A Fight for Life

Loving Winter

People often ask me why I love winter when spring and summer are so warm and sunshiny. While I find every season beautiful and inspiring, winter dominates my year from the first snowfall in October to the hallowed May Long Weekend that is unofficially considered winter’s end and the beginning of the gardening season. With around seven to eight months of winter, it is a matter of survival that I love it for its beauty and treachery.

However, the main reason I love winter above all others is quite simple. A mantra of survival, it is often chanted by the romantic Northerners that love their lives in the wilderness and have come to know the earthy, drumming, pulse of the Boreal forest, No mud. No bugs. Four simple words, the butler who ushers in the elegance of winter, that dear prelude called frost, is my relief from the dangers of my life.

The banes of my existence are those that make me an unwilling blood donor. Yes, I mean the kamikaze terrorists that reign for four very long months: bugs. They come in overlapping waves: mosquitoes, black flies, horseflies and deer flies, sand flies, and then death by frost. (By now, you can probably guess what my favorite part of the cycle is.)

Open Season

As you have probably guessed by now, this blog post is about bugs. In order to convey exactly what my life is like, it is crucial that I discuss the good, the bad, and the nightmarish. By far, today’s post deals with the nightmares of life.

For any of you, particularly my American friends and family, who have seen me at the end of bug season, you know just how focused (okay, obsessive) I am the moment I see a mosquito go pirouetting by like a Japanese Zero and you probably know just how hard a slap I have. If I have ever bruised any of you, I apologize for past emphatic rampages and any that will occur in the future.

To my way of thinking, the mosquitoes figure there’s an open season on humans and, likewise, I believe that if I’m to be hunted I’ll do some hunting of my own.

A Twilight Anthem

If you can, imagine a droning hum building upon itself with volume and intensity as the sunlight pierces through the trees with the deep gold of evening that ushers in twilight. Try to imagine the thousands of mosquitoes necessary to form a roar of angry protest as they fill the forest with their troops, their legions of liquid grey clouds. Like the trees, the mosquitoes seem to stem from a single source that spreads through the night as one large fluctuating mass, unseen.

While I know it to be impossible, mosquitoes seem to know exactly where even the smallest holes of entry are, they feel like they are everywhere as a single entity, and definitely feel invincible. I have often been perplexed to find mosquitoes biting me from inside my work boots (really, how do they get in there?) and other impossible places, heard their droning pierce my ears from the inside of my brain out, and felt crazed because I was unable to escape their force.

The Worst Night of My Life

The worst night of my life occurred in June 2006. At 16 years old, I felt like a princess as I breathed a sigh of relief as the stress of my very hectic school year began to fade away as the natural beauty surrounding me melted into my school-wearied soul. As my family exchanged our usual clothes for the smoked up shirts we normally took camping and our Carhaart work clothes, I happily grew to view my work gloves and work boots for the duration of our summer vacation as an extension of myself. Summer didn’t start that way.

None of us had really felt the psychological impact insects, particularly mosquitoes and black flies, can have on a person since our years in Rainbow Lake and Chateh (previously known as Assumption). I’ve always loved psychology, but that June psychology couldn’t have been further from my mind. At least, that’s what I thought. As it was, I became my own psychology experiment.

Over Easter break, we had put up the structure that was to become our home in 3.75 days. (By “we” I mean my parents did while I sat in a tarp teepee I constructed and read the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis because, at that time in my life, I was more help if I stayed out of the way.) However, it was not yet finished and the upper edge of the structure where the roof joined to the wall was not sealed; the birds and insects could freely come and go.

We had no intentions of setting up a tent and we desired to spend the night in our new cabin. After travelling for approximately 13 hours the three of us were exhausted and ready to sleep in comfort without having to straddle our bodies across the heaving washboard, stick covered, baked clay ground. There was still that open-air strip that I could stick my arm out and wave at my parents through to consider. It was Momma who came up with the genius idea to hang sheets from the roof joists like mosquito netting round a bed. After supper, we went to bed quite at ease thinking about nothing but sleep. Sweet, wonderful, sleep.

Yeah, right. First, I discovered a mosquito had decided to join me for the night under my sheet. Anyone who has ever had a mosquito invasion in their bedroom knows just how antsy, how jumpy, and above all, how close the atmosphere can get until you kill the little bloodsucker. Well, that’s what I set out to do (I wanted to sleep) but before long I discovered a second problem in my sleeping arrangement. The sheet hanging over my camp mat was touching me. I remember going “uh-oh…” as I felt dozens of little pinpricks coming through every inch of sheet that was touching my skin.

The hum grew as what had to be thousands of mosquitoes found their way into the loft, surrounding us (and biting me). As the hum grew louder, I felt my grip on sanity weakening in that helpless way that sends any human straight into a fear driven panic. Without warning, my one tent guest turned into many as the sheet that draped over me fell down. It was unintentional but, as I balled up, I may or may not have ripped it from the ceiling. Between the three of us, how it happened remains a point of contention though I think it safe to say we all blame the night’s insanity on the mosquitoes.

I was now fully exposed to the swarming mass of flecked silvery bodies that whirled around my body as though they were on the giant zero gravity ride in Calgary’s Callaway Park. Some critics might say I’m crazy for what I did next but most of those critics have never found themselves in a virtually unlived in area of the woods, at night, and fully exposed. I felt my last hold on sanity crack and the fear I normally contain with ease flashed brightly as hundreds of mosquitoes vied for position on my flesh. If you’re wondering what that feels like, imagine a needle prick and multiply that pricking sensation over each square inch of skin you possess. Along with that pricking sensation, add the erratic jumpiness from a tickle fest that went too far and caused you to cry out in anger because of the excruciating, unstoppable low-grade pain. If you can imagine all that, then you are well on your way to imagining what I must have felt that night.

There had been an intense claustrophobia with me under the sheet, but now it felt amplified as I saw my tormentors densely swarming everywhere and round my body, landing to sink the length of a proboscis into my flesh, and flying off with a drunken droning that told me they were full of my blood. With mosquitoes on every inch of my body that was exposed to the grey night air, with them crawling and probing through my thick blonde hair, everything but self-preservation evaporated and my mind entered a panic dominated state like no other. I had to get away. I had to get them off.

Grabbing my traitorous sheet I ran down the ladder (I’m amazed I didn’t break my neck that night given my crazed state and lack of experience on ladders at that time) and it flapped out behind me as I ran through the cool air of the thinly stretched sunshine that night. The only thing I remember from this point of the night is wrapping the sheet round my shoulders, standing under the palely lit moon, and bawling like there was no tomorrow as I began running around in my underwear and a pink spaghetti-strap tank top while my sheet streamed out like a cape. (Actually, if someone had told me there wasn’t going to be a tomorrow I would have fully believed them in those hours of pure, helpless agony.) My actions can only be likened to a large game animal that, being plagued by insects, gets a wild look in his eye and goes bucking and springing through fields and scraping alongside trees in his desperation to get away, to be left alone.

In the waning hours of the morning when the vast numbers of mosquitoes miraculously dissolve and vanish at daybreak, I passed out and slept. When I awoke, my body was one large welt of bites. It doesn’t help that I react badly to mosquito bites even if I don’t scratch, but there’s nothing to do but treat them quickly and leave them alone. Since we weren’t able to seal out the mosquitoes yet (we didn’t yet have the necessary supplies), Daddy took plywood and popped it up over the approximately three foot hole that separates the two lofts from each other when the next evening came. We fell asleep to the muffled droning that had pervaded my senses and been my apocalyptic nightmare the previous night as a mosquito coil smoked slowly up through the windows and into the night sky.

To this day, if one of us says, “do you remember that night when, Jenny…” each of us knows exactly what the speaker is talking about and finds it satisfying to go kill a mosquito with masochistic delight.

Jenny’s Survival Kit

1. Learn what times of the day the insects typically swarm so you can avoid them as much as possible. You’ll discover that this generally occurs during the warmest parts of the day. Mosquitoes and black flies seem to dislike temperatures that are either hot or cold, but thrive in warm and just verging on cool weather.

2. Give up using any product that has any perfume in it. If you’re like me and use perfumed deodorant, then learn to compensate by putting more bug repellent around the arm socket to deter the insects.

3. Buy insect repellent that is as high in DEET as possible. We use Repel 100, which is 99% DEET. The higher the DEET content, the more bug resistant you will be.

4. Know that really smoky fires are your best friends because the insects I’ve already described hate it. Yes, I’m encouraging you to sit in the smoke and wear clothing that is permeated by that extremely smoky smell when you go camping.

5. STOP buying After Bite, you’re only wasting money. After Bite consists of ammonia and mink oil, but it doesn’t last nearly as long as you need for extreme bug bites. I’m thinking of horseflies and deer flies in particular because of the sheer size of their bites. Instead, grab your household ammonia and pour it into a plastic bottle (or stick a finger in the jug, that’s what we do). Let that dry and then apply a nice, thick layer of calamine lotion or, if you can’t find calamine, I suggest using Aveeno’s anti-itch cream (it’s relatively cheap and very gentle on the skin).

6. Don’t be afraid to slap just because you feel something tickling on your skin. You never know exactly what might be there getting ready to bite.

7. If you’re out for a walk and the bugs are really bad, cut a willow switch. They’re bendy, don’t really hurt, and extend your reach big time to slap those unreachable places.

8. STOP scratching. A mosquito bite will go away within 24 hours, on average, if you don’t scratch. If you do, well, then just expect to deal with the itching for an indefinable time.

9. If you live in bug country, try taking a spoonful of garlic oil once a day. I got this tip from a young Hutterite woman about my age and, though I’ve not yet tried it myself, she was able to sit outside with a bunch of us one day without being bit once so maybe there really is something to it.

10. If you are bit by a black fly (none of us have tried this technique on horseflies or deer flies), gently squeeze the wound before it coagulates. The bleeding causes the caustic residue to leave you. Then, spit on it. (It's gross, but effective.) I don't know if it's an enzyme reaction or what, but I do know that the spit causes the blood to run freely and, provided you leave it alone, your bite will clear up within an easy 36 hours.

11. Above all, build your immunity. The more immune you are to bites, the better off you are.

So, now that I am feeling totally buggy I think I'll get ready to head back from this little patch of civilization in the Peace Country for My Uncivilized Life. 

Enjoy the woods, and enjoy getting back to nature. Ultimately, I hope you enjoy your life.

Love,

Jenny

A Rose by Any Other Name...

…would not smell just as sweet. Sorry, Shakespeare, but I disagree with you there. Actually, there’s a lot about the play Romeo and Juliet that I object to, but seeing as this is not one of my formal essays, allow me to change my mask and start again…

***

As stated in the Introduction to My Uncivilized Life, my family makes their home in Carcajou, Alberta. What I failed to discuss, however, was how Rosehill got its name.

If you were to visit the County of Northern Lights head office, you would see a land ownership map with our family name on little green squares. That map contains no mention of Rosehill because Rosehill is the personal name we have given our land and, to us, that’s the only name that matters.

We bought our land virtually sight unseen in 2005 and came up with lists of names to fit the rugged beauty we hoped to one day call “home.” In a way, naming the land became a road game favorite that we would play to stay awake during Daddy’s insane driving marathons. None of the names we invented fit, none of them felt right and, ultimately, we gave up trying to find that perfect name.

It was not until 2007, close to two years later, when Daddy and I were moving the family effects to our land in Carcajou that the land provided its own name.

In the North, there is a magical time of change that creeps over the forest. When winter has passed, the hovering expectation of new life is gone, and spring is close to its end, she draws one last breath and the landscape becomes overwhelmed with fragrant wild roses (actually called prickly roses) in showy shades of delicate pinks that pop forth from the greenery. To me, they are the showiest of the early wildflowers and signal the transition from spring to summer.

I won’t deny that I find our provincial flower beautiful, but more than anything, I find it comforting. Though the fine thorns are a nuisance and quite painful, the beauty of the aromatic roses make the pain worthwhile. There is something comforting in knowing that the seedpods will form and remain visible during the winter, something comforting about knowing that, if ever I were stuck in the wild, at least there would be food to eat, and, that meager meal though the fruit would be, the rosehips are abundant throughout the region. I hope that I would be able to get to safety before the elements or starvation took my life.

Such are my thoughts today and, as I walked up the winding path that is now our driveway, so they were back in 2007 as I was filled with awe at the beauty surrounding me on all sides as I walked into another world. It had been a long drive from High River and we were both exhausted. Soon we would be moving Momma to Carcajou after her contract with the school division terminated. As we walked along in our silent reverie, I remember trying to count all the shades of pink that were on every side. Everywhere I looked, I saw roses.

“Rosehill,” I whispered it more to myself than to Daddy. As I looked around wide-eyed, that feeling of being involved with something bigger than I am was effervescent in the gold tinged air. The land demanded respect from this lowly human.

“What?” He looked surprised at the sound of my voice.

“I said -- we should call this place Rosehill.”

“I was thinking the same thing.” We smiled at each other as a soft golden nimbus covered every contour of our new world.

Though part of why Rosehill entered my mind was because of all the wild roses, I would be lying if I tried to convince you that Alberta’s emblem was behind my streaming, albeit romantic, logic. The overgrown atmosphere reminded me of a special graveyard in Missouri that, now overgrown, is home to the bones of my ancestors. We found the chance to give new life, new meaning, to an old yet special name close to our family’s heart, and, in the words of Robert Frost, “that has made all the difference” (Mountain Interval 1916).

Had we come up with a name other than Rosehill, I think our deep connection to the land would have developed slowly. Because we gave it a name deep with meaning for my paternal family, I firmly believe our love of the romantic past, our love of the Boreal Forest, and our persevering attitude to make the land habitable is what gave the Canadian Rosehill a home in our hearts. I can only hope that our family’s “new” Rosehill may be a living testament to the strength and resolve my ancestors possessed as settlers and that, as my parents and I live our lives, we may pass on what the land has taught us to those who wish to know and to those who dare to dream.

Many years have passed since that tired walk on the snaking path that led through the brambly, fragrant blossoms. To this day, in the last days of spring, the wild roses inspire me and fill me with soft thoughts and deep joy. Due to all our family and the land have gone through together -- the laughter, the sweat, and the tears -- each bloom is speaks out in nature’s universal language a love letter of few words, “Here is Rosehill, you are home.”

Love,

Jenny

P.S. ~ If those of you who read My Uncivilized Life has questions that I have not answered, or something I have written has brought a question to mind, please feel free to ask by leaving a comment and I will answer it if I can.