The Wisconsin magazine of history: Volume 18, number 2, December 1934

              168 l w burch december the ship such as scrubbing polishing scraping down or slushing spars or anything like that he said that kind of work belonged to the common crew and not to a sailor his decision would have gotten me into a lot of trouble with the crew who knew i was not a salt water man if it had not been for the fact that i kept the log and the time books and did all the clerical work for the captain thus when we were at the dock and when this kind of work had to be done i always had plenty to do in the captain's office on one trip up we entered detour passage in the after noon and in those days range lights were not so plentiful as now we just made rain's dock at the neebish rapids in time to tie up for the night it was a hot night when we made fast and ready to find an easy place to rest i noticed the fellows slapping their faces grabbing their arms and made a few passes myself finding that we were beset by mosquitoes and they were mosquitoes for size and ap petite i never saw anything like them mack after a few disparaging remarks looked at me in a manner which showed me that he was mad clear through mack very seldom be came angry but when he did look out we tried every way to get rid of those mosquitoes we had some cheap straw hats and made veils of mosquito netting which we put on over the hats then we smoked and in that way tried to get a moment's comfort i said to mack that i knew we were going to have trouble when we came up to the dock how did you know inquired mack why i said didn't you see half a dozen of those mosquitoes take our line and haul it ashore they were big ones i tell you say replied mack if i was not so tired i'd punch your head and getting from his seat on a coil of rope he remarked i'm going to crawl in under the sail cover i'll get away from them now