Dear Canada, Please institute a "No-Fly Zone" in Quetico.

Oh! My! Gosh!

There were killer flies today... swarms over every part of everywhere we went and every part of our body. There were so many of these little biting flies I was close to tears several times during the day. It felt like an epidemic, an apocolypse almost. At times, it felt like a sci-fi movie where something so trivial and harmless in the everyday sense as flies could be so life threatening.
There weren't that many when I woke up. In fact, the morning was fairly nice. I missed the mist on the water early in the morning, but getting to sleep in was much needed. After having a delicious breakfast of oatmeal and instant coffee, Hannah, my dad, and I did some fishing and then realized that Blueberry Island was vacated. We were able to quickly paddle over there and double check to make sure the island was indeed up for grabs (all the while almost losing the canoe). But once we got all of our things packed up, transported, and camp set back up, the flies started coming out. I tried to do some reading on the north side of the island where there was a bit more of a breeze, but at least fifteen flies were still determined to land on me and bite me. I went back and put clothing on to cover my whole entire body, but that didn't matter. They would still cover my back and arms and legs and try to bite through the fabric. No kidding either. I ran back to camp with a cloud of flies following me and my mom's jaw dropping at the sight.

So we decided to get off the island for a little bit. Abby and my mom had some relaxation time, reading on a rare sandy beach, while Hannah, my dad, and I continued fishing with some actual luck. By the end of the day, I had caught 1 (almost had 3 more, but they got away), Hannah had 1 that got away, and my dad lured in 6, keeping 3, losing 2, and not counting 1. It was pretty fun. But, after a while, the flies were back and were worse. They were in our boat, around our ankles, and making all of us miserable. We tried to deal with them as long as we could to try and catch more fish for our supper... but when each of us had about 25 flies on us... it was time to get Abby and my mom and try to flee.

It didn't work. Back at Blueberry Island, they were still there. Hannah, Abby, and my mom made some soup and then huddled up in a tent while my dad and I cleaned and filleted the fish. It was really gross trying to fix our dinner with the flies all around. Surprisingly though, the flies didn't go for the food. They went for us instead. They're savage, they really are. We started a fire hoping to smoke the flies out, which worked a little bit but not much. The flies didn't actually end up leaving us alone until the wind picked up later in the night while we were enjoying our delicious fresh fish packets. Mmm... fresh fish. I love fresh fish. And the wind. I hate flies.

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