Mating reptiles bring life to Manitoba town
Red-sided garter snakes’ annual ritual draws thousands to Narcisse
NARCISSE, MANITOBA— Tokyo has its cherry blossoms, the Netherlands has its tulip fields, and Paris offers itself. But Manitoba has a remarkably distinct springtime attraction, too: tens of thousands of amorous snakes writhing around in pits.
While Manitoba’s tourist agency doesn’t promote the Narcisse Snake Dens with the same zeal as it does the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, the annual mating ritual of red-sided garter snakes nevertheless manages to draw thousands of people — snake fanciers and snakephobes alike — to an otherwise overlooked part of the province for a few days each spring.
The area around Narcisse is so attractive to snakes for the same reasons many farmers abandoned it decades ago: Its thin topsoil sits on top of limestone that water has gradually eroded underground, creating a network of small caves that can be entered through sinkholes.
It’s a notoriously cold place, making it the perfect winter home for snakes.
The eruption of the snakes each spring, and the 10 days they spend cavorting in celebration, is weather dependent, and hard to predict. Clouds, cool temperatures and rain can all keep them underground.
Many years, they slither out in time to make snake viewing a popular Mother’s Day outing. This chilly spring, they emerged toward the end of May.
“It is likely the biggest concentration of snakes in the world,” said Robert Mason, professor of integrative biology at Oregon State University, who has come to Narcisse every spring since 1982.
“It’s amazing to me how many people want to see these snakes,” he said. “They are perfect ambassadors for the reptile world.”
Otherwise, Narcisse itself is a near-ghost town. The town’s most prominent features are a long-abandoned gas station next to the collapsed ruin of a house.
Scientists, including Mason, often do their research at smaller snake pit areas on private land. But Manitoba’s wildlife service has established a park around what it prefers to call snake dens — not “snake pits” — that are the winter home of an estimated 70,000 of the creatures.
The snakes around Narcisse have not always been regarded as a natural wonder. Many of the first European settlers tried to exterminate them.
But they are now local heroes of sorts, bringing in tourists at least once a year.