The summer solstice today got me wondering once again:
Who is the Farthest North Chiffer, and who is the Farthest South?
I’m a little shy of 65 degrees north latitude, living outside of the northern edge of Fairbanks Alaska. Anyone farther north – maybe even above the Arctic Circle? And how far south are our most southern C&F friends? Chime in here if you think you may be in the running.
Happy solstice, all! Today, the sun rose at about 3:00 am and will set again at almost 1:00 am on June 22. (Due to oddities of time zones due to politics, solar midnight is at about 2:00 am here.) When the sun is below the horizon, it is barely below, so it doesn’t get dark. I was up at 2:00 and can attest that it’s still quite light. We won’t see real darkness until August.
I spent one summer solstice in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut now, land of ten billion lakes. It was a biting good time for some. I was drained when I left.
“Biting” good time? “Drained” when you left? Are you talking mosquitoes or black flies?
I’m getting the industrial-strength repellant for the annual trip to Northern New England in a few weeks (post-blackfly season; I suspect NWT/Nunavut is much worse for the few weeks of summer.
Skeeters mostly but plenty of blackflies. If you put up a white canvas wall tent the mosquitoes will first turn the leeward side gray. Then as they get thicker it turns black. On Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin there are lake flies, a non-biting midge, that literaly block the sun with their swarms. The mosquitoes are like that in Nunavut. As bad as mosquitoes are, I’m still missing chunks of myself due to blackflies. I like Algonquin Park for blackflies, parts of New Brunswick are good too, just a continuation of the Maine population, and of course the UP of Michigan(Wisconsin really). The wife has a divot on her neck from the UP.
We get blackflies here too. Some of our best blueberry-picking areas have blackflies, but luckily not as thick as the ones on the Little Abitibi. The weird thing about blackflies is that you barely feel it at the time of the bite, but they take a big chunk out and leave blood running down your leg (arm, face, etc). Then later it starts to itch horribly.
I’m in the 39 range as well here in South Fairbanks, aka Santa Barbara. I’m keeping a log of summer temperatures. So far Fairbanks is warmer than Santa Barbara.
Here’s how I survived mosquitoes. From my journal of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (where I crossed the 45th parallel):
To survive the ferocious Oregon mosquitoes I wore pants and a skirt over them (they bit through my pants alone), a T-shirt with a long-sleeved shirt over it (they bit through the long-sleeved shirt without the T-shirt.) I wore thick socks with my shoes (they bit through my shoes!)
My shirt was buttoned to my collar and the sleeves were buttoned at my wrists. I wore a headnet cinched at my collar with my collar turned up so there would not be a gap (they still bit me at the tiny little triangle exposed at my collar button and where the headnet cinched.) I tucked my shirt in so they would not fly up my shirt and bite my chest (they would do that.)
I held my trekking poles so that the straps flapped over my exposed hands. I sprayed 40% DEET on my hat, my shirt and pants. I put some on the backs of my hands and the heels of my hands (they bit the palms of my hands even when I held trekking poles.) That much DEET made me feel sick sometimes.
When I had to pee I used a urinary device so that I could pee standing up without exposing any skin. I made sure to apply DEET strategically in my tent before getting out of it in the morning to begin my hiking. I wanted to be ready for when I needed to do more than pee. I would dig my cathole away from my pack, hoping my pack would serve as a decoy. I would run back to my pack before using my cathole, then run back, hoping the mosquitoes would be confused for a moment and give me peace. That didn’t really work, but DEET did.
I lived that way for a month through Oregon. I saw the whole state through a green haze of mosquito netting and DEET-induced nausea.
While it is true some species of blackflies don’t hurt when they first bite, many of the species in the Northeast of NA do hurt. The best description would be that a bite is like pressing a burning match-head or burning cigarette to your skin.
Along parts of the Atlantic coast there are greenhead flies. They also take their pound or two of flesh. A number of years ago Rutgers came up with an ingenious passive trap for greenheads, I get a very perverse pleasure seeing how well they work.
The weird thing about blackflies is that you barely feel it at the time of the bite, but they take a big chunk out and leave blood running down your leg (arm, face, etc). Then later it starts to itch horribly.