Ever wonder what a garter snake tastes like? Jennifer Ford and Juan Pablo Quiñonez can tell you.
"Pretty good," said Ford. "Like chicken, as they say!"
The couple weren't out for a culinary thrill. They snacked on the snake during a different type of adventure.
The two just finished a six-month trip camping alone in the wilderness near the Bloodvein River.
They had no Internet, no television and almost no food.
"It's been a dream of mine for years," said Juan Pablo Quiñonez. “I've always wanted to spend a few months in the wilderness living off the land."
And so the two set off with little more than a canoe, six buckets of dry food, and a couple of fishing rods.
But sometimes, the fish weren't biting.
"We would call those tea days," said Ford. "So we would just drink spruce tea all day. Those were the tough times. I think we went a week without a fish."
That's where the garter snake slither's into the story. Just as they were at their hungriest, the snake arrived like a gift from Meals on Wheels.
"We looked at each other, and we said, ‘It's meant to be.’ Cause it came right to us," said Quiñonez.
Hunger wasn't the only challenge the couple endured. Isolated and alone for the entire trip, there were moments when the two got angry at each other.
"We fought. Of course," said Jennifer Ford. “But we reached a certain point where we said, you know, we're in this together. We're a team."
And they completed it as one too. They emerged from the wilderness together, and with a profound connection to nature -- connection they now hope to share with others.
The couple hopes to launch a wilderness immersion program for youth, so they can share the knowledge they have learned.
