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The Arctic Prairies : a Canoe-Journey of 2,000 Miles in Search of the Caribou; Being the Account of a Voyage to the Region North of Aylemer Lake by Ernest Thompson Seton
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Reference to my Smith Landing Journal for June 17 shows the following:

"The Spring is now on in full flood, the grass is high, the trees
are fully leaved, flowers are blooming, birds are nesting, and the
mosquitoes are a terror to man and beast."

If I were to repeat all the entries in that last key, it would make
dreary and painful reading; I shall rather say the worst right now,
and henceforth avoid the subject.

Every traveller in the country agrees that the mosquitoes are
a frightful curse. Captain Back, in 1833 (Journal, p. 117), said
that the sand-flies and mosquitoes are the worst of the hardships
to which the northern traveller is exposed.

T. Hutchins, over a hundred years ago, said that no one enters the
Barren Grounds in the summer, because no man can stand the stinging
insects. I had read these various statements, but did not grasp the
idea until I was among them. At Smith Landing, June 7, mosquitoes
began to be troublesome, quite as numerous as in the worst part of
the New Jersey marshes. An estimate of those on the mosquito bar
over my bed, showed 900 to 1,000 trying to get at me; day and night,
without change, the air was ringing with their hum.

This was early in the season. On July 9, on Nyarling River, they
were much worse, and my entry was as follows:

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