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They can literally eat you alive
Posted by bushrat on Mar 30 2006
Yes, a naked human adult can be exsanguinated by the pesky bloodsucking "state bird" with that long needle-like probiscus in less than an hour! As far as the "just ones that bug you" part, I have seen grown men literally go temporarily insane when the bugs that were bugging him were bad, simply lose control and go running off across the tundra, arms waving, screaming at the top of their lungs, "Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhh!" Even when fully protected with headnet and/or skeet jacket or the typical long-sleeved tightly-woven wool shirt, leather gloves etc. etc., the constant tinitus-type whine of thousands upon thousands of mosquitoes or whitesox or gnats, or all of those, along with the biting flies...well it will drive many a newcomer to their tent for the duration. Valium is helpful in these situations, though I am not a licensed M.D. and certainly don't prescribe such medications. The liberal use of all kinds of cancer-causing DEET formulas is also recommended. The term "slathering" comes to mind, as in: "We were slathering on the bugdope!" There is also the problem of actually seeing through the clouds of various insects in order to shoot an animal! I kid you not. Envision your own personal cartoon-cloud of various bugs that follows you wherever you go, drawn to the CO2 of your own exhalations. I find not breathing for a very long time will often get the cloud to dissipate. Hey, if you don't breath, you don't exhale, right? Then there is added to this factor of limited vision due to sheer insect mass between you and your prey the tight green claustrophobic mesh of your headnet through which you will see your world. Ah yes, how fondly I recall the ambiguously worn headnet that becomes an article of clothing you would die for. Without it the white sox will simply crawl into every crevice of eyelid and mucous membrane, in your ears...I don't like to even think about it. One advantage of all this (yin-yang, good-bad, always a dualism) is that if you should find yourself without food, you can subsist off the massive quantities of mosquitoes and gnats and flies just as they can subsist off of you. You can use your headnet as a bug-catcher. I found myself in this predicament once, and recalling the full bellies of grayling (full of packed mosquitoes) I decided to become a human fish, as it were, munching down the skeets until full. Quite satisfying, actually, no need to roast or toast or salt. Very high in protein. And it keeps you busy always foraging so you lose track of time and are better able to forget you are lost on the tundra without food.
My advice for preparation prior to your trip north would be as follows:
Turn on a radio so you are receiving just static. Put volume somewhere on the low-medium level. Leave this radio on until you come out hunting so you become habituated to what you will hear. Practice wearing a headnet and discover the view of your world through it. Slather on DEET twice a day as if you would cologne or anti-perspirant. Learn new swear words so you don't tire of the ones you'll utter when on the tundra this fall. Practice unzipping the screen of your tent (your tent does have a screen, right?) until you can enter and zip back up lickety-split. (It usually takes about twenty minutes to kill all the bugs that come into the tent with you.) Take some needle-nose pliers and practice pinching just a tiny bit of skin on your forearm or back of hand and pull back very hard and fast to simulate what happens when an Alaskan biting fly takes a piece out of you.
In general, practice practice practice. It won't be so bad, really. I KNOW those stories of hordes of mosquitoes carrying off babies are false! And it isn't true that Alaskan biting flies can have the back of your hand down to bone in an hour! I mean, c'mon.
Good luck on your hunt,
Mark
Previous: season for bugs? Alaskacanoe Mar 31 2006
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