The COVID-19 pandemic is not stopping fishflies in Gimli from gathering by the thousands.

Each year, the RM of Gimli is overtaken for several days by fishflies. Residents and visitors note that the town becomes covered by the insects for a short time.

"Some people have never seen fishflies," Mayor Lynn Greenberg says. "They usually come in the third week of July."

Arriving in the town on Monday, Gimli is anticipating the thousands of fishflies that have coated the town to last until the end of the week.

its fishing and beaches, but during the third week of July instead of tourists avoiding the town, Greenberg says that they see an increase in visitors, and he is not talking about the fishflies.

Greenberg says the fish flies attract many tourists to the town.

"They are interested; they want to see them fishflies and they come. We have been very busy this week."

Once the flies have had their fun in the sun, Gimli gets to work cleaning the streets of the insects.

"It depends on how bad they are in the streets and down at the dock. We use our street sweeper and clean it up relatively good."

After the week of fishflies, the town goes back to its relatively fishfly-free routine until next year.