One week after they became lost in a provincial park near Napanee, two New Hamburg sisters are speaking about their 32 hours alone in nature.

Jenna Kip, 16, and her 13-year-old sister Emma were camping with their mother in Bon Echo Provincial Park.

Around 10 a.m. last Thursday, the sisters left their campsite on a mission.

“On the back of the Bon Echo map, it said there was a little body of water off to the back of our campsite. We decided that we’d go for a little walk and try and see if we could find it,” Jenna tells CTV News.

When a sudden downpour hit about 10 minutes later, and passed without any sign of Jenna and Emma, mother Leanne Kip knew something was wrong – as the girls hadn’t been far from the campsite before the rain.

“I could see them, they could see me, but then the rain came and we couldn’t see each other anymore,” she says.

What had happened is that the girls, trying to avoid the storm, had ran in the direction they thought was back to the campsite, but actually took them deeper into the bush.

The sisters, both experienced campers, knew what to do once they realized they were lost – including seeking out a location in a clearing where they could be seen by aerial searchers.

About six hours after the storm, the girls heard helicopters overhead, but weren’t certain if that meant rescue efforts were underway.

“We didn’t know they were after us,” says Jenna.

“They sounded pretty distant, because they were searching in the direction we were walking to.”

As night fell, the Kips quickly realized any rescue wouldn’t happen until the next day and they needed to find shelter to protect themselves from the cold.

“We knew we shouldn’t keep walking in the dark, because there are bears and other dangerous animals,” says Emma.

“We found this nice little cove of dirt and built a little shelter overtop of us with anything we could find. It was actually quite cozy.”

The sisters were able to drink water they wrung out of moss – a trick Emma learned from a TV show – but food was another matter.

“We tried some insects, because we knew we should eat, but we spit them out before we could even swallow them,” says Emma.

They did chew on grass and tree bark, and even found a bush with four edible blackberries.

Their night also included a close encounter with a pack of coyotes.

While other campers might have been scared by the creatures, the Kips simply stared at them for a minute, then made some noise so the animals would leave them alone.

“It wasn’t too scary for us, since we live in New Hamburg and there’s always coyotes out yipping in the forest,” says Jenna.

When Friday rolled around, the Kips did everything they could think of to make themselves more visible to rescuers.

Helicopters passed over them on several occasions, leaving the sisters with mixed emotions each time.

“At first it fills you with hope that you’re going to be rescued,” says Emma.

“As soon as they go over, you just get crushed.”

Mother Leanne was experiencing her own heavy emotions as Friday rolled on and she prepared herself for the possibility her daughters might have to spend a second night alone in the bush.

“Those last couple hours were really difficult. I really started to worry for their safety and it started to cross my mind that I might never see them again,” she says.

Around 6 p.m. that evening, a pilot from CFB Trenton noticed the girls in his peripheral version and the rescue took place.

“That was the happiest moment of my life,” says Jenna.

“We were jumping and screaming. It was so amazing to know we were going to get to go back to our family.”

To the surprise of nobody who knows them, Jenna and Emma elected to finish off their weeklong camping trip.

“We got lost as soon as we came – we didn’t have a chance to go see anything. We stayed up to have our chance to do things,” says Emma.

The family returned home Wednesday night, where they were greeted by dozens of friends and family members.