You want flies with that?

Last year, as my beloved and I pitched a tent at the Triple Falls RV Park near St Anthony, the flies came out in abundance. It wasn't a great deal of fun.

It was, however, an absolute doddle in comparison to what I've just experienced in southern Labrador, camping in Pinware River Provincial Park, and conducting fieldwork along the coast.

I knew the blackflies were supposed to be bad this time of year, but I reasoned that Rich and I might be ok, as we'd be helped out by sea breezes, and probably a fair bit of rain, and anyway, we were only just in Labrador, rather than in the heart of the bug-bothered interior forests.

How wrong I was.

We'd not known about the blackflown state of Pinware, but our ignorance certainly did not lead to bliss.  That said, we were treated misleadingly kindly to begin with.  Pitching our tent on a breezy, showery evening, the flies weren't too bad, and when a deluge began the next day, they were non-existent.

Out in the field we had a brief burst of bother beneath the Bradore Formation of Blanc Sablon, the low cliffs acting as a windbreak that enabled the flies to act out their homonymic verb, but that was about it.  And then, the next day, though the sun shone on the roadcut beneath the war memorial above L'Anse au Clair, the wind was vigorous, and not a fly was to be seen:

A fly-free view over L'Anse au Clair

Things began deteriorating after that, though.  We'd erred in choosing a sheltered campsite, but couldn't be arsed moving the whole thing to a new and windier location.  This meant that going to bed involved staying away from the campsite till nightfall, then dashing from the car to the tent, jumping inside, and spending the next few minutes trying to bash as many of the blighters as we could see.

Getting up in the morning involved being as prepared as possible in the tent, and then unzipping the front and clambering out as fast as we could, zipping it closed again, and sprinting to the car like bobsleigh riders trying to hop on board.  Only once we'd got to a windier spot, usually a coastal outcrop, did we stop for breakfast.

But then the weather on the coast stopped behaving, and we'd find ourselves at a key locality with the wind being utterly unhelpful (i.e. non-existent).  We were being bitten quite frequently, and our bug jackets weren't really helping.

The final straw was our final field day.  It was as still and calm and beautiful a morning as one could wish for, and we were out on the Battery Trail bright and non-breezy.  We couldn't see any rocks of interest, nor could we see a way down to some that might have been, but this was not least because Battery Point looked like this:

Rich points out the only thing in view that isn't a fly.

It was mental, and soon we were too.  We marched in and marched out, and didn't stay very long at the roadcut section above English Point either, where we had to cover our heads in direct contravention of the orders of the British Prime Minister.

The best of all was saved for last, though, and a fishing session on the Pinware River.  I didn't fish, as I don't know how to, and don't have a licence, so I sat and watched the number of flies that had penetrated my bug jacket whilst Rich tried to catch a salmon.  It was fly-fishing of the most literal kind, and by the end of our trial (with no salmon as reward) we were bitten and bothered.

Next day, first thing, we caught the ferry back to the mainland.  Labrador might portray itself as The Big Land, but that's a typo.  It's surely the Bug Land.