Alaska News

Besieged by blood-sucking bugs in Dillingham

DILLINGHAM -- I spent more than half a century being inoculated by Kenai Peninsula insects, so when I was warned, prior to moving to Dillingham, that Bristol Bay bugs swarmed thick and fierce, I thought, "We'll see. We'll see."

After all, some Junes on the Kenai unleashed a veritable contagion of wings. Even a rousing bath in DEET failed to keep all of the needle-bearing invaders at bay.

Driving on the flats outside of Sterling during a particularly notorious outbreak, I once considered simply peeing my pants rather than braving the bug-filled alders.

In fall on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, I'd trudged under the weight of bloody moose quarters in boggy lowlands with deer flies dive-bombing the back of my head and white socks flying kamikaze missions into my eyes and ears.

I'd also been bank fishing along the middle Kenai River after sunset, when the day breeze had wheezed its last gasp down the valley and the orange light had faded behind a ridge — and a sudden prickliness seized my exposed extremities as noseeums fled the grass and burrowed into my flesh.

What greater torment could Bristol Bay offer?

Plague of insects

Plenty, said my brother, a state fisheries biologist with field experience in this area. The noseeums and white socks around King Salmon were the worst he'd ever seen, he said, and Dillingham's could be almost that bad.

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Locals here said mosquitoes could be a plague — unless the wind blew.

The wind almost always blows in Dillingham. Ergo, I figured I'd be fine.

But when summer arrived here, so did the mosquitoes. They were thick and aggressive at times, particularly in the tall marsh grass along the lower Nushagak River. Overall, though, I found them tolerable, no worse, certainly, than anything I'd seen on the Kenai. "Ain't bad this year," said the locals. "Too dry. Seen 'em lots worse."

Then about the first of August, the noseeums appeared.

Unless the wind was blowing at least 10 knots, they were everywhere.

They crawled through the screens on the windows of our second-story apartment. They riddled us in our sleep, leaving itchy red dots. We found them dead by the dozens on our windowsills, having evidently exhausted their lives in covering us with welts. On the advice of friends, we bought noseeum mesh, which we cut to fit over our regular screens, securing it with a combination of electrical and duct tape.

Our apartment became a sanctuary. Beyond its walls, however, all bets were off.

Noseeums invaded the lobby of the post office, zipping around like dust motes and driving customers to clapping, slapping distractions akin to spontaneous applause.

They clouded the checkout stands in local grocery stores, attacked motorists filling their tanks at gas stations, and gained entrance to homes by settling on clotheslines full of dark laundry or riding like stowaways on the hairs of beloved pets.

Mosquito coils burned constantly in the arctic entryway of the Alaska Commercial store. Drivers dusted noseeum corpses from dashboards after the insects clogged defrost intakes. Flaggers along the road-construction zone near town swatted themselves silly, draping kerchiefs around their necks, smoking extra cigarettes, doing anything to repel the noseeums that rose around them like tundra talcum.

They were so bad on one evening that some friends held their annual crab feed indoors, and still the noseeums found their way into the crowd. All night, guests smacked themselves with one hand while holding a cup of homebrew or a plate of legs and claws with the other.

Last July when the jet stream provided us with one sunny, breezy week after another, I daydreamed about camping trips on the mountain ridges or along lake shores in Wood-Tikchik State Park. In August, after the noseeums hatched, my dreams shifted to winter camping and cross-country skiing.

Noseeums are biting midges and belong to the insect family Ceratopogonidae. Females do the biting, seeking blood to prompt the maturation of their eggs so that they can produce more evil spawn. Wikipedia says, "In humans, their bites can cause intensely itchy, red welts that can persist for more than a week."

With mosquitoes, I learned years ago that if I could stop myself from scratching a bite for about 30 minutes, the welts and the itch would subside. Persistently itchy bites I combated with Calamine lotion or sometimes with an alcohol-based hand cleanser.

With noseeums, however, that strategy has failed. I have found myself scratching without realizing that I have been bitten — until I've discovered patches of tiny welts at my hairline, under my sleeves or around my ankles, like an accelerated outbreak of acne. Removing the itchiness has been challenging, with some folks more affected than others and "cures" as ubiquitous as the bugs.

One woman, responding to "Bug Squad," a blog by the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of California, offered this advice: "For noseeum bites — take a straight pin and insert it in the top layer of skin above the bite, making a couple small holes in the skin. It sounds painful but as long as you stay close to the upper layers of skin it doesn't hurt. Next, flood the spot with hydrogen peroxide. Do this a couple times. If the bite is really bad, follow with rubbing alcohol. This works for me every time, stopping the itching and making the bites go away in two or three days."

A local woman told me, "Try witch hazel! It's the best thing I've found for stopping the itch."

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Such cures have possibilities, I guess, but for older bites, nothing but the passage of time seems to diminish the discomfort.

Controlling noseeums

According to a University of Florida website, attempts to control noseeum populations have generally failed: "Applications of insecticides targeting the adult stage are not efficient. While this type of application may kill biting midges active on a given night, they are continually dispersing from the larval habitat and entering areas of human activity. It would require insecticide applications on a daily basis in some areas, and this is not efficient or environmentally sound."

The same website claims that Mosquito Magnet-style machines, which use carbon dioxide and an attractant bait to lure insects to their doom, will work for noseeums but must be used for weeks to counter the continual emergence of new insects during a breeding season that can stretch into mid-September.

Longtime Dillinghammers have assured me that last year's noseeum outbreak was among the worst ever. And I'm hopeful that they're correct because August is approaching.

Clark Fair, a Kenai Peninsula resident for more than 50 years, is a lifetime Alaskan now living in Dillingham.

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