- Steve Lancia, founder and principal, NorthCamp Outdoor Survival Skills in Riverside.
Steve Lancia has since 2008 run NorthCamp Outdoor Survival Skills, based in Riverside and with a camp in Columbia County, N.Y. In that time he has educated hundreds in what it takes to survive, either in the wild or in an urban environment in collapse. Most of his clients are women.
“People are surprised to hear that,” he said. “They think it”™s all about being macho. It”™s not. Women learn better, too. They are the ones who get the fire going first.”
The art of survival in the wild is predicated upon getting found, which makes it different from survival when practiced in an urban environment, “where,” he said, “the purpose may be that you don”™t want to be found.”
NorthCamp teaches both urban and wild survival, plus a combat-infused version that is gaining in popularity and, accordingly, in frequency of offerings in 2016.
Lancia, whose undergraduate degree is in forestry at West Virginia University, is also an Eagle Scout and a member of the Order of the Arrow, a fraternity of shared accomplishment within Scouting. His enthusiasm for camping and all it entails never left him. He has professionally taught kayaking and skiing and said that, given a knife, he could survive alone in the Northeast woods, perhaps even gain weight. “For 45 years I”™ve been building knowledge of the outdoors. The best tool we have is right on our shoulders.”
Can he teach a person rooted in 2016 to thrive in the wild?
“Absolutely,” he said. “I don’t like the word ”˜survive.”™ It”™s got a desperate connotation. I prefer ”˜thriving.”™”
To survive and perhaps to thrive, Lancia preaches the “Rules of 3.”
“Under most circumstances an individual can live for three minutes without breathing or with severe bleeding,” he said. He ticked off survival deadlines in descending order, all focused on three.
“A person has three hours to live with exposure to heat stroke or hypothermia,” he said. “The average person can go three days without water and three weeks without food.
“If you believe and accept these Rules of 3, then you set up priorities: first aid, shelter, fire, water, signaling and food. That”™s what we teach.
“Food is extremely important, but it”™s usually last,” he said.
New York”™s Touro School of Medicine recently contracted NorthCamp to learn, perhaps, to see things differently. “We teach, discuss, practice and learn to see things for what they can be, not for what they are,” Lancia said. “For example, that”™s not a jacket; it”™s a cervical collar.”
The company hires a staff of retired military and police personnel as needed ”“ typically two to four at a time ”“ as when NorthCamp staff taught a New York City company”™s 2,500 guests in the Adirondacks last summer. Closer to home, in Gallatin, N.Y., the NorthCamp camp features a LEED platinum-certified cabin as headquarters and a staff chef.
“We’re like the Club Med of survival schools,” Lancia said. “We”™re all about you learning survival skills, not enduring survival hardships.” He described a NorthCamp adventure as costing a fraction of an out-of-state golf outing. “Instead of $3,000 to golf in Virginia Beach, they”™ll spend $300 and enjoy a weekend at my survival camp.” Dinner might be Cornish game hens roasted on an open fire and served with sautéed kale and pistachio-nut salad.
New in 2015 and due back multiple times in 2016 is NorthCamp”™s Ultimate Survival Weekend. It features wilderness bushcraft skills plus training in hand-to-hand combat, personal defense and weapons usage, selection and improvisation.
“I find everyone we teach to be receptive,” Lancia said. “Every time I teach a class, no matter where it is or who I”™m with, I”™m living the dream.” He admires the native Lenape people of this region, embracing some of their skills through what he termed bushcraft. “The art of bushcraft is doing more with less.”
Available hand-to-hand combat training notwithstanding, the typical lessons hew to basics: learning the double half-hitch, simpler kin to the taut-line, is one of them. Students also learn to remain cool in an emergency. “Avoid panic,” Lancia said. “Conquer fear.” He said those basics will help on land or water. Given numbers, “Function as a team to find solutions.”
“If you”™re really prepared mentally and physically, survival is just a mild inconvenience,” he said. Envisioning a catastrophe, he said, “You may not make it home or to work, but you”™ll survive and then you move forward.”
For that catastrophe in the urban jungle, Lancia said, “You’ll definitely want a weapon.” Artillery may be in short supply, however, so Lancia advises rocks and spears or, better yet, slingshots and bows and arrows. An arrow, he noted, travels more ably through water than does a bullet owing to the inertia of the shaft. “It’s great for fishing.” A walking stick is many tools, including a weapon. If he found himself living on Manhattan Island or Long Island, Lancia said his preparations would include an inflatable boat and access to transportation ”“ he mentioned a bicycle or a motorcycle ”“ on the mainland.
In any survival situation, attitude counts for plenty. “There are people who say, ”˜I can do this,”™” he said. “And there are people who say, ”˜I cannot do this.”™ They are both right.”
Lancia”™s years in the business have made him a go-to source for survival information and no survival story was bigger last year than the escaped Dannemora convicts in upstate New York. Their downfall was getting tired and sloppy, Lancia told media outlets throughout New England and as far west as Buffalo, N.Y. “Of course, they broke into cabins. That helped them.” He offered no sympathy for their outdoor skills, noting they had robbed to survive.
The old escapee ploy of hunkering down all day and moving only at night gets tired after a few days, Lancia said. “It”™ll drive you crazy,” he said. “Pretty soon you get tired and you get sloppy. You leave a candy bar wrapper behind.”
