Royal BC Museum prepares for zombies

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Have you been lamenting the fact there just isn’t any good training around when it comes to surviving the zombie apocalypse?

Well the Royal BC Museum in Victoria has your back, offering courses on how to stay alive should the undead rise up and attack society.

Curator of archaeology Grant Keddie is the guy in charge of teaching some of the skills, which he admits may also come handy in other situations.

“It’s a catchy title, but we’ve heard from a lot of people that kids today are not learning any basic skills. You can have a whole classroom of kids who don’t even know to hammer a nail,” he tells NEWS 1130.

So to fill what he calls a “real demand” for courses that teach some of those basics, the museum is offering classes on building or finding shelter, clothing and tools using natural materials.

“If you are in some sort of situation where you are lost in the bush or you have survived a plane crash — or even a day-to-day-situation where you don’t have a knife — where can you get something sharp?”

The solution can be found in your nearest stone, shell or bone.

“If you are in a predicament along the coast and you can find a large mussel shell, there’s a way you can grind that to make a nice cutting edge to cut up fish or doing part of the butchering of an animal. There are also many kinds of bones that can be used for a variety of purposes,” says Keddie.

“If you have access to deer bones — maybe you’ve been forced to kill one to eat it — you can section them in a certain way to get these long pieces to make a needle or maybe a spear point to catch a fish.”

He also teaches how to make rope out of things like stinging nettles, for use in making a net or tying a stone blade to a wooden handle.

Keddie believes it’s important for people to know that there are many useful materials in the environment around them that can be used for practical purposes.

“It makes you more aware of what’s around you. If you learn these skills when you’re eight years old, suddenly every time you go to the beach and see a shell, you think of the world differently. It makes you feel confident in your abilities.”

Whether that’s for fending off zombies or living closer to the land is up to you.

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