Mosquito-free summers nice while they lasted

It was nice while it lasted, wasn’t it? And it certainly seemed to last a long, lovely time.

But with this spring and early summer’s unusually heavy rainfall and significant standing-water accumulation, our blissful vacation from mosquito swarming and swatting is most definitely over.

Owing to relatively dry summers and the overall effectiveness of suppression techniques such as the city’s annual larviciding program, we in Winnipeg — and, to a lesser but still noticeably enjoyable extent, the southern half of Manitoba — have enjoyed several years in which the hot-weather months were relatively free of the harassment of this province’s signature biting-insect pest.

It’s been so long since the mosquito situation was a problem, in fact, that many of us had forgotten where we live — in the usually-soggy bottom of a glacial lake bed, where those tiny, terrorizing insects tend to flourish — and started to think a mosquito-free summer is a normal state of affairs.

It isn’t.

After a hiatus that spanned almost half a decade but felt delightfully much longer, the mosquitoes have returned in full force, laying in wait in the damp grasses and rain-soaked greenery until dusk’s arrival before launching their full-swarm assault on anyone brave enough to plan an outdoor evening activity.

After the average count in traps situated around the city passed the triggering threshold of 25 females for two consecutive nights, with at least two quadrants of the city reporting at least 100 adult female mosquitoes, the adult nuisance mosquito control program was set in motion last Saturday (the average trap count citywide last Friday was 84). Weather permitting, the initiative will target 14 “insect management areas” identified by the Insect Control Branch.

How many mosquitos are buzzing around Winnipeg? Check our interactive map.

Spraying/fogging with DeltaGard, an insecticide approved by Health Canada, takes place between 9:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m., provided winds aren’t too strong and temperatures don’t dip below 13C. Residents who don’t want to be exposed to the chemical can apply for a 90-metre buffer zone around their property.

How effective the suppression effort will be against this over-soaked season’s bumper crop of mosquitoes remains to be seen, but what is absolutely certain is that the summer of 2026 will be more in line with southern Manitoba’s more historically familiar mosquito infestations than with the relatively jab-free jollity of the past few years.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

Head Start

Weekday Mornings

A quick glance at the news for the upcoming day.

Sign up for Head Start

Sign Up

I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

It needs to be said, of course, that mosquitoes can be more than an itch-inducing nuisance. Some varieties carry and transmit dangerous pathogens such as West Nile virus, which can unleash an unsavory menu of symptoms ranging from fever and muscle aches to skin rash, nausea and, in rare cases, swelling of the brain and paralysis.

Not getting bitten by mosquitoes is always the best plan, but as life has returned to buzzing summertime normal hereabouts, Manitobans will inevitably find themselves sharing outdoor spaces with those most-unwelcome winged intruders.

We will, as ever, be undeterred. Winnipeggers spend their too-long winters dreaming of evenings on restaurant patios and backyard decks and weekends in cottage-country repose to let a few — OK, a lot more than a few — bloodsucking neck-gnawers ruin their summertime fun.

We’ll don the coolest of our long-sleeved garments, apply liberal coatings of DEET and employ whatever mosquito-repelling gadgetry works best for us, and we will spend our summer outdoors, because we’re Winnipeggers and that’s how we roll from May long to Labour Day and as far beyond as the lingering warm weather allows.

The mosquito vacation was nice, but we knew they’d be back. And we will carry on, swatting, spraying, scratching and smiling through a more normal Manitoba summer.