So Gina and I are camping in Kuzbekwek National Park, which is in New Brunswick, Canada. And we're getting ready to go for a hike along one of its scenic trails. And today the hike will be the bog trail. And as you can well imagine from the name bog, it's likely to be infested with mosquitoes. And in fact, we've been there before. And quite often we do get a lot of mosquitoes and other biting insects along the way. So that's true all over the park, maybe more so at the bog, but it's true everywhere. So what I thought I would do today is share with you what we use for insect management. So we call it. So if you're interested, keep watching. So for us insect management is two things. What do we wear on our cells when we're owed on a hike or at the beach or anywhere else here to prevent the biting insects? And what do we use when we're around our campsite? So we don't necessarily have to put a bug repellent on our cells. Well I'll start with what we're using now when we go for a hike or even here at the campsite if the insects are especially bad. And what we're using is a product called Great Outdoors. It is made by Watkins. It is produced here in Canada, although strangely enough, distributed out of California. It is a deep-based product and it has 30% deats. So it's quite a high percentage of deats in this product. It is claims to repel mosquitoes, black flies, biting midges, deer flies, stable flies, ticks and chiggers. A few of those we don't see a lot of here like ticks and chiggers. Yes, chiggers, not so much. So it claims to repel just what everything you'd be concerned about. Now what makes this different from any other deep product and we have tried, we've tried off and deep woods and a number of them along the way is that it is a cream. So it goes on in a nice smelling cream base and then soaks into the skin very quickly and doesn't leave that oily feeling sometimes get from a lot of the others. So let me show you what it looks like. I'll put a little bit on the back of my hand and arm just so you get an idea. And yeah, we'll go from there. So you can see it is a, if I get to the camera here, a cream base as opposed to a spray or an oil that you would rub on and it goes on quite nicely. And within a minute it has a pleasant smell and you know, I don't know how it does, there's not often instructions on the back of the spray cans but it doesn't matter if you have a spray, pump, oil or whatever. It works much better if you rub it into the skin as opposed to leaving it on top. There you go. Yeah, it's already absorbing and I don't have that greasy feeling all over my body. So this is the product that we have come to appreciate. Now where can you get it? We find it in a lot of places. Costco here in Canada has it. The shoppers drug mart here in Canada. Mountain equipment co-op here in Canada game. I'm not sure if Costco in the US has it. I'm sure it's available on Amazon. I'll do a little research and put some links in the show notes if you're interested in trying this out. We quite like this and Watkins is a well-known name. I can recall back when I was a child, there used to be door to door salesmen that would come and sell my mother products anything from brushes to you know, make up products to just first aid salves and Watkins and Raleigh were the two salesmen that I recall at the time. So this is an old company producing a good product. At least we find it to be a good product. Now you have heard me say in the past another video that I had been looking for a deep free product from when I'm out in the woods specifically and making YouTube videos. And the reason why I was looking for a deep free product is, Deed is known to be very caustic to plastics and my video camera. I don't want to have a video camera start to get corroded from the caustic of the deed. So I was looking for some alternatives and one of the ones that came across was a deep free product that was made in Halifax in Nova Scotia Canada by a small firm operated by a woman and it was called a Lant tick. And I'll put a link to at least a portion of the video where I talked about testing the Atlantic and I'll put a picture of it on the screen as well. And I had high hopes for the Atlantic because they had done testing and sent it off to University where they had done testing and they had some very good strong evidence that it would repel ticks. Well that's fine. I don't have that many ticks to be able to confirm or deny whether or not it works for ticks. What I can say is it was a little disappointing and how it worked on mosquitoes and black flies and especially deer flies. Mosquitoes and black flies I can deal with deer fly, they're my nemesis. Quite honestly deer flies, they get to me the both. So the ones that I'm most tormented by, it didn't repel the deer flies at all or horse flies for that matter and you know which are of course closely related. In fact one time I was holding the Atlantic and the deer fly landed right on the spray nozzle wasn't repel by it at all. So it was a little disappointed. Now it's also an alcohol based product which means it should spray well, absorb well and then dry up very quickly on the skin. But what I did find was that especially if my scalper, my face was at all sweaty from from perspiration, it burned. It was a strong alcohol and I got a burning sensation all over my skin. So does it work for ticks? I don't know. I really can't confirm whether or not I didn't have any ticks on me the whole time I was testing it. Does it work well for black flies, mosquitoes and deer flies? No, unfortunately it doesn't. So that one is an experiment that I can't report back positive results on. Now the other one was a product that, or at least the ingredient that a number of my viewers had mentioned that's available in Canada and under the name of Iacaridin. And I believe it's the same product that you can find in the United States under pick caridin. So the same natural, all-cent natural, non-toxic ingredient that is intended for repelling insects. And I note now that all the major brands are using a caridin or pickaridin in an alternative product. I have a bottle of that. I have been testing it. I can tell you that it appears to work equally effective at this point, equally effective to deat. My only concern is that it seems to wear off a little more faster than the deep products do and you have to reapply. I'm using a small pump bottle of it. I'll report back by the end of the summer. Of course by the end of the summer. The flies are gone, but I'll report back and let you know how effective it is. So far I can say a caridin, pickaridin seems to be working very well. All right, so that's what we do for ourselves. Now what do we do around the campsite? Well, we've tried a number of products. We've tried the off fans. It's the little clip on battery. Battery operator fan that's supposed to propel a mist and give you a zone of protection around you. Do you know we had we debate it back and forth whether or not these things were effective and then eventually we decided no, they're not. They have to work in a very enclosed environment meaning no wind whatsoever and supposedly will create an invisible cloud that surrounds and gives you protection. I don't think they work very well, folks. I can't recommend those. One thing we have not tried is the thermosel and I know a lot of people have great faith in thermosel. I'd love to try one someday, but they're kind of expensive to purchase as well as the replacement packets where the material is that's released into the atmosphere. Here's what's funny. We resorted back to something that a lot of you will be familiar with that is actually used here by the staff in the park in the kiosk that they operate. It's something from our child and that is good old-fashioned mosquito coils. You can get them under different brands. I've seen them under off brand. I've seen them under coaglands. This is called mosquito shield brand and this supposedly is the premium black version as opposed to the old green versions and of course that's what they look like. Do you know something folks? These work with under certain conditions of course when we're at the campsite and there's no wind or very little wind and we like one of these things. It's a bit of a smell. There's a citronella scent to it according to the package. And that little wafting of that little bit of smoke does seem to make a huge difference for mosquitoes. Black fly, or not black fly, sorry we're out of butterfly season. Dearflies, I can't say we don't get a lot of those around the campsite. So dearflies I'm not so sure about but mosquitoes, the ones that are most annoying when you're around sitting around camp, yeah it does seem to work. Under the conditions that there's no wind or you're in some type of an enclosed shelter, not completely enclosed but you know like an overhang. These seem to work well. So this brand, you get 10 packages or 10 coils that's supposed to last 5 hours each. So 50 hours worth of performance and I can say they do exactly that. We like using these and we'll use them for a few hours and then if we're going to get ready for it to go to bed or if we're going to go for a hike, you just break off the burning end or rub it on a rock to put it out, put it aside, relight it later. Yeah we're quite liking these, old school technology but it does seem to work. Now I know you might be concerned about what is it releasing into the atmosphere and it is safe for humans. Probably not if you're in enclosed area and you get a good dose of this, it's probably not especially healthy, deets not especially healthy but we continue to use deets. I would say you use it within reason within the instructions that are on the package in a ventilated area with no wind of course because you're going to lose all the benefit if it's very windy. And yeah you might want to go back and give these a try, not necessarily this brand but this brand we know works because this is what the staff here at the National Park use but you might want to go back and give it a try. Okay, two products that we know work that we use when we go camping, car camping especially. What do you use? That's what I'd be interested in knowing. What have you found to be effective that is cost effective but effective against as many different biting insects as you have been exposed to? I'd also be interested in knowing if you have a specific experience around the thermosel. Should I invest in one? Is it really worth the money to invest in one of those because you can tell they are kind of expensive? That's all I'll have for this short video. Hopefully you found some value in it and I would invite you to add any comments you'd like in the show notes below. And if you haven't already subscribed to my channel you may want to do that for more videos like this and other videos but in the meantime get out and explore. That's what we're doing. We're going to the bug path today or the bug hike and trail to see what we can find that is different. So again get out and explore and take that path list traveled. It will make all the difference. Bye for now.