A canoe sits along the shore of Loon Lake in Sylvania Wilderness of Ottawa National Forest in Michigan's Upper Peninsula Thursday, July 7, 2016. (Pioneer Press: Dave Orrick)

Natasha Orrick relaxes in a hammock on the shore of High Lake in Sylvania Wilderness July 4 during a breezy respite from biting bugs. (Pioneer Press: Dave Orrick)

A smallmouth bass rests in a fishing net after being caught on High Lake in the Sylvania Wilderness of Ottawa National Forest in Michigan's Upper Peninsula Tuesday, July 5, 2016. Smallmouth bass are the marquee fishing attraction for Sylvania, a pristine network of backcountry lakes. All lures must be barbless, and all bass must be released. (Pioneer Press: Dave Orrick)

A harlequin blueflag, a wild iris, blooms along the shore of Loon Lake in Sylvania Wilderness of Ottawa National Forest in Michigan's Upper Peninsula Thursday, July 7, 2016. (Pioneer Press: Dave Orrick)

Marinated steak over a campfire is a staple for first-night dinner for many canoe campers. This steak was cooked by outdoors editor Dave Orrick in Sylvania Wilderness of Ottawa National Forest in Michigan's Upper Peninsula oinday, July 4, 2016. (Pioneer Press: Dave Orrick)



OTTAWA NATIONAL FOREST, Mich. — Something shrieked. Or someone.

It sounded like a mix between the call of a red-headed woodpecker and the vixen’s scream of a red fox.

Or my wife.

“Natasha!” I yelled, jogging through the woods, as much as was possible with an upside-down canoe bouncing on my shoulders. After some 50 yards, I came upon her backpack, hastily dumped amid scattered fishing rods she had been toting on the portage trail connecting two lakes. She was some 50 yards farther ahead, speed-walking, her arms flailing.

“Bees! Bees!” she yelled. “They’re everywhere!”

I couldn’t be certain, but I might have also heard the phrase “20 bug bites on my butt,” an accounting that had become a refrain of this trip.

I shrugged. “They’re not bees!”

I then attempted to explain, in grunting and shout-speech from beneath the canoe, my infallible logic: You can’t out-walk a swarm of angry bees, and I can tell you’re not getting stung by bees because you’d be in real pain. By the way, should you ever encounter a real swarm of bees, you should actually run, because, as it turns out, you can outrun … But it was pointless.

This latest assault was in fact the largest “swarm” of head-buzzing deer flies I’ve ever seen.

“Let’s just go,” she said.

Fair enough. We were on our way out, anyway, following three nights of lakeside camping in the backcountry of Sylvania Wilderness, one of our favorite getaways and our chosen destination for a week without our 5-year-old son. The week was supposed to fan the flames of our love of camping, and for each other.

But now she glared at me, and repeated the words no husband wants to hear from his wife on a camping trip: “Let’s just go.”

Let me be clear: Natasha is no softy in the backwoods. She once backpacked with me over hilly terrain through two days of an October snowstorm; she humps the food pack that seems nearly as large as her 5-foot frame; and, heck, it was her idea to spend our honeymoon in the Boundary Waters nine years ago.

But we each have our limit, I guess. Hers was approximately 20 bug bites on her butt. Half her butt, to be more precise.

One of the draws of Sylvania is that canoe-in campsites are reservable and set back from the water amid a virgin forest cathedral of red cedars, white pines, paper birches and eastern hemlocks. The cloistered campsites are shaded from the summer sun and invisible from the water.

But they’re also wind-proof and, especially this year, thick with mosquitoes. In my defense, July 4 is an inconsistent time for skeeters. This very week a friend of mine was in Ontario, on the same campsite where nine years earlier we had been subject to the worst bug-bloodletting of our lives. But this year, he suffered barely a bite.

Meanwhile, Natasha and I — and every other campers we spoke with — were subjected to angry hordes of mosquitoes that ruled over the shaded campsites not just at dawn and dusk, but throughout the day. Aside from smoking them out with a campfire, the bugs were at that level where all you can do is get used to them swarming inches from your skin and face — and rapidly re-apply the bug dope if one lands. Related Articles Mike Lynch’s Skywatch: Roll down the big river of stars

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“Buggiest campsite we’ve ever seen,” said a Madison, Wis., man encamped on Loon Lake with his wife and their two young sons. “Worse than Quetico,” his wife said through a bug net, her voice weary from several days of tending to the boys’ welts. Her voice sounded a lot like my wife’s, actually.

The boys had each tallied their bites and seemed eager to boast about the score when we encountered them seeking refuge on a breezy beach. I don’t remember the numbers, but Natasha had them beat.

“I counted 20 on one butt-cheek,” she announced. “Then I stopped counting.”

This momentous magnitude was the result of an admitted oversight on her part: One must DEET every exposed inch of flesh under such conditions. On the first day of the trip, she dropped trou to pee, and the bugs set on her.

It goes without saying that this burden — the need to spray or rub bug repellent all over your bum and hamstrings just to urinate — applies only to women. I was reminded of this many times in the ensuing days. There also were citations of fairness, questions regarding the intelligence of the trip organizer (me), and yes, references to the birth of our son, and to whom I owed a debt for such labor.

In truth, we had an otherwise fantastic trip. By day, we took refreshing swims in crystalline waters where you can see the bottom in nearly 30 feet of water — an aquarium where one can watch a smallmouth bass track your lure throughout the entire retrieve. By evening, Tang screwdrivers by the campfire were otherwise peaceful. Except for the bugs.

“Let’s just go,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I think from now on, we should stick to August for our trips. This Fourth of July stuff isn’t for me.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” I said. Then I realized the opportunity, and struck with the zeal of a bloodthirsty Culex. “You know, maybe you’re right. Let’s make it real simple. Let’s say from now on Fourth of July is just trips for me and the guys. Forever.”

“Fine.”

And that’s the story of how my wife got 20 bug bites on one butt-cheek, and how I locked in July 4 fishing trips with the guys in perpetuity.