The Mounties were awfully confident in the ferocity of Canadian mosquitoes. Here’s what happened.
If you’ve spent any time camping in Canada, you know the mosquitoes are a force of nature. You spend much of your time in camp hiding behind netting and you don’t get dressed without applying a liberal coating of DEET. Well one Canadian suspect either didn’t know this or thought he’d rather out-tough the bugs than face the mounties. Spoiler: He changed his mind.
This story comes from a Reddit user named Jleahul. When someone asked the Internet forum for their wildest police chase stories he came up with a real doozie. His father was a Royal Canadian Mounted Police Officer. Or as most Canadians refer to them, the “Mounties.” They got called in because someone had slipped away from police.
Note that the Canadian “Mounties” got their name because they traditionally rode horses. But in modern times, they often use snow machines or ATVs for backwoods enforcement.
As the story goes, the man was still a “suspect” so awaiting trial during one summer in the 1970s or 1980s. And he decided not to wait around for his trial. He “escaped custody.” Perhaps he even broke out of jail. But during his daring escape, he managed to lose his shirt.
Losing your prison uniform sounds like a good way to blend in, right? Not so much. Because this suspect ran into the trees. Bare-chested.
The Mounties know: Canadian mosquitoes are no joke
According to the storyteller, the suspect was still a “good ways away from any towns.” In Northern Alberta, that could be dozens of miles or more. It seems he hadn’t thought through his escape attempt, beyond getting out of jail.
The sun was going down and the Mounties had a choice to make. They could pursue the suspect through the woods, at night. Or they could wait for the mosquitoes to drive him back out of the woods. they chose to wait.
The next morning, he was back to turn himself in. As the story goes, “There wasn’t a spot of exposed skin on his body wasn’t bitten by mosquitoes.” It was less a man returning to town and more “a swollen red welt stumbling out of the trees.”
Mosquitoes 1: Criminals 0
You can read the full story embedded below:
“My dad was an RCMP officer in Northern Alberta during the ’70s/’80s. Apparently one summer, they had a suspect escape custody. The guy fled into a bush, but during the escape, he had lost his shirt, so he ran into the trees bare-chested. It was close to nighttime, and they were a good ways away from any towns, so they didn’t even pursue the guy, they just waited. The next morning, the guy turned himself in. There wasn’t a spot of exposed skin on his body wasn’t bitten by mosquitoes, just a swollen red welt stumbling out of the trees. Poor guy.”
– Reddit User Jleahul
