Fighting off blood-thirsty pests is nothing new to Manitobans, but the flesh-eating predators at this camp are a lot more fun to kill than mosquitoes.

A Zombie Survival Camp is slated for Aug. 15-17 near Steinbach where participants will be trained in everything from how to live in the woods to "hand-to-rotting hand combat."

The Toronto-based camp is in its second year, but this is the first time one is being held outside of Ontario. The camp is owned and operated by five instructors who, besides their day jobs, have backgrounds that vary from military and archery, to outdoor living and martial arts.

The camp's motto is: "You can't enjoy the apocalypse if you don't survive."

But aside from the fun zombie theme, it does offer real-life skills for people looking "to become self-sufficient and reliant," said instructor, Deidter Stadnyk.

"A survival camp might turn people off because it's a little too intense, but with a zombie camp we get people who are into survival skills and those who are just into zombie movies," said Stadnyk, the group's tactical fieldcraft instructor.

"We straddle that line of hard-core survival skills and zombie fantasy."

The camp originated when Peter Lane and Eric Somerville launched a website to gauge their market. It caught the interest of Stadnyk, who was in his third year of film studies at Ryerson University where he was doing a documentary on zombie apocalypse culture.

Stadnyk, who spent five years in the Canadian Armed Forces, contacted the two and was soon added as an instructor. The three were later joined by Dominic Etynkowski, who specializes in bladed weapons combat and Filipino weapons martial arts (Bakbakan-Kali Ilustrisimo), and Somerville's younger brother, Connor, a hunting and archery enthusiast.

They had their first camp in April 2013 in Orillia Ont., and have held several in Ontario since. The idea of branching out to Manitoba was a natural as Stadnyk's relatives own CD Trees near Steinbach, where it'll be hosted.

The site offers basic washroom facilities and campers are welcome to bring tents or "barricade themselves in their vehicles."

Campers pay $250 each ($215 for group rate of at least five), which includes meals. The camp attracts a wide demographic, including many couples, but most are between 18 and mid-20s, Stadnyk said.

The group of 40 will be broken into groups of eight who'll rotate through classes, including archery, the use of weapons (some of which are used on well-padded instructors), zom-jitsu (just like jui-jitsu only with zombies), how to manoeuvre through the woods without being seen, how to make a shelter, select edibles in the wild, learn different types of knots, and how to prepare a "bug out bag" incase you need to suddenly head for the hills.

Everything the campers learn will be put to the test on the Sunday when the camp is invaded with a simulated zombie outbreak.

"Now, all the skills you learned on Saturday, you're going to have to use them and work as a team of 40 people to accomplish all these objectives -- get food, get water, make a fire, and make a shelter," Stadnyk said.

"You're going to have to run away from zombies, you're going to have to kill zombies with weapons ... use all your skills to survive."

The living dead are provided by local LARPing groups (Live Action Role Playing).

"They're the best zombies you could ask for," Stadnyk said. "They get into the role and it's only fun if the zombies are realistic."

For more details, go to zombiesurvivalcamp.ca.