Go ahead and laugh.. you go outside in a spacesuit wielding a carrot to protect the family dog from being mauled to death by maddened insects...
" A wrong impression generally prevails concerning the Yukon mosquito. The statement will hardly be credited that during the whole summer on the flats at Dawson, I did not see single one! On the Islands in the river, in new creeks not yet cleared of trees, however they were exceedingly numerous. On Bonanza Creek, which was partially cleared, they were hardly more numerous than in a certain town less than a 1000 miles from New York City, where these words are being written. Undoubtedly, as one approaches the mouth of the Yukon, the mosquitoes grow more deadly, until one can quite believe the returned missionary who said that at his station, the mosquitoes were so thick that when a man wanted to tell the time of day he had to throw a stick in the air so as to be able to see the sun! At the mouth of the Tanana River a horse was killed in a single night, and men in the woods without protection have been so blinded by their stings, that they have lost their way. Even smoke fails to repel their attacks altogether. When one is travelling it is necessary to tie a bit of netting over the hat brim, and when sleeping out of doors, the face must be covered with netting, and even then the sound of their singing was try to get through will keep a nervous person awake."
Tappan Adney, The Klondike Stampede 1899 ISBN 0-7748-0490-4 |
