“If you’ve got food and plan on camping in one place for a few days. Black bears don’t usually mess with us, but if you leave food or trash around, they’re going to come investigate, and that’s not something we want.”
“So are you going to show me how to eat tree bark now?” she asked with a smile.
“Sure thing.” He walked to a nearby pine tree. “What you want is the inner bark.” He pulled out a pocket knife and cut away a rectangle of brown bark, revealing the soft, yellowish layer beneath. “This stuff.” He cut away a piece and handed it to her. “It’s got protein, carbs, and some other nutrients too.”
“Hmm.” She sniffed it and then gave him a funny smile as she put it in her mouth.
“Chew it really well before you swallow,” he told her before popping a piece in his own mouth. The bark was thick and chewy, without much flavor. He chewed it until it had softened then swallowed.
Jess did the same. “That tasted like…well, like tree bark,” she said with a laugh.
“But if you were starving, it would fill you up and give you some decent nutrition in the process.”
“And I had no idea it was edible.”
“You can eat acorns too.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yep. Not raw, though. They’ll give you an awful stomachache…or worse. You’ve got to shell them, then soak them in warm water for a few hours until they’ve lost their bitterness. Boiling them is best, if you have a fire going. If not, you can set them in some water in the sun, but it will take longer and your results won’t be quite as good. Once you’ve done that, you can roast them. They’re not half-bad.”
“Huh. You learn something new every day.” Jess glanced around at the many acorns littering the forest around them.
He spent the next hour showing her more food sources and other survival tips. She was limping—just slightly—but even so, it was all he could do not to use the sat phone to call Ethan and have him meet them out here with the Jeep.
“You ready to pitch the tent?” he asked after he’d finished teaching her everything she needed to know.
She nodded, her cheeks flushed from the cool mountain air. “You don’t share a tent with your other students, do you?”
“Never.”
She took his hands, going up on tiptoes to kiss him. “Good.”
“And just so you know, nothing else I have planned for tonight is anything I do with my other students either.”
