June 2022 – EvDayDiss

I’ve been struggling lately with the following: I love to kill mosquitos. Truly, the only good mosquito is a dead one… or at least one about to be eaten by a creature that feeds on them.

There I said it (i.e., “…forgive me Father for I have sinned”). It seems wrong to admit this. It seems wrong to say that I enjoy killing anything. But, there’s nothing like having a mosquito alight on your forearm only for it to be squashed rather than sucking your blood. It’s so satisfying. Or even if he does start to partake of your precious bodily fluid, to smash it before it can lift-off in time is pretty rewarding too—in a vengeful sort of way.

I suspect I’m far from being alone in this frame of mind.

This started me thinking about why it is so many of us truly love to kill them and, why—in my case—I don’t like to kill anything else.

Perhaps it is their small size. The smaller something is, and the simpler it is as an organism, and thus the better it feels to kill it. Yet, I don’t go out of my way to step on ants or squish a spider, but I don’t have much guilt when I consider all of the various splattered insects on the grill of my car or truck after a long road trip in the summer. If I hit a bird or run over a small animal, that will bother me—sometimes for days.

Each of us should probably ask ourselves, how big does an organism have to be before we end up feeling guilty about ending its life.

To enjoy the killing of mosquitos might also have something to do with how one can’t reason with a mosquito. You can’t just say “NO!” to them like a dog or some other threatening animal. You can’t shoo them away either. They don’t listen, they just relentless keep on coming after you, and the only way to stop them is to kill them. Even the slightest physical force is likely to kill them given their tiny and delicate anatomy, so might as well be certain in their killing.

Oh, I suppose if you are a committed humanitarian, you can repel them with my favorite Alaska aftershave, Off! (the Deep Woods variety), but who wants to spray poison all over their skin everyday—even when indoors—just to repel a pest with a single-minded objective of drinking your blood.

The idea of being attacked must have something to do with enjoying the killing of a mosquito. No one likes to be attacked. Come to think of it, I like killing deer flies and horseflies too. Why? Because I’m being attacked in the same way. Something wants to bite me, I will likely want to kill it, and in the case of mosquitos, enjoy doing it. There’s no turning the other cheek to mosquitos or other biting insects in my world.

So perhaps that is it… the simple fact that we are being relentless attacked by a species that clearly outnumbers us, and along with all of that, carries a number of deadly diseases in their assaults on us.

Here in Alaska (for the summer of 2022) where there are so many mosquitos, they take the killing of them to another level. Introducing the electrically charged mosquito racquet. At first glance, it looks like a racquetball racquet, but with two AA batteries (or USB charging) and the push of a button, any flying insect in its way, gets zapped. If they get trapped in the metal mesh of the racquet and the operator keeps the button engaged, they are simply cremated. Again, it’s a bit disconcerting to say this, but this mosquito racquet is pretty cool as the blood-suckers are practically vaporized before your very eyes.

I overheard on the radio yesterday that during the Stone Ages, it is estimated that half of the population back then died from malaria-carrying mosquitos. So, consider the killing of these pests as payback for the death of so many of our ancestors.

On the brighter side regarding mosquitos, the gene-editing technology CRISPR is to be used to produce a gene-altered mosquito that would be released into the wild carrying an anti-malarial protein that would be passed on to offspring when mating with other mosquitos. Ideally, malaria could be wiped out or drastically reduced in the near future. For now it appears that this treatment is probably at least a decade out before full implementation. If that’s the case, you might want to invest in some good, old-fashioned mosquito protection (see above).

^{Looking down on a section of the Permafrost Highway}

Somewhere north of Haines Junction, Yukon Territory and say, 30 miles south of Tok, Alaska is a stretch of the Alaska Highway (AlCan Highway) that really test one’s resolution and will to “go north.” This 250-300 mile stretch of highway appears to suffer from the freezing and thawing related to the permafrost, and nothing suffers more than the road itself—in particular the asphalt.

Sometime after passing through Haines Junction, one gets the feeling that Canada—or at least the Yukon Territory doesn’t want the traveler to leave as the road seems to deteriorate the farther up the road you travel. I was reminded of that line from the song Hotel California, “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave…”

After 75 or so miles of dodging potholes and uneven folds of asphalt, I found a campground about 50 miles before the Alaska border. I fell asleep in the back of my truck wondering if the Americans had an answer for permafrost’s unrelenting war on asphalt.

The next morning, my hope in Yankee engineering and road crews wilted—before I was even five miles past the border. As it turns out the Americans have lost the battle to permafrost as well.

It’s comical to observe the various methods (dare I say, “patchworks”) employed in attempting to alleviate the effects of permafrost—from new asphalt to chip-seal patches that probably last no longer than a week after a few heavy trucks have roll over them. Adding to the comedy are the occasional signs that warn, “ROUGH ROAD,” as if all the other road mines along the way were somehow insignificant.

Once in Alaska the speed limit increases to 65 mph compared to 80-90 kph in Canada. I want to see someone drive that part of this road at 65 with their cruise control on. In such a case, we would be talking about someone with a death wish, or at least someone who has fallen out of love with their vehicle. Very few stretches occurred where I was able to travel over 50 mph due to my truck’s stiff suspension.

Speaking of stretches, there are those places where the highway as been repaved (my guess within the last year) and like a mirage, seems like a normal two-lane highway suddenly, but in another half-mile to a mile, potholes and massive heaves reappear in the asphalt, preventing you from anything that resembles a relaxing drive—just as you start to think that maybe they’ve finally got it figured out. It’s somewhat reminiscent of a shooting arcade (or “Whac-a-Mole”) as you’re driving through a gallery of mixed asphalt obstacles that are continually popping up with little time to react.

Given the shortened season for road construction up here, it seems like maintaining this highway is a lost cause. It will likely never be smoothed out completely—at least not in this particular stretch. After all, why would Alaska want to fix the remaining miles of their highway that simply and only allows people to exit to the Yukon Territory (Canada)—and the same goes with the Yukon and the remaining miles in their road leading to Alaska (U.S.)?

One has to wonder if there is any discussion about returning these roads back to dirt/gravel. In the case of permafrost, road graders would simply blade, thus re-leveling the road each spring in time for a new crop of tourists. Surely this topic gets thrown around from from time to time, but when do asphalt roads ever experience a downgrade?

In all of this grim reporting of road conditions, there is some comfort in knowing that not too far from Tok, Alaska, the permafrost is somehow subdued and the road stays smooth sailing all the way to Fairbanks (and Anchorage I’m assuming)—60 mph easy.

However, there is the return trip to keep in mind if one wishes to return to those places where home is somewhere in the latitudes of Calgary or below. For now, I have almost two months of preparation; that is, psyching myself up for the return trip down the Permafrost Highway .

Month: June 2022

Mosquito Confessions

The Permafrost Highway