December 17, 2012

the magazine

The University of Toronto’s Independent Weekly

Since 1978

VOL XXXV Issue 15 • December 17, 2012

APOCALYPSE SOON

2

December 17, 2012

3 Apocalyptic training Diana Wilson

COVER Untitled Ginette Lapalme, Andrew Myers 7 Roughing it in the bush Helene Goderis

4 Predictions for demise Emerson Vandenberg 5 Economic apocalypse Sebastian Greenholtz

10 This is how the world ends Joe Howell 11 The redemption Yukon Damov

6 Now boarding Ark Two Diana Wilson

12 We be nigh!

Brendan George Ko

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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the magazine the newspaper is the University of Toronto’s independent weekly paper, published since 1978.

VOL XXXV No. 15

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Samantha Chiusolo, Yukon Damov, Sydney Gautreau, Helene Goderis, Sebastian Greenholtz, Joe Howell, Corrie Jackson, Brendan George Ko, Ginette Lapalme, Andrew B. Myers, Nick Ragetli, Emerson Vandenberg, Diana Wilson

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Apocalyptic training

3

Don’t get left behind, learn to ride bareback!

Let’s face it: the end of days is nearing. Don’t believe people who say that we are basing our panic on a misunderstanding about Mayan stargazing, or that we, as Earth’s overlords, are too big to fail. The hard fact is that our sin and depravity will soon become a faint stain on Earth’s otherwise perfect Eden. As of the printing of this article, you have four days to prepare. What to do with your remaining 96-ish hours?

Broadening your survival skill set can give you a sense of control in the face of impending doom. Sadly, all those years of reading literary criticism (i.e. drinking), perfecting the art of multiple choice testing, or playing Halo 3 have left you with a dearth of apocalypse training. There isn’t a lot of time to reflect on why you chose to perfect the skill of a coquettish glance rather than medicinal herbology, so focus instead on what skills are still within reach.

Don’t worry (much), because it isn’t too late! There are lots of places in Toronto to acquire those suddenly high-value skills. Consider this a last minute shopping list.

FOOD Farming. Save yourself the hassle and danger of fighting the hordes at the grocery store by growing your own food. If you can find a fertile and nonradioactive plot of land, a basic “intro to vegetable gardening” workshop is all you need. If you have to farm more discreetly or you lack the tools to tame the landscape, you’ll need to work with nature. You will need to understand permaculture, the method of gardening that harnesses nature’s patterns to yield crops.

Where to train: Toronto Botanical Gardens, Lawrence and Leslie, torontobotanicalgarden.com; or Garden Jane, various Toronto locations, gardenjane.com Fishing. The best place to stake out territory in postapocalypse Toronto is near water. Water will provide both necessary hydration and a

food source. But those damn fish are so squirmy! You’ll need to know how to use a net and a pole — not to mention how to gut and clean the fish once you’ve caught them.

Where to train: Toronto Fly Fishing School, Fergus, canadasflyfishingoutfitter.com; or Grand River Rafting Company, Paris, grandriverrafting.ca

is your ticket to the afterlife.

There isn’t enough time to get that medical degree your parents always wanted for you, but it’s never too late to learn how to make a splint from birch bark.

Where to train: School in the Woods (Wilderness First Aid Course), Oakville and Bracebridge, schoolinthewoods.ca

a group of survivors hoards all the ammo in a secret warehouse near the docks. This is no time for katas or learning to control your rage. It is time to learn how to tear another human limb from limb. Or at least get into shape.

Where to train: Revolution Mixed Martial Arts and Fitness, North York, revmma.com

TRANSPORTATION Automotive Repair. On the off chance that the apocalypse leaves you with access to an automobile, fuel, and clear roadways, you’ll need to learn how to maintain and repair your precious get-out-of-townfree-mobile.

Where to train: CarChick, Toronto, carchick.ca (ladies only); or autoeducation.com (online only)

COMMUNICATION AND DIPLOMACY Conflict Resolution. Roaming a barren landscape searching for basic necessities can be pretty stressful. Consider your level of annoyance towards your roommate when the dishes pile up, and then multiply it by starvation and the constant adrenaline rush of being hunted. You had better learn how to cool tempers because if the epidemic doesn’t get you, the bickering will.

Where to train: Humber College Alternative Dispute Resolution Certificate, Etobicoke, humber.ca

Axe-Throwing. How stupid will you feel if you come across an axe and can’t aim it properly?

Where to train: The Backyard Axe Throwing League, Bloor and Lansdowne, batl.ca

Horseback Riding. There’s a good chance that you won’t have access to a car, so you best have some other ways to cover distance. There are lots of horses in southern Ontario — how stupid will you feel if you find a horse but can’t ride it? To be on the safe side, learn bareback riding because there won’t be enough saddles for everyone.

Where to train: The Riding Academy, Horse Palace (Exhibition Place) or Sunnybrook Stables (Leslie and Eglington), horsepalace.ca Bicycle. Enough kidding around. You aren’t going to find a horse ­­­ — they’ll have been eaten by terrified survivors, or let loose in the chaos of the explosion/rioting/roving undead. If you live in downtown Toronto, you have probably got a bike or can see one from where you are standing.

Make sure you aren’t stranded by a flat tire or rusty chain.

Where to train: Bike Pirates, Bloor and Landsdowne, www. bikepirates.com; or Bike Chain, International Student Centre at U of T (St. George), hbikechain. utoronto.ca HEALTHCARE First Aid. You’ve become complacent by relying on professional medical care and speedy ambulances. In the Toronto of 2013, an infected wound

Language. All of your diplomacy skills will be wasted if you don’t know how to explain “assertive communication in a circle of empathy” in broken Spanish. Why Spanish? If you head south to survive the winter, the most common language barrier you will encounter is Spanish, particularly if you make it all the way to Mexico. If you are hardy enough to head north, try learning Inuit instead.

Where to train: Spanish Centre, Bloor and Yonge, spanishcentre. com; or U of T’s Aboriginal Studies Department, utoronto.ca/abs COMBAT Armed Combat. When diplomacy fails, it is time to arm for war. However, a weapon is only as useful as your marksmanship and access to ammunition. You won’t need a gun license after society collapses but you will need one to practice, so better sign up for a course now to avoid delays.

Where to train: Toronto Sportsmen’s Association, Dufferin and Eglington, torontosportsmens.ca Hand to Hand Combat. You will need a backup plan in case

LONG-TERM PREP Carpentry. If you survive the initial die out, you’re eventually going to need to build or repair a permanent shelter.

You will have enough on your mind without having to worry about the roof collapsing. Bonus: if the apocalypse doesn’t come (fat chance), then at least you’ll be able to hang those floating shelves from Ikea properly.

Where to train: Passion for Wood (don’t giggle), Acton, www.passionforwood.com; or Toronto District School Board Community Programs, various Toronto loca-

tions, tdsb.on.ca Bushcraft. Bushcraft skills are not for emergency situations.

Have you tried starting a fire with a bow and drill? It’s much more practical to loot a convenience store. However, after you find a comfortable hideaway in the woods and a mate with whom to repopulate the human species, understanding how to live well in the bush will be useful.

Where to learn: School in the Woods, Oakville and Bracebridge, schoolinthewoods.ca Are you going to have time for all this training? In a word, no. But experts say it’s important to keep your mind occupied in survival situations, such as awaiting the Rapture.

If the deadline is miraculously pushed back, here are some other skills you might want to work on: hunting, storm prediction, hostage negotiation, helicopter piloting, broadloom weaving, cobbling, animal husbandry, whittling, food preservation, hide tanning, swimming, sailing, toolmaking, and relaxation techniques. Who knows? You may have the rest of your life to prepare.

SAM CHIUSOLO

Diana Wilson

4

December 17, 2012

Predictions for demise Scientists share theoretical scenarios for end times

Emerson Vandenburg December 21, 2012 will almost certainly come and pass without the supposed reckoning doomsayers have predicted, but a more respected source of knowledge has nonetheless beset the earth with several striking prophecies of doom. Science, the ultimate authority on all things physical has been saying it for years: we are for a cataclysmic impact to occur essentially out of nowhere, without the slightest warning.

Climate change Increasing natural storms What the gradual warming of the earth lacks in grandiosity compared to a cataclysmic asteroid, it makes up for in the certainty of destruction it is already incurring. At the hands of a polluting human population, Earth is slowly being heated up. Multiple devastating effects are being wrought by our inability to curb carbon dioxide emissions. In discussing these eventualities with Professor Danny Harvey of U of T’s geography department, he stated that “there’s an assumption that we only need to do something if it’s the end of the world.” At that point, it would be too late.

Climate change may already be contributing to the increase in hurricanes in the United States. Thomas Knutson, of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), a climate research centre, studied the supposed increase in storms and stated that “[human activity-induced] warming by the end of the twenty-first century will likely cause hurricanes globally to be more intense on average, from two to eleven per cent.”

Warmer waters may not only add to the intensity of these storms, but as Harvey was quick to point out, they may extend their range as well.

As deadly storms like Hurricane Sandy tear up the eastern seaboard, he warned that “the shift in storm tracks will most likely penetrate further northwards.” As the tropics extend and warmer waters seep further and further up coastlines, hurricanes maintain their strength and allow previously unbothered areas to be at the mercy of vicious storms.

Although a direct link be-

tween human-induced global warming, otherwise known as anthropogenic interference, and the increasing intensity and frequency of hurricanes is not wholly established, Harvey stated that “there’s an asymmetric pattern of temperature records being broken.”

It is unlikely that we will see the record for coldest average yearly temperature be broken anytime soon, although it is quite possible that we will see new warm records set.

Flooding With a warming global climate also comes melting polar ice caps. This in turn will lead to the flooding of vast areas of the earth. Harvey stated that “we could face thirty metre sea level rises over the next few thousand years.” Although this may seem like a long time down the road, even a few metres per century for several centuries would dramatically alter coastlines and cause great havoc.

In a report released earlier this year by The Economist, it was analyzed that the average area of arctic territory normally covered in snow at the beginning of summer had shrunk by one fifth since 1966. It was further noted in 2007 that for the first time in recorded history, the Canadian archipelago arctic passage was ice-free, allowing unhindered travel throughout the summer. The effects of climate change are melting polar sea ice.

So what effect will rising sea levels have on human populations? According to Harvey low-lying areas, like Bangladesh, will be the first to go.

Fossil fuel emissions from buildings, transportation, and industry are principally to blame. Is there anything that can be done besides a stark reversal of industrial activity?

Would even this be capable of saving the day? As far as Har-

SAM CHIUSOLO

A meteor strikes the earth Space is filled with flying debris. Rock, ice, and a host of other substances float about at great speeds in large numbers across the universe. Occasionally, these relatively small objects, known as meteors, asteroids or comets, strike larger objects -- namely, planets.

“An asteroid with a diameter of only a hundred metres or so could cause serious damage on a local scale,” according to Dr. Michael Reid of the Astronomy department at the University of Toronto. Such an impact, according to Reid, would release 10 000 times more energy than either of the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan during the Second World War. Although this would be enough to destroy an entire city, if not a small region, it would not wreak the earth-shattering destruction required by an apocalypse.

The Chicxulub asteroid that hit the earth sixty-five million years ago and ended the era of dinosaurs was huge in comparison to the one in Reid’s scenario. Boasting a 10 km diameter, the rock unleashed over one hundred million megatons of energy. The damage caused by such an asteroid comes not only from the impact zone that it leaves in its wake, but from the swath of dust and debris it flings up into the air. Similar to the effect a volcano causes when it erupts, a large impactor like the Chicxulub asteroid casts a lasting cloud over the planet, depriving sunlight and disrupting ecosystems and lifecycles. Reid wryly concluded that “not many land animals are going to have a fun time after a 10 km impactor hits.”

Even if technology was capable of combating the threat of a meteor, “We don’t know where all of the potentially threatening near-Earth asteroids are,” said Reid. He furthermore agreed that it is possible

not long for this world.

From the effects of climate change to super-diseases and meteors, the actual ways in which we all may soon perish are real. Here is a sampling of said theories to warn the apocalypse-enthralled minds of our dedicated readers.

vey is concerned “the Earth by the end of this century will be a different planet than the one we live on, and a greatly impoverished one … but there is still much that can be saved if we act now.”

Disease From a calamitous encounter with falling space rocks to the gradual microwaving of the earth, we arrive at our final scientific apocalypse prediction: disease. The spread of some kind of twenty-first century Spanish flu is perhaps the scariest of all of these. Powerless humans taken down by drug-resistant microscopic organisms -- pleasant thoughts abound indeed.

In an age of over-medicating, are we setting ourselves up for microbial annihilation?

Professor William Navarre of the Department of Molecular Genetics at U of T explained that antibiotics are normally just strains of harmless bacteria that engage in warfare with the harmful bacteria. He went on to state that “bacteria become resistant to antibiotics because they steal genes from other resistant bacteria in their

environment.”

Despite Navarre’s belief that “bacteria and viruses are getting more dangerous the more we bring antibiotics and antivirals into the picture,” he is nevertheless hopeful that should a super-bug of sorts emerge, “the media hype and ensuing panic will keep the infection from spreading.”

He is further convinced that soon enough, stubborn viruses like HIV and Malaria will be wiped out, despite the ineffectiveness of current treatments.

He stated that “it turns out a number of people are resistant to HIV because they lack the bone receptor the virus uses to infect cells.” Unfortunately, he explains, bone marrow transplants are extremely dangerous and difficult.

The SARS outbreak a few years ago is a good example of the media panic potential viral outbreaks can engender, so perhaps if a modern Spanish flu of sorts were to emerge, our more advanced understanding of transmission and detection would allow us to fare better than our counterparts in twentieth century Europe.

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5

The economic apocalypse, and why it won’t happen The world today is facing a global economic crisis, stirring up predictions of apocalyptic collapse. However, unlike a zombie attack or meteor hit, the way to prepare for an economic apocalypse is to be armed with facts, both knowing the reality of the global economy and the proposals for avoiding the end of times.

First, let’s look at the indicators of an economic crisis throughout the world.

Conditions in Europe--once admired for its economic and social stability--are deteriorating fast. Spain has an unemployment rate of almost 30 per cent, Greek public sector workers have gone months without pay, and austerity cuts leave workers more vulnerable. This economic malaise is not expected to improve anytime soon.

China’s once enviable GDP growth has slowed to below eight per cent, too low to keep up with population growth, so serious unemployment and internal crisis is yet to come.

The youth of North America is the first generation to face a lower standard of living than their parents. Total public and private debt in the United States is at three and a half times GDP, and consumer debt in Canada is at 163.4 per cent of household income.

Worst of all, there doesn’t seem to be a solution; every method has failed, if not compounded the problem. Some economists don’t see an improvement in the global economy for up to thirty years, while others are warning of an economic apocalypse.

News sources worldwide have explored the apocalyptic prognosis, and many of their reasons stand today. Youth unemployment has risen to over 50 per cent in Greece and Spain, and is in the 20s throughout the eurozone. While the impact of a Greece default would tank European banks, current bailout mechanisms have done little to improve conditions in the failing states.

But is the end nigh? Does the world have to adjust to worsening quality of life, high unemployment, huge debt bubbles, and social upheaval?

Despite the numbers and the media hype, two schools of economic thought see possible solutions to the crisis.

Gustavo Indart, professor of economics at U of T, takes a Keynesian perspective and blames the European crisis on the failure of austerity policies. “They [the governments in Europe and the IMF] are not dealing with the cause of the crisis, only with some of the symptoms, or some of the consequences of the crisis; they are not going to solve it.”

“If you want to solve fiscal problems what you need is the economy to grow, you have to increase revenue for the government; reducing government expenditures is going to generate the opposite impact.”

Indart especially points the finger at the shared currency in Europe. “If every country would be able to have an exchange rate policy of their own, they’re going to have an

SAM CHIUSOLO

Sebastian Greenholtz

adjustment so much faster and without the economic and the social cost that they have now.”

In contrast to this government spending model, Marxist Donovan Ritch, U of T alumni and organizer for the U of T Socialist Fightback Club, sees only one possible way out: socialism. “It of course would appear that an apocalypse is coming, but of course as workers and as politically conscious workers and students we know that this is false dilemma.

We know that there is another way out and it is socialism. [...] That apocalyptic version is broken through by asserting that there is a third way beyond the two dominant bourgeois economic methods.”

Ritch disagrees with Indart’s Keynesian position, citing the 2008 bailouts in Canada and the US. “That’s one solution that has been tried and has had very little if any success,” Ritch commented.

However, Indart sees spending policies in the US and Canada as successful. He explained that North America, unlike the eurozone, is pursuing expansionary fiscal policy, which involves the government spending more than it generates from tax revenue. Indart said, “The [Canadian] economy is doing reasonably well and as prime minister Harper likes to say, we’re doing great compared to all the other countries who are doing extremely poor.”

Ritch doesn’t share such optimism: “Unemployment is an under-representative statistic and doesn’t show the true extent of unemployment as a social problem in Canada. If you combine this with the really outstanding levels of debt that Canada has on a household-basis and also on a government-level, these are all factors that could actually provoke a serious economic crisis in Canada.”

All told, neither Indart nor Ritch see the current crisis as the end of the world. For Indart, “Ten years is plenty [for recovery].

It could have been done already, and it was not done because of politics, but it can be done, I’m really optimistic in that sense. [...]

The crisis is going to pass, of course it will, eventually, but not anytime soon. It will take a little longer.”

Ritch sees a more radical, but no less restorative solution. “I absolutely have faith in the Canadian working class. [...] Our only outlet is to struggle and to fight [for socialism] through our existing organizations, be it our trade unions, our student unions, or our mass political party of the working class, which here is the NDP, and these are the vehicles through which the working class will begin to struggle, and I do fully expect that we will see this.”

As the global economy continues its downward spiral, the media will only increase visions of the apocalypse. But be it through government spending or socialist revolution, there is a way out of the economic end of the world.

6

December 17, 2012

Now boarding for Ark Two On a sunny afternoon eight days before the Mayan apocalypse, the newspaper made a visit to humanity’s soon-to-be last bastion. We anticipated a wacky afternoon of crackpot conspiracy theories and excellent photo opportunities.

What we got was a lesson on altruism and a lingering respect for our host.

Our tour guide is Bruce Beach, a dead ringer for Santa Claus, minus the twinkle in his eye. Instead, there is the hard look of someone who has been anticipating his own death, and the death of everyone he knows, for nearly 30 years. But he’s prepared for it: he’s taken the precaution of building a giant underground bunker out of 42 decommissioned school buses in a small town two hours northwest of Toronto.

He calls the shelter Ark Two, though he wouldn’t commit to the idea of being a new age Noah. Instead of two of every species, Beach will only save humans. Not even his beloved dog will make the cut. And of the 500 people his shelter can accommodate, 80 per cent will be children.

Survivable He sits us down in armchairs in the living room of his onestory home. Beach Googles conspiracy theories to give us some perspective on his project. He seems familiar with the pages, clicking through them as he expands on China’s ghost cities, FEMA concentration camps, and the implications of the Great Disappointment in 1844, the year of a Millerite prediction of the second coming of Jesus. Using the Book of Daniel, the Book of Revelation, and the year 1844, Beach outlines a mathematical proof that Jesus did actually return in the mid-nineteenth century.

After an hour and a half of conspiracies and some tense moments, we finally cajole him away from the computer and head toward Ark Two.

Ark Two is situated on a property inherited from his wife’s family, though you wouldn’t know it to see it.

Standing at the gates of the compound, the only markers on the grassy landscape are two vinyl sheds and a heavy green iron door that digs into a mound of piled earth. The entrance to the compound is controlled by a chain link fence and padlock. Beach tells us that the two sheds are time capsules, one of which houses a scale model of the International Language Institute, one of his pet projects. His hope is that someday the scale model will be used to guide construction of the Institute above a waterfall near the edge of the property.

Out of sight of the compound gates is a large metal cylinder that looks like a sewer tunnel turned on end. This is the entrance to ‘the Brig.’ Beach won’t say what’s down there but you have to descend a 15 foot rung ladder just to reach it. It’s one of Ark Two’s security features: solitary confinement for people who don’t obey the rules.

The other holding cell on site is the morgue, a place for those who, in Beach’s words, “stop breathing one way or another.”

Beach unlocks the doors of the Ark. Still standing in the sunshine at the threshold we squint into a dank tunnel that’s as dark as pitch. The generators that usually keep the Ark comfortably lit are broken, so we’re visiting with nothing but a single headlamp to shed light on our surroundings. The air is thick and musty. Beach seems comfortable in the dark, navigating the twisting tunnels as though from memory. It’s not surprising— he’s been working on Ark Two since 1985, while the threat of nuclear war with Russia still tormented even those without Beach’s commitment to the end of days.

Each school bus has been gutted and covered with up to five feet of concrete and 14 feet

HELENE GODERIS

Diana Wilson

cont’d page 8

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7

Roughing it in the bush School In The Woods shows us how to survive in the wilderness Seeing as we’re in for an apocalypse this winter, I decided the best course of action would be to brush up on my survival skills. So one recent November weekend, I convinced four brave souls -- Diana Wilson and Jesse Foster (a married couple), and Animesh Roy and Ricky de Amorim (engineers and roommates) -- to forge north with me to School In The Woods, a wilderness school in Bracebridge, ON, for a two-day crash course in winter emergency survival.

On our way up north on the Highway 400, we drive through what looks like a snow curtain and abruptly step into the season of winter; the landscape gradually gives way to snowcovered pine and the road cuts through Canadian shield bedrock. Bracebridge, a northern Ontario town known as the heart of Muskoka, is the kind of place where you can see a rafter of wild turkeys forage their way across the grounds of an office park.

We arrive at the 136-acre training camp, and are greeted by school owner Carl Chambers and instructor Phil Teesdale. Carl looks at us from below his camo cap, and he’s leaning on a Gandolf-esque shepherds crook; he’s all brawn and jokes, with short cropped hair and beard, and has a northern English accent with a hearty shade of Scottish brogue. Phil is a trim and assiduous woodsman with a neat, graying red mustache.

If or when the apocalypse comes, these are the kind of guys you want on your side.

Carl was a sniper in the British Armed Forces for 16 years and has trained in the arctic circle. Phil is by all accounts a bushcraft wizard, meaning he knows his way around snares and traps, and can start a fire with little more than two sticks.

We begin the half-kilometre hike to the main camp, where we will set up our tents. Carl’s two German Shepherds, Max and Saber, thunder past us on the trail, snarling; they sound

less like dogs than wild beasts.

If anyone of us should go missing, these dogs are trained to sniff us out. Plus, they keep the coyotes at bay.

The trees here are predominantly balsam fir, maple, and aspen. The woods silently bear witness to the ravages of nature. Carl points out one balsam fir etched with little bear claw marks. A nearby pine has a lightning gash running the entire length of its trunk.

The course addresses the six priorities of wilderness survival, namely shelter, fire, water, food, location, and first aid. Phil begins by listing the survival rule of three: you can survive three minutes without oxygen, three hours without shelter, three days without water, three weeks without food, and three months without companionship.

Both instructors stress the importance of writing up a pretrip plan: a detailed trip itinerary that you leave behind with a responsible acquaintance before heading off into the wood (half an hour in, and we’ve already failed the first step).

They also caution against the sort of hubris that many wilderness buffs and hunters in particular fall prey to, which is to come unprepared or bereft of contingency plans. One guy who took the winter survival course came equipped with only a wool blanket. Roughing

it has its limits -- all the survival skills in your arsenal won’t necessarily keep you alive out here if you’re not properly prepared. We’ve brought winter sleeping bags, whistles, headlamps, communication devices, and lots and lots of pairs of dry socks.

We begin with shelter. In the spirit of journalistic integrity, I’ve already consigned myself to sleep outside for the duration of our trip, so the shelter instruction piques a special interest for me.

There’s a lean-to shelter already built not far from main camp. Built from scratch, a lean-to like this would take one person about six hours to build. Phil personally recom-

mends building a debris hut -- a teepee made from fallen material heated by burying hot stones in the ground underneath the hut -- if you’re in a pinch for time.

The temperature is forecast to go down to -6 that night, so we scrounge up enough wood to last through the night. Diana and Jesse fell a cherry tree. Diana, a former editor of the newspaper turned outdoor educator, has readily agreed to be my bunk companion in the lean-to that night. The rest of the group will sleep in tents.

Now, onto fire: without proper heat, even in summer, hypothermia is a serious risk. In these temperatures, Diana and I will have to keep a close eye

on each other. We’re taught to look for the ‘umbles’ -- grumbles, fumbles, or stumbles -- as a sign of hypothermia. If one of us suspects hypothermia, we need to do stop the loss of heat ASAP. Out here, building a fire is our best hope.

Carl demonstrates fire starting by building a base of crisscrossed thumb-thick sticks.

The base allows a bit of air to fan the fire from underneath.

We scavenge the forest for tinder, matchstick-sized twigs, then finger- and wrist-thick branches, and finally logs that we place in piles around the fire base.

The forest is full of tinder, such as birch bark and reindeer moss. Phil pulls a few wisps of ‘old-man’s beard’ from the branches of a fir tree. This is a stringy, spongy lichen that makes for excellent tinder.

He then points out resin blisters that run up and down the balsam fir trunk; you can pop these blisters and balsam sap will pour out. A bit of balsam sap on tinder acts as a fuel, easily catching sparks. We use ferrocerium rods to spark our tinder; unlike matches and lighters, ferro rods can produce sparks even when it’s wet. Once a flame is produced, we gently feed it until we have a roaring fire. Ta-da!

cont’d page 9

HELENE GODERIS

Helene Goderis

8

December 17, 2012

shreds by rats. In one room lined with blue barrels, we lift a lid to discover it’s full of toilet paper. Cans are stacked in various spots throughout the tunnels, ready to feed the hungry horde.

We say politely that the underground bomb shelter is surprisingly liveable, and Beach corrects us: “we don’t call it living, we call it surviving.”

from “Ark Two”

July 28, 2014 Beach doesn’t buy into the Mayan end-of-times, saying, in all serious, “I don’t see what this [article] has to do with 2012.”

The date he predicts is July 28, 2014. It will begin with a nuclear missile detonating in North American airspace; the subsequent electromagnetic pulse will knock out electrical infrastructure on the continent, sending us all into chaos.

When asked if 2014 is the date he has predicted since he began Ark Two, he admits that he’s been wrong before.

“I always think in a couple of years, for one reason or another. Fifty years it’s been that way. For fifty years, it’s always been just a couple of years.”

He isn’t too concerned that people will bang down the doors when the day of reckoning arrives. “I’ll probably have difficulty getting people in,” Beach says. “They don’t see any dangers upstairs. They don’t see, hear or feel radiation. The sun will be shining, the birds will be singing. Why bother?

They’ll just simply say they don’t want to go down there with that crazy old man.”

He doesn’t seem to want revenge on the naysayers, or even the last laugh. While most preppers build a shelter for themselves and their family, Beach has built a fallout shelter large enough to save hundreds. He even has a stockpile of radiation detection equipment to give out to people who can’t fit inside the bunker. While most of humanity perishes, Beach will look after his friends, family, and neighbours.

If the end is certain and grim, we ask if surviving is really worth it. “Why live today?”

Bruce says. “All back through history people had very very tough time. Times have always been tough for people. Most people just survive because they survive.”

HELENE GODERIS

of earth. It’s difficult to discern the original shape of the buses, but for the arched ceilings in the maze of tunnels and low rooms. At the bottom of the entry tunnel is a standing shower and a bath. This is the decontamination room. Maybe it’s the eerie sound of dripping water that comes from the dark recesses, or maybe it’s the peeling paint, but the Ark gives the sensation that we’re walking through a historical site for a disaster that has already happened.

Beach describes Ark Two as an orphanage. His plan is that parents will drop off their children to survive the fallout, and go off on their own. “That’s their choice,” says Beach. The shelter is prepared for the issues that come with accommodating four hundred parentless children. The bunk rooms are differentiated by age and gender, there is a playroom and library for entertainment, high chairs, a baby diaper drying rack, and even a room for crying kids, so that they don’t disturb the other survivors with their wails.

The sort of attention to detail that compels Beach to include a crying room has made Ark Two impressively comprehensive. In the communication hub, a pile of old telephones, CCTV sets and radios wait to be employed; next to the kitchen is a room full of sinks for washing dishes; the storage rooms all have locking gates to prevent theft; the sleeping quarters have 24 beds each, though not everyone sleeps at the same time. During the weeks inside the shelter, sleeping will be done in eight hour shifts. To provide a little whimsy in dire straits, the bunk rooms have alphabetical animal names: Antelope, Buffalo, and Kittens (the misnomer for the C-room sleeping quarters).

In addition to containing space to play, sleep, and eat, the fallout shelter has a built-in well with pumps routed into a 5000 gallon holding tank, a commercial-sized septic tank, two huge (although currently in repair) diesel generators, a conveyor belt; and space enough in the field outside for trucks to turn around. As for security, Beach has invited local police and their families to exchange their services for a spot on the bunk beds.

The fallout shelter is wellstocked with supplies, although some are rotting and others have been chewed to

Photos from top to bottom: Bruce Beach; ‘the Brig’; Bunk room A

www.thenewspaper.ca from “Roughing it” I want freedom Night has fallen quickly in the forest, and we are famished.

We prepare a supper pot of chicken broiled in maple syrup and bacon fat. We drink creek-water white-pine-needle tea to warm up.

Around the campfire, Carl cracks a few forest-themed jokes, and we probe into what it is about being out here that so enthralls each of us. “I want freedom,” says Carl. “That’s what I want.”

One of the engineers complains about the monotony of a nine-to-five job, where he spends his time dreaming of a more real experience. He announces that he’s going to go take a shit in the woods, and when he returns, it seems he’s realized that dream.

I pull out my copy of Walden, Henry David Thoreau’s two-year experiment in living alone in the Massachusetts woods, and read a fitting passage: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived...I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”

I know I love being in the woods, and learning what the forest has to offer, but I have a hard time pinpointing exactly why. It’s quiet out here, and I love the smell of fire in my hair and wool sweater. Being in the woods is a time to

9

take stock and recalibrate. As much as this is a chance to learn physical survival skills, it’s also about psychological survival.

Two dog night Bedtime! Let me tell you, the idea of sleeping outside in the winter is daunting, especially when the thermometer actually dips to -9.

“I think it’s going to be a twodog night,” says Carl, meaning we would need two dogs sleeping beside us to stay warm enough. He’s camped out here on a ‘three-dog’ night, when the temperature dropped to -31. His son was with him that time, and it got so cold they had to spoon to survive. One of their dogs wandered off that night, and succumbed to hypothermia.

Tonight, Carl has Max and Saber to keep him warm in his tent. Diana and I have each other. We head off for the leanto and build up a long fire behind the windscreen.

I wake up in the middle of the night, freezing my buns off. Our fire has gone out. Diana rebuilds the fire, and I go on a brisk march to get some blood flowing in my feet before crawling back in my sleeping bag. Somewhere around 5am, I wake up to Diana muttering: “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!

Our wall is on fire!” The sap in the balsam windscreen has caught fire, and she douses the rogue flames. Diana tells me later that it took her an hour to get back to sleep for fear that our lean-to would become our funeral pyre.

Phil puts the embers procured from his bow and drill onto a tinder bundle of birch bark and cattails.

We wake up in the bright dawn, still alive. There’s a new kink or two in my back, but the lean-to construction has done a remarkable job of reflecting the heat of the fire off the windscreen toward the bench.

We prepare a hearty bacon breakfast. Saber makes off with a few pieces of bacon on the sly. It’s snowing the kind of flakes you see on wintertime Kindergarten classroom windows; every flake is perfectly articulated.

We’re settling into the morning, when suddenly Carl yells “hypothermia!” We scramble to get our individual fires started. Phil proves himself to be a kind and patient coach, supplying me with fluffed cattails when my fire won’t light.

It takes just under 30 minutes for any one of us to spark a flame. Thank God this is only a drill, and that we’re not in any real jeopardy of losing a limb to frostbite, because this is not easy to do under the gun. The drill instills an inkling of how vulnerable we are in a perilous situation, even with all the proper skills.

Carl has had his share of precarious survival situations.

“My first real survival experience was when I was 16 years old, homeless and penniless,” he says. “I don’t like to kill animals but my ability to identify game trails and set traps provided me with food, while practicing shelter building as a child paid off. I wish I knew then what I know now!”

And later, as a United Nations Peacekeeper in Bosnia in 1994: “The convoy that was bringing our rations into Gorazde was attacked and all the vehicles were burned or shot up, the patrol commander was also killed. All other convoys were being stopped and were not being allowed in. We ran out of food and we made plans to fight our way to Macedonia. We survived on wild mushroom sandwiches and boiled sweets. I still love mushroom sandwiches.”

S.O.S. Part of surviving out here is knowing how to get rescued.

If you’re lost in the woods, your best chance of rescue is to find a small clearing and set up three signal fires in triangle formation (three of anything is the official distress call in Canada, whether it be whistle blasts or rock piles or signal fires). We rope together three tall branches into a tripod frame using parachute cord, tie a small platform halfway up the structure, and lace fresh

Carl (on left) shows us how to make fish netting from paracord. fir boughs through the top. As soon as you hear a plane approaching, you light a fire on this platform, and the green boughs create a smoke signal.

We step back while Phil lights the tinder on the platform. The signal starts with a thin plume of smoke and soon billows immense clouds of grey smoke that fill the sky. It is the most sublime thing I’ve seen all weekend; it’s easy to imagine how welcome and redemptive the sight of this signal would be if your chance of rescue depended on it.Q While waiting for our imaginary rescue, we discuss food options. Carl shows us a simple rabbit snare, and Phil teaches us how to rig a trap out of three notched sticks propped beneath a log. The forest also offers a lot of edible foraging. Over the course of the weekend, I ate pine bark, tried a bit of balsam sap, and chewed through reindeer moss. It wasn’t all pleasant, but it is packed with vitamins that will help you temporarily stave off death. Get a good guide though, because not everything is safe. “You drink a cup of yew tea, it’ll be your last,” warns Carl.

The end is coming It’s impossible to relate everything we learned on this weekend, and I recommend taking one of these courses if you have any interest in camping or the outdoors. Although there’s a smattering of wilderness schools across Ontario, bushcraft hasn’t caught on in Canada as it has in England.

Carl attributes that to the popularity of a BBC TV show dedi-

cated to bushcraft, and the relative lack of media attention to the subject in Canada.

The school does get its fair share of ‘preppers,’ people preparing for the coming apocalypse. “To many, I think it’s more of a hobby than a real possible event,” Carl muses, noting that preppers don’t necessarily have the most realistic post-apocalyptic plans. One of these preppers disclosed his plans to Carl: he had accrued six barrels of food that he would drive north until he ran out of gas and then continue walking north as far as he could go. He was at a loss, however, to explain how he would transport these hulking barrels without use of a car.

Phil has some down-to-earth advice: “Everyone is responsible for their own survival. This does not mean they have to build bunkers and stock up for the end of the world. But they should be able to provide for themselves and their families in case of an emergency.”

Carl himself doesn’t waste much time on the hype around the apocalypse. “The world is not going to end for a very, very long time, well after we have all gone.”

Sadly, all good things do come to an end. We pack up and begin our hike back to the cars before the sun sets. I think back to what Phil said about living three months without companionship. Carl had responded that he couldn’t live a day without company, so we end our weekend by going out for beer and chicken wings at a Crabby Joe’s in some Bracebridge shopping plaza.

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December 17, 2012

Thisishowtheworldends.

Notwithabang,butwith...

The sudden death of the sun Half the world witnesses the sun wink out with a flash, the way lightbulbs sometimes do when you flick the switch.

Eight minutes and 20 seconds later, you’re plunged into unexpected night, as the last rays of light finally reach the earth.

The rest of the world watches one last sunset, not realizing the sun will fail to ever rise again. Of course this will eventually freeze the planet, but at least it delights philosophy nerds by proving Hume’s point about inductive logic.

Our sunless world is not so bad at first. Since it’s always the evening, you can drink whenever you want without fear of opprobrium. And no one really expects you to show up for work any more, because, fuck it, right? Solarpanel salesmen and sundial makers quickly go out of business, except in places like Brooklyn and Queen West where irony is popular.

The endless night degenerates into global bacchanalia as the cold sets in, and with it, the real terror. The planet will enter another ice age; every ecosystem will fail as the water turns to ice and the flora is unable to perform photosynthesis. This rock is doomed, but everyone’s consumed with orgiastic, desperate partying.

The hangover will set in soon enough.

Survival: artificially heated and illuminated bio-domes could keep some rich eccentrics alive for years, but eventually Earth will be as lifeless as the moon. Your best bet is to close up shop and try again in Alpha Centauri. That system’s got two suns!

A global pandemic Nothing’s worse than being on a crowded subway beside some Typhoid Mary who’s coughing and hacking away, right?

CORRIE JACKSON

The Mayans warned us it was over. But they neglected to mention how it would end. JOE HOWELL walks us through some possible scenarios.

Turns out it’s even worse when her face is being consumed by flesh-eating bacteria while you watch, which you have ample time to do since someone jumped in front of the train to escape the plague destroying the city and now that fucker is parked while they scrub the guts out of the rails. Ms. Sickly is shedding limbs and sneezing blood, while you nervously readjust your dollar store face mask. You can’t even wear it over your nose since it makes your glasses fog up.

Finally you’re back above ground, in the office but late again, readying yourself to meet an important client. He goes to shake your hand, but you astutely note the pus dripping from his tear ducts. Demurring, you offer an elbowbump instead. You don’t land the contract.

Survival: this one you can wait out. When the last sick person finally kicks it, the vi-

rus will too, right? Your best bet is locking yourself in your room for a few months with a healthy supply of video games, canned food, and internet porn. So, business as usual for most of our male readership.

The Rapture It’s the day after the Lord himself came down from Heaven, and as per Thessalonians 4:1617, those “in Christ” rose up “in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” They didn’t come back down again. Now a whole lot of smug atheists are feeling a lot less clever.

Those left on earth dust off old copies of the Good Book to find out what happens next, and spoiler alert, it’s not good.

You ever read Revelation? It’s wild, man. I won’t bore you with the details, since you’re going to live through it and all, but it’s called The Tribulation, and not The Nice and Relaxing Time When All Water Defi-

nitely Does Not Become Boiling Blood.

This period of strife and locust-scorpions-with-humanfaces does have one thing going for it, though. All the fun people will be left behind to suffer with you.

Survival: repent, maybe? Resort to self-flagellation in the streets, and fall to your knees screaming at the heavens for mercy? Or if that sounds like too much work, I recommend at least trying to stay indoors, since a lot of weird stuff is going to come raining down.

Hail, even more blood, meteorites, a fiery mountain, a comet called Wormwood that’s actually Satan, et cetera. Bonne chance!

Ragnarök Loki has spent an eternity under the earth, bound with the entrails of his son. As the serpent’s venom drips on his face he howls with rage, and build-

ings fall in San Francisco. Suddenly he slips his bonds; the end has begun. The world tree Yggdrasil bends like a sapling in a stiff breeze, and then Odin dies mud-wrestling a giant wolf. Or something? We’re not exactly sure—Google Translate has a tough time with Norse myth. Thor, looking nothing like the long-haired pretty boy from The Avengers, kills a different snake, while a variety of other gods with unpronounceable names just have at it.

When the smoke clears, the world is submerged and you’ve totally drowned, even though you had a Bronze Cross and your middle school’s record for treading water.

Survival: the ancient texts say that two humans will survive and repopulate, but your odds of being included in that couple are slimmer than winning the lottery while being struck by lightening.

A lame “it was all a dream” ending Perhaps you are a butterfly, dreaming you’re a man. Or maybe you’re a barren rock floating in the vacuum, dreaming you’re lousy with sentient bipeds. Either way, the dream is over. The details are hazy; they slip away like water through cupped hands. You were part of a proud, technomaniacal society that viewed streaming internet porn that never had to pause to buffer as its finest achievement, and the kids listened to music that sounded like machines copulating while dying, and everything was microwavable, even love.

But it wasn’t a dream—it was a place. And you—and you— and you—and you were there.

Right? Take my hand and tell me it was real...

Survival: relax, you’re awake now. You were having a nightmare. What did I tell you about eating spicy food before bed?

www.thenewspaper.ca

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Apocalypse: the beginning of utopia?

On the sunny side of the dead-end street

Yukon Damov And so we’ll end: with a bang or a whimper; in a catastrophic meteoric collision or once economic systems have collapsed; after the gradual degradation of the Earth’s ecosystem or in the shadow of nuclear mushroom clouds; flowers will cease to bloom and water will cease to flow. At some undisclosed point in the future or (and it’s unlikely) December 21, humans will not walk, talk, run, play, laugh, cry or breathe.

The popular meaning of apocalypse has narrowed over time. Mention the apocalypse and many people don’t think of revelation, but of destruction and the end of the world.

Popular culture is filled with countless doomsday plots involving nuclear annihilation and zombies. Regardless of its shifting nature in our culture, the apocalypse has entered this generation’s zeitgeist.

“It is the imagination that really captivates us, and oftentimes that apocalyptic imagination gets heightened when we’re at certain points in history, and this time it’s the Mayan calendar coming to an end,” said John Dadosky, Professor of Philosophy and Systematic Theology at Regis College, U of T’s Jesuit Graduate College.

The apocalypse makes for some compelling drama, but it’s not the kind of thing that elicits much positive thinking. Bleakness is not the only connotation associated with the word. There are hopeful outlooks—religious and secular—with which to consider the end of days.

“Apocalypse” derives from the ancient Greek word apocalypsis, which refers to the unveiling or uncovering of some hidden meaning, and was

adopted for most of history into a Judeo-Christian context. It is a synonym for “revelation,” the last book in the New Testament.

Apocalyptic literature tries to create meaning in coded language.

Symbolism and metaphors manifest as great beasts, grand battles, locusts, and horsemen. It often involves the triumph of justice, of good over evil, and includes the Final Judgment, or separation between two dichotomous forces. “[Apocalypse] doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be chaos, violence and destruction,” explained Dadosky. “But because what is being revealed is so radically different and because the stakes are so high, it is often depicted in this very dramatic imagery.”

Most apocalyptic literature, including Revelation and passages from books in the Old Testament, gives hopeful meaning to the dire circumstances of the author’s audience.

“The Book of Revelation itself, the apocalypse, was conceived to be a revelation of an

end coming in its own time, in the first century,” said Professor John Marshall, an expert in apocalyptic literature at the U

of T Department for the Study of Religion. “One of the most significant transformations that people have made is that they have always delayed it--it has always been in the future. But the end of the world continues not to come, so people have to modify their expectations.”

From a nonChristian standpoint, a narrative that finds justice in the allocation of humanity into places of eternal righteousness and eternal damnation comes up against the problem of differing stances on reality.

“Most visions of the end are not that kind to outsiders,” confirmed Marshall.

“But then again, most outsiders are not that concerned with other people’s visions of the end.”

One way to think of the end of the world is to consider it as an impulsion to change. That notion has been reflected in the Western literature of two competing visions: utopian and dystopian, which can be related to apocalyptic literature.

Charles Fensham, Professor of Systematic Theology at

Knox College, suggested that utopian and dystopian fiction draw from the juxtaposition of destruction and renewal in the Book of Revelation. “The dystopia is the Day of the Lord, the end of the world kind of apocalypse; and then you have utopia, which you also find in Revelation, the new heaven and the new Earth,” said Fensham.

“Over time, more and more, this dystopia-utopia thing has worked, in my opinion, as this thing that shapes us.”

Dystopian, utopian, and apocalyptic literature share an intention to propel their readership toward transformation. For Christians in the first century (or now), to read Revelation is to be reminded that God promises a hopeful, triumphant ending, thus providing some sense of comfort in a time of suffering. For anyone reading George Orwell’s 1984, it is a call to denounce totalitarianism. Plato’s Republic provides some ideal political system and society to create.

“I also think it’s helpful to think about the end of the world. For example, I can get so inundated with the things I have to do on a daily basis, the little conflicts I get into,” said Dadosky. “But, for example, if a meteor were to fall out of the sky tomorrow and take out half the planet, my life would be changed completely. On the one hand it’s kind of morbid to think about that, but on the other hand it reminds me to think of the bigger picture, to get out of these minor squabbles and keep things in perspective.”

If the end doesn’t drive us into despair, the contemplation of individual or collective finality can sharpen the mind for the renewal, replenishing, and reform of life and society.

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THE END

December 17, 2012

Photo by Brendan George Ko. Nine Eleven, from We Soon Be Nigh! 2012. “The future has always been uncertain,� Ko writes in his artist statement.