By Phil Novak - North Bay Nugget
Seattle may have a Starbucks on every corner, but there's nary a shadfly to be found, laments Jacob Norris, a former North Bayite now living in Washington state.
Norris created Shadfly.com, the only Web site in the world devoted to the malodorous denizens of Lake Nipissing.
Shadflies have played a significant role in his life, bringing him together with the woman he would ultimately marry.
His wife Kami shares the same attraction to the winged bug and the two attribute much of their commitment to each other and their outlook on life to the shadfly.
"We met online," Norris recalled. "She was in Seattle and I was in North Bay, and I told her about these shadflies, and she wanted to know more but there just wasn't anything around, so I decided to go on a quest and gather some information just so she could learn about them. Eventually I built the site."
The couple took on the Internet nicknames Shadboy and Shadgirl. And, no, their pet isn't named Shaddog.
Rather than view the light-seeking insects as repulsive, Norris, who moved to Seattle late last summer, sees them as a metaphor for life.
"They jump out of the lake and then just go for it. They don't give up because that's their one chance, and it really came to parallel my life at the time when I started working on the Web site. My move to Seattle was really me getting out of the lake so I'm quite fond of the little things."
The little things, properly known as the hexagenia limbata of the insect order Ephenmeroptera, are now at the bottom of the lake on the verge of metamorphosing into adults. Soon they'll invade North Bay like a populous army of street mimes: they don't make a sound but they can be annoying.
Shadfly.com includes the life story of the crazy critters, believed to date back some 300 million years ago. But while their histories are long, their lifespans are short - between a few hours to a few days once they leave the water. And then they're gone, but hardly forgotten.
Drawn like many to city lights, the bugs swarm locust-like toward Main Street and Lakeshore Drive, landing on store windows, neon signs, and lamp posts.
"They all have to come out relatively at the same time and swarm which is a means for these delicate flying insects to find the opposite sex and they all fly to the same area, and that usually ends up being downtown North Bay," said Joe Shorthouse, an entomology professor at Laurentian University in Sudbury.
Because they have no mouths, shadflies - properly known as mayflies - are unable to eat and literally starve to death.
"If they are only going to live for a couple of days then all you're worrying about is reproduction and not eating," Shorthouse said.
Their bodies end up littering the streets, causing cars to skid, and walkers to tiptoe through the shadflies.
The stench, too, of rotting carcasses fouls the air and adds to the aesthetic anathema. Still shadflies have a significant role in the ecosystem of Lake Nipissing, Shorthouse said.
"If you got rid of the shadfly you can kiss the fishing in the lake goodbye, because they're a major sources of food for the fish. If you have mayflies, you know your aquatic ecosystem is healthy and your lake well oxygenated."
As shadfly season approaches, Jacob Norris is preparing to update his Web site, and has asked friends in North Bay to send him photographs and videotape.
"It's all a very beautiful thing and I don't think a lot of people really appreciate that," said Norris, who used to put a shadfly on his computer monitor. "I think everyone in North Bay needs to spend more time thinking about the shadfly when it comes out because it's such a beautiful event, but everyone just lets it pass by without paying any attention."
