Buzz.

Scattered over hundreds of kilometers around the Mackenzie Delta are nearly 25,000 lakes. The permafrost, which underlies much of the region, folded and lifted the land, forming basins. Basins that were filled by retreating glaciers and refilled by the melting snow each spring and rain each summer. Caribou herds move across here in winter, when the landscape is frozen. In the summer, waterfowl—including large groups of loons and pairs of snowy white tundra swans—come to this place to feed. This week, we joined them. Justin and Xan, who are continuing their research on arctic treeline, and myself. We were dropped by a local pilot on a rocky beach, on an island with no name. After wading our supplies ashore our plane taxied away, leaving us in the tundra, surrounded by total silence. A silence short-lived, in minutes it was replaced by the buzz of mosquitoes and their more persistent cohorts—blackflies. A buzzing known locally as the Mackenzie River torment.

We spent several hours measuring krumholtz Picea mariana—black spruce—trees, stranded on this island from an earlier time when the treeline extended further north into the arctic—perhaps 1,000 years ago. After taking a break for a few hours in the afternoon we decided to make a fire to "smudge" away the tundra's biting insects. This smoky oasis became our only escape from the constant buzz of the bugs and the stifling heat of our bug jackets. Later I went for a swim—hiding below the surface from the bugs overhead.

After collecting data and eating a smoky stir fry we headed out for a late evening trek across the island and its small hills—hills known in Inuvialuktun, the language of the Inuvialviut, as engigstciah. From a distance the terrain looks relatively flat and barren, though as we moved through it we realized this was only an illusion. The ground is a patchwork of moss and sedge hummock, filled in by bushy alders, spindly birches, bearberry, blueberry, cranberry, and a few dozen other species reminiscent of Maine's coastal peat bogs. Mixed among the low vegetation are dozens of different lichens, adding to the feel that things here grow in miniature. All across the island we find antlers discarded by passing caribou, tukto. Most of these are nearly buried by moss and lichen, signs the antlers have spent a long time in the slow growing tundra.

The following day we spent near the smoky fire, identifying plants, drying herbs, watching loons and hawks fly overhead, and collecting seeds for germination in a lab back in Vancouver. In the afternoon the silence and openness of the country around us was broken when our floatplane arrived from Inuvik. It circled us twice and disappeared from view, reappearing on the water a few minutes later. Though the plane offered an escape from the bugs I secretly wished it away.