It's time to settle back into city life for one Winnipeg couple after living off the land in the Manitoba wilderness for 180 days. The couple set out into remote Atikaki Provincial Wilderness Park near the Bloodvein River in May with a small ration of flour, milk powder and rice.

"When we got there the first night and I saw the amount of rice we would be sharing every night for the next six months, I was like, 'Oh my gosh, you're joking. This is all we have to eat?'" said Jennifer Ford who left the food planning up to her partner, Juan Pablo Quinonez.

Their food rations accounted for half of the couple's daily caloric intake. To make up the other half, Ford and Quinonez relied on hunting and gathering.

The wilderness park is about 250 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, between Lake Winnipeg and the Ontario border. The only means of accessing it is either by canoe or floatplane.

Previous Next

The couple's diet consisted mainly of fish and wild rice, but occasionally it would also include blueberries, hazelnuts, cattails, and arrowhead plants.

"Everything in the wilderness, especially when you're isolated, it is a risk-versus-reward. For example, with mushrooms, you say, 'How many calories am I going to get from this mushroom? And, 'I might die from this.' So we stayed away from mushrooms because we didn't know enough,'" said Quinonez.

The "risk-versus-reward" mentality weighed in Quinonez's and Ford's favour. The couple emerged from the six-month journey injury-free, despite being driven more by passion than experience.

Quinonez and Ford met in Calgary while studying ecotourism, but had never done a trip like this before.

"I've always wanted to spend a huge amount of time just living in the wilderness, but it was also kind of like a vision quest. It was also a rite of passage. It was also a challenge for us just experiencing a different way of life," said Quinonez.

"We just wanted to live a life for a bit that was more sustainable, relying on ourselves and relying on our skills and having a direct connection to our food and our water. We went through so many hard times and it was a mental game," said Ford.

The journey tested the couple's communication and conflict resolution skills. With limited energy, they kept themselves busy with small projects such as making a fishing net of spruce roots. Quinonez also brought along his birthday present — a set of dice, handmade by Ford — so there was also Yahtzee.

"Living in isolation with just one other person was definitely really hard at times. We're out of our comfort zone, you're stressed, you're not eating enough," said Ford.

'Culture shock' coming home

The couple brought along a satellite messaging device in case of emergency and to stay in contact with friends and family. There were times when they yearned for home, but now there are mixed emotions on being back inside the city.

"It's kind of a shock. I was riding my bike last night and everything is so busy and there's so much noise. It's kind of like a culture shock," said Ford.

"When we were in the forest and we saw for the first time a structure — a bridge — we kind of hesitated for a moment and then felt like, oh wow, this is a huge step we're doing. It's going to be a shock for sure, it's very different from what we've been living for six months," said Quinonez.

Ford and Quinonez want to share their story with schools and wilderness groups, and have plans to organize a young adult wilderness camp next summer. It's an opportunity to share survival skills and some of the other important lessons they learned.

After eating so little for six months, Ford has new gratitude for food. She also learned how to be present in the moment.

"I think it's just so important for everyone to take the moment that you have and be so grateful for it because it's all you have," said Ford.

"We want to live much more simply. You really get to understand the basic needs, and the needs that we humans have and they're not a lot. Once you've met them, there's no excuse not to be happy," said Quinonez.