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This image is based on a story told by a Royal Engineer surveying the prairie around Semá:th Lake. It was July and the mosquitos were “something fearful.” He wore a gauze bag over his head and puffed a short pipe to try and keep the “squitoes” off. Following is the entry for July 27, 1859:
I must not pass over this day without mentioning the kindness of an Indian chief and his family who were fishing near our halt. I had arrived some time before the [mule] train and having tied my horse went to have a chat with them; the old chief ’s wife took compassion on my wretched state (due to mosquitoes) and having asked my permission, they brought out the paint bag and painted my face and hands with vermilion and certainly the relief was very great; you would have laughed to have seen me painted up like an Indian; after the operation a pipe was lighted and passed round the circle…
My hands, during the last few days, have been so swollen and stiff that I could hardly bend my joints and have had to wrap them in wet towels to be ready for the next day’s work. Two of Darrah’s mules have been blinded and six of our horses were so reduced that we had to turn them out on the prairie and let them take their chance of living. I never saw anything like the state of their skins, one mass of sores.
- From the journal of Lieutenant Charles Wilson, as recounted in Sappers: The Royal Engineers in British Columbia by Beth Hill.
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