its course, and I have to say, while I sort of liked the first season for various reasons, the second leaves me wondering if I can somehow get the time back I have spent watching it.

The disillusionment started right off of the bat in the first episode. For some reason, they decided it was a good idea to demonstrate how to cauterize a wound using black powder. So Dave Canterbury slashed his own arm, and Cody Lundin dumped on the powder and lit it off. It did cauterize the wound, although I wonder if the procedure caused more additional trauma from burning than it was worth.

Furthermore, the slash was not of a severity that couldn’t be treated with direct pressure and an improvised wound dressing. Not that I am advocating Canterbury maim himself for television, but I am concerned that they may leave the impression that cauterization is the treatment of choice for a wound of such limited severity. On top of which, it ticks me off that in none of their scenarios (in which they play the part of the typical persons) does anyone ever carry a first aid kit. Wouldn’t it be nice to have some CELOX coagulant in a first aid kit? On the off chance you don’t happen to be a black powder hunter with powder horn at the ready?

Overall, the series continues the well-worn format of hypothetical situations used by almost every survival show out there. The pair proceeds through a variety of situations, but there is little of novelty or interest in them. What originally promised to be differing viewpoints of how to tackle a survival problem seems to have degenerated by the last episode of the season to two cranky old men bickering. The differences that arise seem to have little to do with their varying styles and more to do with the personalities involved.

Canterbury is very much the push-on, hard charger type of personality whereas Lundin is innately cautious. I believe that over two seasons, the difference in personalities is causing friction, and indeed, some of the talk-to-camera asides are far less respectful and civil than in the first season.

The difference in style is wearing to the viewer as well. Watching Canterbury make a high risk descent down a steep valley had me half cringing and half hoping he would fall a punishment for his bull-headedness. Frankly, I can do with a little less testosterone and a little more common sense and information.

Lundin’s insistence on bare feet and shorts is becoming similarly annoying. He might get away with this behavior in his home turf in the American southwest, but it strikes the viewer as pig-headed stupidity as he gets his legs and feet damaged in multiple shows in varying terrains. If bare footedness was such an advantage, shoes would not have been invented over 5,000 years ago.

There isn’t a lot of new information in the second season. Follow rivers downstream to find civilization, stay dry, and stay hydrated and so on. Lots of the basics any show of this type has presented, and very few new concepts or ideas.

While I felt the show was, overall, worth watching in the first season, I can’t make the same recommendation for the second season. I really feel that if you took the twelve hours watching this show a would take and instead spent twelve hours practicing any survival skill at all, or even spent it organizing your preps, it would be time far better utilized.

Unfortunately, the show seems to have been renewed for a third season, so I’ll be watching at least twelve more hours of it.

Originally posted July 24. 2011 @ MPN

Reel Life Survival

I will admit it right up front: I am a survival show junkie. I love programs that demonstrate survival skills. I love learning from them and matching my knowledge against the people on the program. On the other hand, I’m not blind to the faults of these shows, however much I enjoy them.

I’m not talking about misinformation, although I have seen ‘experts’ make errors, and occasionally make beginner mistakes (one expert and his spouse contracting giardia leaps to mind) that make you cringe. Generally, the information that gets presented on these shows is fairly accurate, since no one wants to get sued.

The problem with many of these shows is that almost all of the situations are hopelessly unrealistic. For one reason or another, these programs present a best case scenario of someone’s ability to survive in a variety of wilderness situations, and are often misleading. Let’s look at a few of the unpublicized facts about these shows that make them less than ‘real life’ situations.

The first of these is the pick of season in which the show is filmed. Often our professional survivor is shown harvesting local plants as food sources. This is okay if you are there at the right time to harvest that resource. But if you are too early or too late, the ample harvest they demonstrate may have not appeared or already vanished. Seasonal availability also applies to animals. Hibernation or migration of a species might make it unavailable to you, however many of them you see frolicking in the woods on the television.

Additionally, while a plant or animal may indeed be found generally in a particular region, local microclimates or other conditions such as soil salinity or lack of habitat might mean that the flora and fauna you want just doesn’t hang out just exactly where you are.

Another issue of season is that these programs are often filmed in weather that is not at the extreme that might be experienced by an actual survivor. It is one thing to survive on a deserted Pacific island in good weather, another entirely when a storm is pushing four foot waves across the entire island. And really, how many people are likely to be shipwrecked in calm seas and clear skies? There are lots of examples, but the fact is that filming in extremes of weather is difficult and expensive, so it just isn’t done. And thus we get ‘ideal’ weather in many survival shows.

Another issue I have is with tools. Almost always our brave presenters have some sort of tool at hand. Usually the tool of choice is a knife big enough to actually chop down saplings. Otherwise, a smaller knife or a multi-tool seems to be standard. Really, the tool is not as important as the fact is that the average Joe no longer carries even a pocketknife. Demonstrating survival skills using a knife to someone who may not have one seems ludicrous when you think of it.

Yes, everyone should carry a knife. I in fact carry two, a Swiss Army Knife and a small fixed blade knife. Neither is suitable for heavy work, but as with most people, a bigger knife is both not legal where I live, nor practical in my every day life. The reality is that unless I’m definitely going out hiking or camping, then my larger knife stays at home, where it will do me no good in the sort of situation portrayed on survival shows. I believe most people carry less than I do, most of the time. So show me some survival shows without the huge beginning advantage of a large knife.

Yet another issue I have with these shows is the level of fitness and acclimatization that the presenters possess. At least one show I can think of has a presenter that routinely demonstrates acts requiring a very high degree of fitness, coordination, and agility far in excess of those qualities possessed by the average person. Most people attempting to replicate those feats have a much higher probability of failure and won’t have a film crew to call for medevac after they hurt themselves attempting it.

Even the degree of acclimatization possessed by people is misleading. One show has a minimalist primitive skills survival instructor. While he seems to manage in all sorts of terrain and climate shoeless and in shorts, most of us would be frozen and crippled long before we ever toughened up and acclimatized.

Finally, there is the issue of knowledge. For example, it is one thing to know the basics of primitive fire making, and another thing entirely to be able to accomplish it. Often, there are details of construction or technique that are not shown, and even then, experts can take hours to get fire, or might even fail entirely. Imagine then the chances then of Joe Average making a fire? The same applies to many other skills.

Granted, the onus is on the watcher to practice and perfect the skills before they are needed, but if you don’t have all of the information; it is magnitudes of difficulty greater to learn the skill. But then an hour long program on the fine points of using a fire plow or bow drill don’t make as interesting watching as some guy jumping out of a helicopter onto a shark.

Another thing about the knowledge demonstrated by the presenters: They are instant experts. While they may indeed be expert at survival in their own area, they are often portrayed in interesting and exotic locales, again to make the program interesting and exciting. There is usually a local expert that gives them the Cole’s notes version of what hazards and resources exist in the area. Like any sort of crib notes, it can mean deeper, crucial knowledge is omitted and the viewer will be unaware that they don’t have all the information.

I still love these shows, and there is much to be learned, if you want to learn. Just be aware that what they are doing is driven more by entertainment than anything else. You need to go farther than the limits of the shows and practice and develop your own skills and most of all, keep the reality of survival separate from the best case fantasy of television.

It’s just common sense

Review: After Armageddon

After Armageddon is a program produced by the History Channel, and presents a hypothetical end of the world scenario (pandemic), as experienced by one family, with commentary from a wide variety of experts. While it was broadcast some time ago, it is available for download from a variety of sources.

The family in question is portrayed with little or nothing in the way of prior preparations, and possess no exceptional skills, other than that the father is a paramedic. It runs through an escalating series of crises, from the beginning of the pandemic through a ‘bug-in’ phase to a bug out scenario and finally a rebuilding scenario.

Interspersed with the dramatizations are commentaries from various experts that give basic survival information, speculate on how various scenarios might develop, and give examples from recent disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. It is nicely balanced between the commentary and the dramatizations, so neither bores the watcher.

There are some incidents portrayed in the dramatization that will make the longer term prepper wince, and I know the overall lack of preparedness by the family made my teeth grind as almost anyone can be better equipped than this family just from what is around the average house, but overall it is a decent show, and likely a good way to introduce family or friends to survivalism and preparedness.

I was also pleased to see that the psychological aspects of coping with such a crisis were not neglected in the show, and there was also some decent discussion about what form a rebuilt society might take.

As this is Preparedness Week, it might be worth sitting down to watch this and role play through the show. Look at each crisis that occurred in the show and assess whether or not your preps are good enough to cope. Dissect each decision that the family makes in the show and see if there was an alternate case of action that would have served them better.

Overall, After Armageddon is a decent exploration of the SHTF scenario. I can recommend it without any caveats except this one:

After you watch the show, get off your butt and make Preparedness Week a real high point in getting further along in your preparedness.

Next week we'll return to the Apartment survival series.

Originally posted May 01, 2011 @ MPN

Review: Dual Survival

I’ve just finished watching the first season of a show called “Dual Survival” on the discovery Channel. It features the usual device of putting people in a nasty environment which they then survive while teaching you the tricks and tips of doing so. The difference here is that the show does not dump a single individual a la Les Stroud or Bear Grylls, but rather two individuals working together.

The individuals are Dave Canterbury (at left, above), an ex-military type with a lot of bush experience hailing from the American Northwest and Cody Lundin (at right), a primitive skills survival expert from Arizona. The two men have somewhat differing approaches to survival, which is part of the interest.

Together, they work through a variety of survival scenarios, with the two of them mostly agreeing on how to proceed, but sometimes in sharp disagreement. A good example is when Canterbury goes after honey from a possibly Africanized honeybee colony over Lundin’s protests. He gets the honey, but gets stung multiple times. The lesson, as Lundin puts it: “Do dumbass things, suffer dumbass consequences”

There is a good deal of talk about cost/benefit of survival actions when it comes to food (Calories expended vs. benefit received) that I haven’t seen on most of the other survival series I’ve watched. There is also a reasonable amount of talk about survival psychology, which is a topic that interests me a lot.

In addition the gear and operating styles of the two men are very different. Lundin is a primitivist, and improvises a lot of his gear. In fact, throughout the season, he is barefoot and wearing shorts throughout each episode. He feels this is actually an advantage overall, forcing him to slow down and be more aware of and in touch with his environment.

Canterbury is more of a hard charger in your face type, and seems to go to higher risk situations more readily than Lundin. He tends to feel survival is a battle to be fought with Nature, in contrast to Lundin’s more adaptive approach.

As far as techniques go, the show doesn’t present much you haven’t seen on other programs, although watching the ease with which Lundin operated a fire drill compared to Canterbury’s palm blistering efforts is instructive.

Overall, I feel the show somewhat misses the mark in presenting differing approaches to survival situations, although that isn’t really their fault. Often, there is only one sensible way to proceed. I think the idea of a team of two is interesting, and something I have not seen before. All in all, it’s a watchable show, but it’s not going to give you any Eureka! moments.

Originally posted November 22, 2010 @ MPN

Review: The Colony Season 2

I’ve just watched the final episode of the second season of The Colony on the Discovery Channel. It repeats its format of isolating a group of people (see picture) and asking them to deal with the aftermath of a simulated catastrophic event, in this case a deadly viral outbreak. It is what is termed an immersive experiment, where the ‘reality’ is present 24/7. Almost all of the individuals come to regard the simulation as reality, to a greater or lesser degree.

This season is different than the last one in that the participants have a much larger area to deal with. They are put near the coast of Louisiana in a supposed safe area by a fictional disaster relief agency, and told to cope until further help arrives. The area is largely ruinous, but there are some ‘seeded’ resources and plenty of abandoned buildings in which to poke around.

As in the first series, there are outsiders that attack and harass the group, and I was rather surprised with the level of physical violence allowed. People got thrown around, shot at and entangled by net guns and at least two members of the group were pepper sprayed. There was also an abduction that was very traumatic for the individual captured.

While watching the group build nifty projects like wind generators is fun, the important thing to watch for is the psychology of the cast. You can watch the effect on and the group’s attempt to control a less than stable member. You’ll see a supposedly solid group member abandon the group at the first opportunity. As I said in my review of the first season, the ability to lead and to handle internal conflict might be the single most important skill you possess. The psychological makeup of a group will have much more to do with its survival than equipment or skills.

As a side note, it is interesting that the youngest participant is 22, the oldest in his seventies. I think both extremes of age did very well in the experiment, for the most part.

Other points that get driven home: Starvation is faster than you think. The experiment lasts about fifty days, and almost all of the people involved lose a significant amount of weight, one of them losing 38 pounds! It’s a great reminder that food has to be a priority, and that living off of the land is far harder than it seems, especially in urban and semi-urban environments. Had they not been started off with a certain amount of food, I doubt they would have made it.

It also makes the point that people try to be security minded, but most people in a survival situation cannot spare the time or labour to keep themselves safe. A late comer to the group is an ex-recon marine/sniper. He observes the group for several weeks before joining, living in the same smallish area without being spotted! As a way of introducing himself, he walks unnoticed into the group’s encampment, sticks a knife with a message on it into a board and walks out almost before he is noticed.

One note of unreality is the absence of firearms of any kind. In a real life situation, it is almost certain that there would be firearms present, and most of the confrontations portrayed in the show would have resulted in the death or wounding of many individuals. I think that the viewer has to keep that in mind as they watch the show, and draw lessons accordingly, at least from a security standpoint.

Another point of unreality is the skill mix that the participants have. That said, the show is a useful tool, if only as something to get you started on thinking about your own situation.

Originally posted )ctober 5, 2010 @ MPN

Review: Electronic Armageddon

National Geographic’s Electronic Armageddon is an interesting watch. It is a good starting point for those wanting to learn about EMP, both natural and manmade. There is a lot of good basic science in the program, but nothing that a person of average intelligence can’t handle.

The program covers the likely effects of an EMP event, and does a reasonably good job of explaining the consequences. It gives you a good idea of just how pervasive the microprocessor has become in all areas of our society, and how dependent we are on those tiny circuit boards to keep running. Especially interesting is the brief examination of its use in the food processing industries.

The focus of the program in my opinion is with the effects on the power grid, and the consequences of its loss. It is pointed out that many areas we humans inhabit would likely become untenable. The example given is Las Vegas, but Manitobans would do well to think about how they might fare if they lost power during one of the harsh winters we endure. I doubt all million or so of us have alternate heating sources!

For me, the most interesting part of the show was the statement that one in ten vehicles would stop running. Typically, the ‘expert’ survivalists would have you believe that you are back to the horse and buggy once an EMP hits, and this isn’t the case it seems, although the program shows a simulation where almost all cars are out of service. It’s an internal inconsistency that no one seemed to notice.

This information that vehicles seem to be less vulnerable than once thought has been around for a while. In fact, the 2008 report of the EMP commission in the US (link here) detailed the results of its testing on vehicles subjected to a simulated EMP pulse. It seems to indicate that EMP is not necessarily certain vehicular death.

What does that mean for you? Is the family sedan certain to run? Is it still necessary to equip yourself with that pre-microchip pickup truck? I wish I knew for sure. You can’t ignore the fact that your vehicle might be one of the one in ten damaged and unusable. The best thing to do is read the report (follow the link above) and decide what is best for you in your particular situation.

What seems to be certain is this: If there are major infrastructure failures and supply dislocations, the majority of people are quite likely to be more mobile and able to travel far greater distances in search of the necessities of life than previously thought. The isolated retreat is less isolated, and the safe distance from a major urban area is now orders of magnitude greater. This should have a big impact on your survival planning.

But watch the show…you’ll like it.

Originally posted august 02, 2010 @ MPN