Arcturus Primitive Skills Institute is Michigan’s premier survival school and the Midwest’s most trusted home for real‑world preparedness, wilderness skills, and true self‑reliance. If you’re searching for authentic survival courses, hands‑on bushcraft training, and no‑nonsense emergency readiness, you’ve found the right place.

Welcome to Arcturus Primitive Skills Institute (APSI) — where the modern world stops, and primitive skills, self‑reliance, and real survival ability come alive.

APSI is built for people who want more than theory. This is dirt‑tested, field‑proven survival training designed for the real world. You’ll learn the skills that matter when systems fail: natural shelter building, fire‑craft without matches, off‑grid navigation, water purification, wild plant identification, knot work, carving, trapping, practical survival gear use and a host of other skills. Every lesson is engineered to sharpen one thing — your ability to survive, adapt, and stay self‑reliant when the modern world is gone.

APSI is led by founder and instructor Arthur Knapp — survival instructor, tracker, forager, herbalist, and Wilderness First Responder with years of real field experience in Michigan’s backcountry. His background isn’t theoretical or borrowed. It’s earned through seasons of hunting, tracking, navigating, and living off the land long before “bushcraft” became a trend. Every course reflects that lived experience, delivering authentic wilderness training, real emergency preparedness, and the kind of self‑reliance that only comes from time spent in the wild.

APSI stands alone. No franchise. No copied curriculum. No watered‑down instruction. Just a school built from the ground up and tested against Michigan’s forests, storms, and seasons. When daylight fades, the learning doesn’t. Campfire sessions turn skills into instinct, and the people beside you become allies you’d trust when the world stops cooperating.

If you’re ready for something real — training that forges capability, confidence, and self‑reliance instead of pretending to — this is it. No shortcuts. No soft edges. Just proven wilderness skills and real‑world preparedness built to hold up when everything else fails.

Reserve your spot today and step into the kind of survival training that will get and your loved ones through when lost in the wilderness, or when the lights go out — right here at Michigan’s leading school for preparedness, self‑reliance, and wilderness skills.