BASIC
Critical Conditions Survival Course
Length = 2 days - 1 class day, 1 field day (no overnight)
Cost = $370.00 + tax
Max Participants = 12
Prior experience or any knowledge of survival is not necessary in order to take this course. The material covered is designed to teach and challenge all persons regardless of their level of knowledge and experience in the information being presented.​
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This is a weekend course with the training scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.
There is no overnight component to this course so there is no sleeping outdoors.
Content
Emergency equipment and preparedness
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What to have, where to go, what to bring, what to do
Advanced stop-bleed skills
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Tourniquets, suturing, wound packing, clotting agents
Map / compass / GPS navigation
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Declination, resection, bypass, outdoor navigation course
Bushcraft
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Shelters, tools, fires, water
Situational considerations
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Wartime dangers, how to be found, how to stay hidden
​Chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear (CBRN)
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Recognition, detection, protection, decontamination
Winter survival (seasonal)
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Equipment and clothing, snowshoes and cold injuries
Overview
The course runs over the duration of a weekend with the following plan;
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Day1 (Saturday) 8:00am to 6:00pm
This day will be spent in the classroom learning about and practicing critical survival skills, some of which will prepare you for the next day's activities. The day's venue will be King's University with all amenities available
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Day 2 (Sunday) 8:00am to 3:00pm
This day will be spent in the field practicing specifically outdoor skills and building on the material presented the previous day. This training will be conducted in a wilderness area at Cooking Lake Provincial Rec Area located 30 minutes east of Edmonton.
Meals: During the classroom day, any meals will be the responsibility of the participant. King's University building has it's own cafeteria with hot food options and there are also many fast-food locations close by.
During the field portion of the course, military-type field ration meals including high-calorie survival snacks will be supplied to everyone. We will bring and talk about different types of survival foods in class so that everyone is aware what they will be given to eat in the field.
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Restrooms: During the classroom day full restroom amenities will be available. During the time spent in the field, at a minimum there will be access to a porta-potty.
Physical Health: Please appreciate that the navigation confirmation course on day 2 is a total of 7km long, it winds through uneven ground in hilly terrain and takes approximately 3 hours to complete.
What To Expect
Day 1 - Saturday (Classroom)
Day 1 is a mixture of power point presentations as well as many hands-on skills. The class starts with the topics of emergency equipment and preparedness which includes information on having a go-bag, what to have in stock at home and also knowledge like the expected psychological responses of people during a disaster.
After the first brief powerpoint presentation we will jump directly into skills pertaining to advanced trauma stop-bleed techniques. This will be a small amount of theory followed by lots of life-saving skills like usage of the Combat Application Tourniquet and wound packing (good stuff to know when seconds matter).
Situational considerations will be the last lecture before lunch and it consists of a wide range of important information such as situational awareness, how to not be seen, self care, and battlefield dangers. We then break for lunch for about 45 minutes.​
After lunch we dive into map and compass navigation lectures and exercises during which you will learn how to read different types of maps, how to read grid references and how to make your compass work in unison with a map. These skills will be used the following day in the field when performing the 12 point navigation course.
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The last part of the day includes lectures on Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear (CBRN) survival including; survival equipment, routes of exposure to different agents, warning signs of CBRN as well as self-decontamination. The last exercise of the day is spent demonstrating the propper donning / doffing of high-level protective equipment and practicing donning and doffing of CBRN personal combat respirators.
​Day 2 - Sunday (Field)
This day starts off with some important but simple skills such as how to build your own compass out of junk. After a few of these skills we will prepare for the 7 km long cross-country navigation exercise which makes it's way through rolling grass fields and takes approximately 3 hours to complete. This navigation exercise will rely on information and skills learnt the prior day in class. You will also learn how to find your location on a map even if you are lost as well as how to bypass obstacles such as lakes and dense brush without getting disoriented or lost.
Along the way of the navigation course we will also stop at a stagnant pond and discuss different types of water filtration devices and methods of treating undrinkable water in order to make it clean enough to ingest.
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About 3/4 of the way through the navigation exercise we will take a lunch break for which everyone will be given a military-style ration meal.
Once we return to our rest area from the nav exercise we will take a break after which we will continue-on with the bushcraft portion of the course. During this part we will have displays and explanations of shelters, smoke signals, snares and other important parts of bush survival. Some other skills that we will cover during the bushcraft portion include; building fires from scratch, making ground to air signals, using survival tools and more. This bushcraft portion on average takes about 2 hours and it will take us to the end of the Basic course.
Equipment
Classroom day: Besides lunch money there is no need to bring anything. Reference materials, pens and notepads will all be provided.
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Field day: The following items are required by everyone attending day 2 of the course;
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Regular sized daypack or backpack
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Insect repellant and sun screen as needed
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Clothing for the forecasted weather conditions. Please bring a base layer, an intermediate layer and an outer layer of clothing
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Raincoat or a rain-poncho
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Water bladder or a water bottle or thermos that holds at least 1 litre of water
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Waterproof hiking shoes or boots are also recommended for the field
All other Items that are required to complete any of the skills will be supplied. This includes field tools, tarps, cordage, fire-starting materials and other consumables.
Times / Locations
Day 1 - 8:00am to 6:00pm
King's University, main building
9125 50 street, Edmonton AB
Day 2 - 8:00am to 3:00pm
​Cooking Lake provincial rec area
Waskahegan staging area
​​​​​​Roads: On day 1, be aware of extensive road construction around the King's University area. On day 2, the road to Cooking Lake Provincial Rec Area is paved all the way up to the entrance of the park.
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Parking: There is plenty of safe and secure parking for everyone at both locations on day 1 and day 2.