Last week a column in The Chief gave us a heads up about a possible apocalypse predicted in an ancient Mayan calendar. According to that online wellspring of all knowledge worth knowing, Wikipedia, the phenomenon “comprises a range of eschatological beliefs according to which cataclysmic or transformative events will occur on 21 December 2012.” A quick dictionary check to decipher what that means reveals we could soon be in some really deep doo-doo.

Recently, The Learning Channel shed light on families who are preparing for Mayan mayhem. In Manti, Utah, Peggy and Scott Layton and their kids don gas masks and survival gear on a regular basis. Peggy has published seven books about emergency food preparation and survival. Their root cellar doubles as a bomb shelter. And in case the neighbours get a bit too friendly, Scott, who owns an arsenal of firearms, says, “We won’t go down without a fight.”

Danielle and Dennis McClung, who hail from Mesa, Ariz., have converted a swimming pool into a high-tech, closed-loop survival garden complete with chickens, goats and a tilapia pool that is nourished by chicken droppings.

In St. Louis, Dr. Sterling Silverman, a chiropractor who refers to himself as the Survival Doc, posts helpful information about disaster preparedness on his website thenewsurvivalist.com.

Bruce Beach, a retired Ontario teacher, is ready for the big one. He spent two decades burying 42 school buses to form an underground refuge of damp rooms, dim corridors and filtered airshafts in readiness for the millennium collapse that never happened in 2000. His subterranean labyrinth is now a hedge against the upcoming Mayan meltdown.

During last February’s Super Bowl, General Motors aired an ad in which some good old boys drove Chevrolet Silverados through the debris-strewn ruins of post-apocalyptic America. Unfortunately, one of their pals did not make it because, as the ad revealed, he was behind the wheel of a Ford.

The trouble around here is we’re not getting a lot of information about what will actually happen on Dec. 21 other than that date will signify the onset of winter, as always. Even the Weather Channel, where the slightest meteorological hiccup generates a weather advisory, is strangely silent on the subject of the looming catastrophe.

But the Weather Channel is not the only party that has been remiss. The District of Squamish looks to be ill-prepared for the day of reckoning. Our municipal council and district planners remain oblivious to the pending sorting out of destinies predicted by the Mayans. Why a fleet of used school buses has not been stockpiled to shelter the denizens of the Shining Valley, or an ample supply of back issues of Guns and Ammo purchased to get locals up to speed on weaponry, is hard to figure out.