[Reporter] Worried about a calamity or extinction-level event?
Wolf Starchild is your guy.
So in this kit we will start a fire today
with no matches whatsoever simply using a knife
Wolf, and yeah that's his real name
He's a prepper, and spent a lot of time teaching others how
to survive the worst.
A huge paradigm shift happened during the pandemic.
[Reporter] Should we make some fire?
All right so make your first fire let's see if you can light it up.
There we go. Very nice.
The people that came for our courses to take courses like
learning how to split wood, learning how to survive
learning how to be out in the woods
then shifted to 'oh my God I'm scared.
I need to I need these skills to protect my family.'
[Reporter] What are they thinking societal collapse?
Society collapse is what they were concerned about.
[Reporter] The prepper movement isn't new
rooted in Cold War fears of an apocalypse
but recent big fires and floods, civil disorder
plus the war in Ukraine have put the movement on the radar
encompassing more than just a fringe element.
Look no further than Costco, which sells a preppers pallet of food for a year.
This is going to sound totally reasonable to some people like a thing they should do
and others are going to think you're crazy.
That's right. Well neither is wrong.
OK.
[Reporter] Indeed there are still guns and ammo survivalists sometimes with roots
in the far right, they fear a civil war, believe government itself is the threat
Is that the community today?
There's people like that in it absolutely there is.
Self-reliance as a whole attracts that type of person to it.
It definitely does and that's not to say that certainly everybody is like that.
For me prepping and the prepping that we teach is practical.
Again your car goes off the road you're now in a prepping situation.
[Reporter] But for all preppers, there are limits.
The first rule of prepping is we don't talk about prepping.
And why is that?
The reason is because many preppers believe it makes them a target.
[Reporter] The question is when does being prepared become being paranoid?
In Northern B.C., Alicia Atkins says living rural means being prepared.
She's happy to show us her wood pile with years of fuel
a large greenhouse and a freezer full of meat.
Show me what you got.
So we've got
we've got some deer burger here lots of deer, lots of moose.
[Reporter] Rows of canned food.
Sprouts which will produce over the winter.
Seeds, she says, are her most valuable possession.
Tomatoes, corn, beans, peas, cabbages lettuce.
What is this to you?
Security. Security.
So these are definitely very valuable to me.
Could you do 10 years here?
We have our heat in place, hunting's available, fishing's available
we have access to water we could do 10 years.
[Reporter] Alicia worries about food shortages, economic collapse too.
Her plan though, involves her neighbours.
Because we do rely on our community.
There's a lot of trade and barter that go around here.
[Reporter] Yeah tell me about that.
So for example, if I want livestock I can grow fruit trees that produce food
but I might not have the pigs
so I can find someone that does have the pigs and trade them fruit trees.
[Reporter] Trade and barter also cuts government out of the transaction
but for all the stockpiling and planning
Alicia thinks she's less prepper more of a homesteader
relying on herself, her family and her land.
So what are you?
Prepared, I guess, which is kind of the same as a prepper
sustainable, self-sufficient.
What's the stigma around that?
When I think of a stereotypical prepper I think of someone that
has a bomb shelter and is is collecting artillery
and or you know they're almost militant about it.
And they're ready to cut off from the world.
They're ready to cut off yeah
Is that you?
No.
[Reporter] They exist though, like in the U.S., with underground fortified bunkers
Change the image that we have as crazy people.
Paul Rodriguez is worried about getting robbed, so doesn't want to show his face.
Not unusual in the community
So I'm a normal guy, I go to the gym I got a mortgage.
[Reporter] Paul's an urban prepper, he lives in Toronto
and it was the city's ice storm in 2013 where power was cut for days
that convinced Paul prepping was imperative.
I was at home with my power generator watching DVD movies cooking my food
and then my neighbour's struggling, he got a baby.
He couldn't boil the water for the formula for the baby
so I tell him buddy I'll give you an extension go ahead.
And what's this that's strapped to you.
so this is a scanner that I use to to get my local news, my EMS, my police fighting fires
there are so many news that don't get to the TV, so local stuff
it's like situational awareness for you?
That's it, yeah. We got the first aid for minor cuts.
So you fill it up with water
you put the space to the sun and it gets hot.
Paul's got a go bag ready the instant he needs it complete with an ax
this is if I need to carry a gun.
He didn't bring his guns to meet us, but he has them.
Everyone in the house has a bug out bag my kids, my wife, myself.
His biggest fear -- riots, even nuclear accident or attack.
And prepping is an entire lifestyle wolf thinks everyone has a little prepper in them
You can get as deep into it as you want, so you can be like the super hardcore off-grid guy
who owns a bug-out bus, makes his own clothes
OK.
That's also me.
That is you, yeah.
an investment many preppers will say expecting they'll need it