Carnage at Clearwater Lake

The last of the twilight on Clearwater Lake - at midnight!

The last time I was in northern Manitoba to visit family in the summertime, I was just a young girl of maybe six. I recall swimming in Herb Lake, where my grandparents lived, and not wanting to get out of the water for fear the horseflies would eat me alive as I ran toward the cabin to safety. 

Memories from your childhood tend to get skewered as an adult. Just ask any sibling, and you’ll get a different version of a story from them, compared to the way you remember it. Everything becomes much bigger – the sky is wider and so much bluer in your memories from childhood. The fish are bigger and easier to catch. The bugs are as big as birds and take giant chunks out of your skin… 

Well, I realized on this visit that the bugs really are as big as I remember, and just as nasty. And they were EVERYWHERE!

 

We stopped in The Pas to get fuel before heading out to visit my cousin at Clearwater Lake. D tried to clear off the bugs from the front grill, but the layer of meat was much too thick for the gas station squeegee, so he gave up. Little did he know, but we were in for more anyway. 

 

Upon arriving at my cousin’s house, a short drive north of The Pas, we got out of the van and were immediately bombarded by mosquitoes and midges. By nightfall, our light-coloured van had turned black with all manner of flying insects trying to find any crack to get inside. D spent a good 45 minutes that night, slaughtering the ones that managed to sneak in. Just thinking of it all still gives me the heebie jeebies.

Look closely - it's not raining, it's swarming bugs!

Despite the bugs, the visit with my cousin and her partner was wonderful as we caught up on the years that had passed since we’d last seen each other. Another cousin and his wife also came over – they just live across the lake – and the six of us enjoyed a lovely dinner of fresh lake trout on the barbecue, a wild rice casserole that was to die for, then sat outside in the covered veranda and watched the sun finally set… at 10:45pm! Life in the north is lovely (except for the damn bugs).