Bizarre Tourist Spot: How Canadian Province Manitoba Became Popular for Thousands of Mating Snakes

Tokyo has cherry blossoms, the Netherlands has tulip meadows, and Paris has itself to give. But the Canadian province of Manitoba, on the other hand, has a strikingly unusual springtime attraction: tens of thousands of amorous snakes writhing around in pits.

While Manitoba's tourist bureau does not promote the Narcisse Snake Dens with the same zeal that it does Canada's national human rights museum in Winnipeg, the yearly mating ritual of red-sided garter snakes draws thousands of people snake fans and snakephobes alike to an otherwise neglected portion of the province for a few days each spring.

Snakes of Narcisse's best viewing times

(Photo : PAUL RATJE/AFP via Getty Images)

During spring, tens of thousands of red-sided garter snakes crawl to the open from their winter burrows in the Narcisse Snake Dens.

These snakes are getting ready for their yearly mating ritual.

Depending on the weather, this stunning ceremony lasts one to three weeks in late April or early May, as per the official website of Manitoba.

Male snakes are generally the first to emerge, and they patiently wait for the females to do the same.

Male snakes are eager to mate with the larger females as they emerge.

This desire may be seen in a "mating ball," in which one female is encircled by up to one hundred men.

The Narcisse Snake Dens have four active snake dens, with a 3.0-kilometer self-guided interpretive route connecting them.

Although garter snakes are not dangerous, they are best observed from viewing platforms placed near the dens.

During the spring and fall, the activity level of the snake dens is updated every few days. When planning a journey to Narcisse, make sure to check the status.

Spring: The Narcisse Snake Dens are best visited in the latter part of April and the first three weeks of May. Snakes are obsessed with mating at this time and are easily observed by tourists.

The busiest time of year is usually Mother's Day weekend.

In early September, garter snakes return to their dens. They stay active and visible to visitors until the chilly, damp fall weather drives them underground.

The ideal time to see snakes in the fall is on warm, bright days.

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Narcisse is the Hotspot for snake mating

The land near Narcisse is so appealing to snakes for the same reason that many farmers abandoned it decades ago: its thin topsoil rests on top of limestone that water has progressively worn beneath, producing a network of tiny caverns accessible through sinkholes.

This is the ideal winter habitat for snakes in a region that is famously chilly even in Canada.

The snakes' spring eruption, and the ten days they spend cavorting in joy, is weather dependent and difficult to forecast.

Clouds, low temperatures, and rain are all capable of keeping them buried.

"It's perhaps the world's largest collection of snakes," said Prof. Robert T. Mason, an integrative biology professor at Oregon State University who has visited Narcisse every spring since 1982.

Otherwise, Narcisse is a near-deserted town.

The most noticeable elements of the town are a long-abandoned gas station adjacent to a collapsed ruin of a home.

Scientists, like Professor Mason, frequently conduct a study on private land in smaller snake pit regions.

However, Manitoba's wildlife department has created a park around what it likes to term snake dens - not "snake pits" - that are home to an estimated 70,000 of the critters throughout the winter.

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