Alaska’s state bird is the “moose-quito,” so named by me because of their immense size and toughness.
Our state’s mosquitoes are so mean that when you slap them, they slap you back.
A 2017 report in the Cordova Times blamed climate change for sturdier breeds of mosquitos.
It’s not your imagination. They come out earlier, grow big like Alaska squash, and live longer.
The Times said they can be “relentless” when spotting a host.
Trappers and Alaska Natives in the past swore they found bears in the backwoods emaciated and all but blinded because of unceasing attacks by funnel clouds of mosquitoes.
My worst experience was getting out of my car on the Dalton Highway near Coldfoot, while needing to use a rest stop toilet. Not only was I swarmed, but I’d left a window open an inch. When I came back, I had a convention of uninvited passengers.
I’d rather fight a roomful of Alfred Hitchcock’s ferocious birds than repeat that event.
Mosquitoes must think I’m a “chomp.” It’s a fact.
Early this summer, as my community theater group presented William Shakespeare’s King Lear, the dive-bombing pests alighted on me in droves.
Fellow performers stayed untouched. My skin served as a landing field.
The buggers must’ve used a worker waving 3 x 3, orange-and-white checkered flags for them to land on me with such precision.
Luckily, I wore a flowing costume. Otherwise, the buggers would have chewed me toe to collar.
Of course, an actor must stay in character. In the audience’s mind, they reside in King Lear’s kingdom, not on an Alaskan open-air stage.
That meant I couldn’t flail like a windmill or slap my cheeks. Onstage, I had to let the skeeters finish dinner—with me as appetizer, main course, and dessert.
A recent study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University figured out why some people attract buzzing skin divers.
We stink.
Some of us could take a bath in citronella oil, and it makes no difference.
The Hopkins “swat” team created a giant cage that tested how thousands of mosquitoes responded to six human scents. The scent du jour contained airborne carbolic acids such as compound butyric acid.
Yep, the acid found in smelly cheese.
The researchers intended the study to fight malaria and to build a better repellant to combat the West Nile virus, sleeping sickness and Dengue fever.
I once pitched a tent at a campground in Hana, Hawaii. Every tree and public facility sported a Dengue fever warning. I carried Deet everywhere I hiked.
Unfortunately, those geniuses in white coats at Johns Hopkins haven’t yet discovered a repellant that counters my cheesy stench.
So, all you and I can do to bite the skeeters back is to hit ‘em with humor.
Take the Mosquito Bookstore at the Anchorage airport. It sells sweatshirts that read, “Save the mosquitoes. Go camping.”
Grande Drive in Denali put up a warning sign with a flying mosquito carrying off its human prey.
Even better, the good folks of Clute, Texas, for four decades hold an annual Great Texas Mosquito Festival with cultural, athletic and silly events—like a mosquito calling contest.
I’ll have to attend the festival next year to win a trophy. Other contestants don’t stand a prayer.
The Valdez Daily Prospector in 1916 published a “news” story meant as a joke.
It seems two budding young scientists decided to interbreed bees with mosquitoes, hoping to create stingless skeeters without that nasty proboscis.
Unfortunately, Nature had another plan.
The experiment sort of worked.
Except that the two geniuses reared skeeters that bit on both ends.
Hank Nuwer and his wife Gosia love visiting remote Alaska villages. This weekend, they are exploring Dillingham, which has mosquitoes and No-see-ums. In 1924, the Alaska Press Club awarded Nuwer first place for columns, and second place for best humorist.