Performing wilderness: Black flies and the intimate geographies of Adirondack authenticity

Insects remain among the most understudied animals in historical geography. This paper examines black flies in the Adirondacks, one of the first large protected areas in the United States, where these insects occupy a paradoxical position: simultaneously reviled pests and iconic authenticators of wilderness experience. I examine how black flies structure both the performance of wilderness authenticity and the intimate practices of multispecies cohabitation, revealing competing visions of the region's cultural landscape over the last century. I identify three performances of wilderness, the tourist operator's denial, the state's control, and the resident's endurance, offering a rubric applicable to other protected landscapes. Drawing on archival sources — ecology reports, magazine articles, tourism advertisements, and regional folklore — I trace how different groups told competing stories about the same insects. Tourism operators in the 1920s–30s bemoaned economic loss. Wealthy seasonal visitors simply avoided May–July. Yet locals developed paradoxical relationships with the flies, complaining bitterly while defending the insects as authenticators of ‘real’ wilderness experience. These competing narratives expose how the same insect became both reviled pest and perverse badge of regional belonging, revealing hierarchies of class, temporality, and privilege in how Adirondackers understood their region.