Yellowknife man winds up in emergency room after spider bite

Adrian Halushka woke up from camping on Great Slave Lake a couple of weeks ago and thought he must have cut his leg.

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It wasn't until the next day, when he returned home, that a friend told him the wounds on his left leg were actually from spider bites.  

"I noticed it was [a] little infection, and the wound just kept opening up, getting bigger and bigger," says Halushka.

"Until it was like raw flesh and then it turned red all the way around."

Halushka, who grew up in the N.W.T., said he's never heard of someone getting a spider bite in the territory before.

"I've been all over the lake all my life and this is the first time that I've been bitten by a spider and have it get infected like that," he said.

Halushka used a traditional method to help with the infection — putting spruce gum on the wound.

"It does work because it did help it quite a bit since I put it on."

But six days later, Halushka finally went to the emergency room. He said the doctor told him that they had never seen a spider bite in Yellowknife before.

Halushka said the doctor also said it could have been a rare spider.

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Few spiders can pierce skin, says entomologist

According to the N.W.T.'s Department of Environment and Natural Resources, there are 268 known species of spiders in the territory.

"There are very few spiders in the N.W.T. that can pierce the skin," said Manitoba entomologist Taz Stuart, who studies insects in the N.W.T.

But Stuart said everyone reacts differently to bites, so it's hard to guess what caused Halushka's reaction.

An elder from Detah said she has heard of spider bites happening in the N.W.T., and she's also aware of another traditional medicine to treat them.

"My late mother-in-law got bitten by [a] spider," said Mary-Louise Drygeese. "[They] treated it with [a] beehive nest before it got infected."

Halushka said his wounds are healing and his doctor said he won't need any more medication unless it gets worse.