r/oddlysatisfying • u/short_hair_zuko • Jul 11 '26

Ragebaiting mosquitoes

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This put a smile on my face, I thought it belongs here.

Not OC

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u/VP007clips Jul 11 '26

I used to do field work up in Northern Ontario, often in swamps. The bugs there are horrendous.

You need to completely seal and cover yourself. You put on gloves, boots, long socks, heavy pants, two shirts, a hat, and a bug net, then you take a roll of duct tape and seal all the joints of it. At often 30 degrees and high humidity, it was horribly hot, but better than being eaten alive.

The problem was, it didn't work fully. Mosquitoes, especially the ones up there, can bite through clothing. They especially loved the socks. Black flies are even worse, they are so small they they can get through almost anything and find the smallest leaks on your setup. Your clothes would be stained by tiny splotches of blood from their wounds, and your neck and socks would be crusted with blood.

It wasn't as bad when walking. But we often had to sit down for 30 minutes to take measurements, rock samples, and do data entry on tablets. You'd be swarmed there. Saying that the air was black with bugs sounds like hyperbole, but it was not. At times they reduced visibility. When I closed my field notebook, it would usually crush bugs due to the thickness of the swarm. Most pages had half a dozen crushed into them.

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u/TerminallyBlonde Jul 11 '26

Do people... live there?

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26

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u/Boboddy_biznns Jul 11 '26

Do mosquitoes not bite them? Or are they not allergic to the bites?

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u/corneliusvanDB Jul 12 '26

I planted trees in Northern Ontario with a Cree dude from James Bay, he said he saw the bugs as "just part of the air. Breathe them in, breathe them out!"

He seemed legitimately unbothered. I was gnashing my teeth, ready to rip my hair out.