Pappy,
I have been a subscriber to Alaska Magazine for many years. I really like it.

Up by the cabin in Maine,right on the Canadian border. When ice breaks up at the lake by late May,that is when the black flies come out in hordes. Nasty little things they are. Leave welts that take weeks to heal.

They are gone by late July. Sleet starts in late August and ice forms in early October.

I scattered my wife's ashes on the lake's edge overlooking her native Canada. Used to be her favorite fishing spot.

Wayne