Kathleen DesOrmeaux
Our yearly Algonquin trip was nearing and the four of us couldn't wait! We typically go in September to hopefully avoid most bugs, but we thought this year we'd try June. I knew it would be different, but didn't realize HOW different. We loaded up our two canoes and headed in on the longest day of the year towards Daisy Lake. The sun was shinning, the water was warm and everything was perfect, until we hit our first Portage. We offloaded and started carrying the canoes on a tiny 150m trek and the bugs we UNREAL! Mosquitos, Black Flies, Horse Flies and who knows what else were eating us alive!!! We ended our short portage itchy and bleeding. We convened in the middle of the next lake to discuss, luckily I remembered that on my supplies shop I had picked up a big bottle of Muskol. We proceeded to douse ourselves with the spray and hoped for the best. The next portage was really short at 55m, but the real test would be the 420m. Walking with our packs and canoes as quickly as we possibly could we made it through to arrive at our campsite and get settled in. Each day at the camp we would wake up and take a Muskol shower. By the end of the trip we had bites, but not one that arrived after our initial portage!!!! We were so thankful to have Muskol because our trip would have been horrible otherwise! We were just mad and felt a little stupid for not putting it on the minute we started!! I've certaintly learned to always have Muskol, but even better - to use it!!
Category: Camping