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Bugs, Blood and Gold: Tales from the North. 

(This is prospecting humour, with mild fiction, but sadly, based in reality.)

I have to talk about a perplexing, maddening phenomenon that occurs ever year in the summertime: hundreds of prospectors line up to donate blood! On the surface, this appears to be quite humanitarian. However, this is no lineup at a medical facility to give blood, but a gathering that happens only in northern forests, far from the soft, cultured masses of pampered urban dwellers. 

This annual, rather insane event must serve as a ritual cleansing, one rooted in superstition and myth, for it is part of the pilgrimage that gold-seekers make during the warmer months. The cost of the trek is not tallied in cash however, but it is paid in blood, donated so to speak to the winged vampires of the north.

In contrast to this savage blood-letting, try to imagine an area of consummate beauty, a peaceful, tranquil region where pine, cedar, tamarack, fir, birch, aspen and balsam trees flourish. Imagine as well a forest floor lush with the softness of mosses and undergrowth. In the mountain meadows try to see hummingbirds and butterflies flitting from flower to flower, try to hear a choir of songbirds singing their age-old symphonies. In addition, visualize a place where crystal streams run free and unhindered, where lakes teem with trout, grayling, and arctic char. Moreover, by gazing into the distance, try to comprehend the endless rolling carpet of mountain greenness that undulates until it blends with a perfect blue horizon. 

Against this dreamy backdrop however, a dark, dizzying cloud forms the minute anyone exits their rugged 4x4’s. This previously pristine setting is marred by an evil cloud that hides the Great Northern Horde. (Gengis Kahn’s horde, by comparison, was a puny force.)

When I was a rookie, I often wondered about bugs. How bad could they be? Well, any northern prospector worth his salt has tangled with the “threshold vampire” (so named because it sounds like the buzz of your detector’s threshold), aka, the mosquito. And what prospector has never had an encounter with a galloping horse fly, or a prancing deer fly? Or, how about getting bit by the teeth that fly? (No-see-ums, nothing but flying teeth) Yes, bugs indeed . . . 

Well, I stepped forth into just such a cloud of bugs, but luckily my survival instinct overrode my dim brain. Without thinking, my arms began a furious wind-milling action as I carelessly launched my detector through the air, the astronomical price I’d paid, an insignificant, annoying memory. As I ran back to open the truck door to escape the winged-bullies, I was horrified to find my partner had locked the vehicle! Moreover, he had the only can of bug spray outside of the truck. (Later, he swore up and down that he never used the stuff, didn’t even need it that day he said. Then he carried on with some nonsense about how a real man would never fear such tiny creatures, some back-handed comment to me about insect repellent being a wussy cop-out, something not worthy of the northern prospector’s stripe.)

So there I was, stranded, and somewhat bug-eyed (no pun intended). Frantically, I pressed my sweaty face against the glass, hoping perhaps the other door was unlocked, but defeated, I then saw what I’d left on the seat, my first line of defense, my ultimate weapon: the potent, DEET-laced concoction known as Bug Dope! Impotent rage filled me as I ineffectively swatted and slashed at my attackers.

Then, relentless panic filled every cell of my entire organism, accompanied by merciless, shredding terror. The panic’s sheer volume widened into a chasm of unspeakable horror. Sensing disaster, while icy fingers of doom clawed the back of my neck, I turned to face my agonizing fate, a living cloud forming a rising black wall of the famished, northern horde.

Instantly, I was engulfed by a buzzing, hissing mass of wings and slashing teeth, ones perfectly adapted for blood-letting. (Vampires, by comparison, are thousands of years behind on the evolutionary scale.) Next, I conquered some of my tormentors by cleverly breathing in an entire squadron. (Or, was that simply a reflexive gasp of stricken terror?) 

Nevertheless, by reducing their numbers, I’d dealt the beggars a costly blow. (I wish!) Next, some of the stealthier bug ascended my pant legs, on the inside where their malicious intent was hidden. This, assault was led by the black demons from some cursed other-world. They were indeed the dreaded blackfly, casually referred to in Webster’s dictionary as “any of various small dark-colored insects; esp.: any of a family of bloodsucking dipteran flies”. Dipteran?! (What a gentle misnomer for such incarnate evil.)

Updating their tactics of savagery, some blackflies even practice camouflage now, by dressing in orange, yellow and red. Moreover, they’re getting bigger now. For example, I saw a cloud the other day packing intravenous poles for easier blood transfusion as they assaulted and overwhelmed some wretch trying to bathe in the river!! Am I using hyperbole, a form of extreme exaggeration? Well, in all honesty, I am exaggerating as the person had only gone to the river for a drink, and when he saw the horde, he dove head-first into the river. So, yes, guilty of exaggeration as he was never there for a bath at all. 

So, what happened to me, the dope caught without his bug dope? (Which reminds me, I’ve often pondered on that puzzling name given for that powerful spray, but the answer came to me with lightning clarity as the name refers to the idiot that leaves his locked in the truck! [Any resemblance to the story’s protagonist, or to myself, is purely coincidental.]) 

(To digress a bit, the blackflies’ march up my pant-legs would not be discovered that day, for they carry anesthetic in their toothy kit of devilry. I discovered the bites later that night, while trying to sleep, but, sleep never came, as the bites itched longer than it took the dinosaurs to go extinct. Moreover, scratching the bites was much like taking a sharp knife to my throat, because after I’d scratched them, I wished I’d had a sharp knife to take to my throat for being such a jack-wagon to scratch them in the first place!)

To return to my tale of being bitten by the horde, my ears started to itch, but not on the outside, no, deep down on the eardrum. Some of the little beggars do not follow the rules of war (The Marquess of Queensberry rules of engagement for war? Why, they only revere him as a possible blood donor!). Moreover, the flying sadists have the power to attack in unmentionable places, enough said!

To digress a bit more, I referred to horseflies earlier, and on that trip I went after some of them with a rope, but not to try to drive them off. I wanted to try my hand at lassoing them as some of the resident sourdoughs had bragged to me of saddling the smaller ones, then using them in their bizarre northern rodeos. These rodeos consist of letting the mosquitoes out of a cattle shoot, hazing them with the horsefly, then hog-tying them to try for the fastest time. (On a different note, not related to rodeo at all, some of those blowhards tried to trick me into believing I could shoot the mosquitoes up there with a shotgun. This is absolute nonsense! A shotgun will absolutely not bring them down. However, a lucky burst from a 20mm cannon has been known to blow off a wing, or part of a leg now and again.) 

Regardless of my digression, in my mad dash from the bugs, I finally saw my friend. He was leisurely swinging his detector over a patch of exposed graphite-schist. However, my friend’s head suddenly snapped up when he heard a low moan, followed by a screeching sound, followed by yet another low moan. Perhaps he thought I was hunting with an external speaker and had stumbled on a good target? 

However, imagine his shock when he realized the sound was coming from me, his partner, squealing and moaning as I burst forth from the swarming wall of insatiable northern vampires. 

With the flies in deadly pursuit, I raced toward my partner, but slowing before I reached him, the cloud-like wall outstripped me. (On a side note, that was one thick wall of bugs. How thick? Well, I took out my Bowie knife and cut a square hole right through those bugs to be able to see my partner.) After my Bowie knife tactic, and with a wild, glazed look in my eye, I dove through the hole, knife outstretched. By way of reflection, I think my partner thought I’d lunged straight for his throat with my knife. However, I only wanted to shred the pocket of his jacket, to quickly get at the Bug Dope. Then, I disappeared into the trees.

Now, this whole tale may seem farfetched, perhaps light-hearted, and somewhat unbelievable. Indeed, I confess to having invented more than a few details. However, I assure you, it was quite a serious matter, most stressing in fact. 

But, what happened to the protagonist of this tale after he fled the scene with the can of bug spray? Why, it’s rumored he’s still holed up somewhere deep in an abandoned placer mine, a location that is dark and cold. A place far too cold for bugs, but not too cold for dopes.

All the best,

Lanny