Funny

Never read the book but I do know what being swarmed by mosquitoes means. I have relatives who live further north and I've been there when I was younger. My worst experience was being out in the woods in deep wilderness in July in the mushkeg. No wind, no weather, just completely still air, hot, humid at dusk when the temperature was just right. We made a fire to smoke our tent but it only made it manageable to survive. Outside, I went to do some repairs to a tent and I had to wear gloves, covered head to toe and a heavy hooded jacket to cover my face. The only thing exposed was about a baseball sized hole in front of me ..... the mosquitoes swarmed the opening and nearly choked me. I was only outside for about two minutes to get things done then had to run back inside. An exposed person in those conditions would have probably gone insane.

But those nights are rare, most of the time, there is a bit of a breeze and mosquitoes are transient. Even on hot humid nights for whatever reason, you get a reprieve and the bugs aren't so bad. Most of the time, there is enough of a breeze to manage things and you can use campfire smoke to control the bugs.

It's a completely harsh environment and sometimes I can't believe humans lived there for thousands of years. And it's where my family is from. The same locations I'm talking about freeze over in the winter to minus 40 degree temperatures in February. You can die by mosquito bites in the summer .... and frost bite in the winter.