Bug Camp, Erebia Creek, Yukon 1987
Helicopter arriving from Inuvik. Logan tents are the large white tents in the photo.
Helicopter arriving from Inuvik. Logan tents are the large white tents in the photo.
Entomologists, Acarologists and me, Erebia Creek Camp, Yukon. Note: most wearing bug jackets
Entomologists
We are at co-ordinates 67N, 138W, which turns out to be a valley in the shadow of the White Mountains in the Yukon Territories, but here in midsummer there are no shadows. I’m sitting in a tent with a group of mostly Canadian entomologists — a Logan tent. Named after Sir William Edmund Logan, a Canadian geologist in 1875, it was designed specifically Mount Logan’s notoriously awful weather. This one is made of white canvas, with intricate flaps and folds and white rope knotted ingeniously. Who sews these beauties? If the sewing instructions are as intricate as the erection ones, God help new seamstresses in that factory. The Logan has become a focus for our group, a last resort when it’s too cold, too buggy or too lonely in our individual homes. It’s like a church, or a medieval round tower in our tiny encampment.
Around the card table, seated on metal stacking chairs are seven Entomologists. They have the sweaty concentration of long-distance poker players. In front of each is a cigar box studded with pins of assorted sizes, miscellaneous jars, old photographic film containers, plexiglass boxes, and pastille tins. There are battered notebooks — buttock-shaped or chest-shaped depending on the pocket they nestle in throughout each day of the hunt. The sweet, pungent smell of Elmer’s glue is trapped inside the tent together with the insects, most of which are dead. A few live ones crawl aimlessly up the walls of their prisons, their escape stopped short by a crumpled wad of paper at the opening. The other live insects are the ever-present mosquitoes. These manage to penetrate our Logan fortress, a tent that can repel hundred mile an hour winds. We have the insect netting down which is ironic. It serves (ineffectually) to keep only one species out, and yet there are hundreds of species inside.
Mike’s box looks like an aircraft carrier, an aviation museum or an airplane junkyard. A neat row of butterflies fills the middle of the box, pinned in simulated flight. Like piles of lumber stacked vertically, each according to size, insect pins lie against one side of the box. The ‘catch of the day’ are piled in another corner. They look like black rubbish, these twenty or so dead insects. Eventually he will pull them out individually, spear each one expertly and slide it half way down the shaft of a pin. These insect kebabs are held against the light and each leg carefully arranged to best advantage. Heavy breathing is the only accompanying sound.
The ritual continues. A fly is passed from person to person, the pin stabbed in each person’s box to anchor it for better examination. What we of the outside call a fly, these Entomologists have many names for. The language is complex, and even to someone familiar with Latin, there’s little rhyme or reason. I marvel at their eyesight in this dim place as they discuss patterns of wing venation, never thinking of using a magnifying glass.
The rows of insects in each box lengthen, each skewer finally and firmly anchored for an eternal existence. These insects will never know a more glorious or gregarious time as now, being admired and discussed, hoarded like trophies, swapped like baseball cards, or given away as precious offerings.
I sit and watch. The lines grow, the fleet is filling out. to the left the Harrier jets, to the right the F-16s, and in the middle the helicopters. Too small to pin, more winged beauties with tiny waists are cinctured with glue. Some rest on platforms half way up a pin. Others are tethered to the pin directly. A quick blow of air from a reverential mouth. It dries the glue and at the same time fixes the insect forever in a semblance of take-off. One last frozen attempt.
We are at co-ordinates 67N, 138W, which turns out to be a valley in the shadow of the White Mountains in the Yukon Territories, but here in midsummer there are no shadows. I’m sitting in a tent with a group of mostly Canadian entomologists — a Logan tent. Named after Sir William Edmund Logan, a Canadian geologist in 1875, it was designed specifically Mount Logan’s notoriously awful weather. This one is made of white canvas, with intricate flaps and folds and white rope knotted ingeniously. Who sews these beauties? If the sewing instructions are as intricate as the erection ones, God help new seamstresses in that factory. The Logan has become a focus for our group, a last resort when it’s too cold, too buggy or too lonely in our individual homes. It’s like a church, or a medieval round tower in our tiny encampment.
Around the card table, seated on metal stacking chairs are seven Entomologists. They have the sweaty concentration of long-distance poker players. In front of each is a cigar box studded with pins of assorted sizes, miscellaneous jars, old photographic film containers, plexiglass boxes, and pastille tins. There are battered notebooks — buttock-shaped or chest-shaped depending on the pocket they nestle in throughout each day of the hunt. The sweet, pungent smell of Elmer’s glue is trapped inside the tent together with the insects, most of which are dead. A few live ones crawl aimlessly up the walls of their prisons, their escape stopped short by a crumpled wad of paper at the opening. The other live insects are the ever-present mosquitoes. These manage to penetrate our Logan fortress, a tent that can repel hundred mile an hour winds. We have the insect netting down which is ironic. It serves (ineffectually) to keep only one species out, and yet there are hundreds of species inside.
Mike’s box looks like an aircraft carrier, an aviation museum or an airplane junkyard. A neat row of butterflies fills the middle of the box, pinned in simulated flight. Like piles of lumber stacked vertically, each according to size, insect pins lie against one side of the box. The ‘catch of the day’ are piled in another corner. They look like black rubbish, these twenty or so dead insects. Eventually he will pull them out individually, spear each one expertly and slide it half way down the shaft of a pin. These insect kebabs are held against the light and each leg carefully arranged to best advantage. Heavy breathing is the only accompanying sound.
The ritual continues. A fly is passed from person to person, the pin stabbed in each person’s box to anchor it for better examination. What we of the outside call a fly, these Entomologists have many names for. The language is complex, and even to someone familiar with Latin, there’s little rhyme or reason. I marvel at their eyesight in this dim place as they discuss patterns of wing venation, never thinking of using a magnifying glass.
The rows of insects in each box lengthen, each skewer finally and firmly anchored for an eternal existence. These insects will never know a more glorious or gregarious time as now, being admired and discussed, hoarded like trophies, swapped like baseball cards, or given away as precious offerings.
I sit and watch. The lines grow, the fleet is filling out. to the left the Harrier jets, to the right the F-16s, and in the middle the helicopters. Too small to pin, more winged beauties with tiny waists are cinctured with glue. Some rest on platforms half way up a pin. Others are tethered to the pin directly. A quick blow of air from a reverential mouth. It dries the glue and at the same time fixes the insect forever in a semblance of take-off. One last frozen attempt.
Entomologists, Acarologists and me (most in bug jackets) at Erebia Creek Camp, White Mtns.