Bugs are just like real estate, location, location, location. If a person stays mainly in the more developed campgrounds, either private or governmental, bugs just normally are not a problem.
But you have to consider what the wee beasties like, that being shade, moisture,to be out of the wind/breeze, and good ground cover to make their home. While some of the large gravel parking lot type campgrounds, as many are in the north country, may not be too visually appealing to the eye, they sure keep the bug problems down.
The last trip that we spent a week at the Rivers Edge Campground in Fairbanks, I only remember seeing one mosquito, and it was probably a tourist there on vacation. LOL However we did get swarmed by the bugs at Dawsons Peak CG in Canada and at the Tangle Lakes CG just out of Paxson. You want some real bug stories to tell, stay at Tangle Lakes and then try to use the out house to relieve your system.
I have most problems with biting bugs known as white socks, nasty vicious bugs with teeth like a running chain saw, or so it seems. Over the years I have ended making two doctor office visits to be treated for blood poising from their bites. The biting gnats are also there, as well as the no-see-ums, which we also have here in Florida along the coast. Most of the years I lived in Interior Alaska, a fall moose/bear hunting trip was in order, traveling by a flat bottomed river boat and camping in a tent. By late August, it has started into the fall rainy season, just before the snow falls. The standard clothing was long pants, long sleeve shirts, a head net, and cotton gloves plus a roll of duct tape to seal all the openings. The pants legs were taped to the top of the boots, sleeve cuffs were taped to the top of the gloves, and the top button on the shirt was buttoned and the head net drawn tight around the collar. This outfit would also serve as sleeping wear for night time. There was no other way to survive, that I found, bug dope would only work so long and if you were hiking through the tundra, the muskeg, in the hills, through the willows, and started breathing hard, you would suck lung fulls of the bugs into your inter parts of your breathing system. Not good. Plus bug dope will melt plastics and the finish on a rifle stock, as I have a Model 70 that to this day you can see where my finger prints melted into the wood finish. And that was from 40 years ago.
So a lot of verbiage to say, if you want to avoid most of the bugs in the north country, stay away from the places they like to live. If you want some good stories to tell on your return home, then camp a few days where the bugs are. The bugs are one of the main reasons whey the migratory birds go north to spend the summer and raise their young. An unending supply of food for them and their chicks, that the bugs provide.
