MONTREAL GAZETTE (Quebec) 16 August 04 Headed for a cottage, nature - and rattlesnakes?: Web search dug up too much information about the wildlife at a vacation spot (Jane Barclay)
Every summer, magazines and newspapers publish all kinds of tips on how to have a stress-free vacation - everything from don't bring your laptop to don't bring your kids. Here's mine: Never book a cottage where you'll find the Eastern Massasauga Rattler, a venomous snake that is found in only four areas of Canada. One of these is the Bruce Peninsula, which is where we're headed.
I discovered all of this one Saturday morning when I asked our youngest son to go on the Web site for our cottage and click on the wildlife tab. At the time, I was concerned about bears. Now I'm concerned about bears, fishers, long-eared bats, martins, lynx, northern flying squirrels, the Massasauga rattlesnake and the black-throated blue warbler, whatever the hell that is.
But, hey, when you open a can of worms, you might as well go fishing. So we trolled through various Web sites finding everything we could about Massasauga rattlers.
We started with the size. My son wrote down the specifics then ran to the basement to get the tape measure to show me how long they grow. He got to over 5 feet and was still yanking the tape out, when it dawned on me this was a Canadian snake. This was followed by a brief discussion about the difference between centimetres and inches (thank God). So, although 75 centimetres is small for a rattler, it's still big enough to bother me. Plus it's got that whole camouflage thing going on, which isn't fair. I think all snakes should be fuchsia.
We also learned that the Massasauga is on the endangered species list, mainly because of "a primary lack of knowledge by humans, leading to fear and the unnecessary killing of snakes." I figure what we're lacking in knowledge, we make up for in common sense. I know if I stumbled upon a snake, my first instinct would be to whack it on the head with a shovel. Then, I'd dash off to the library and look up what kind it was and what it eats.
Other Massasauga trivia - they don't hibernate in groups, which is thoughtful of them, and they are practically never found in open water. That would be good news if they were absolutely, positively, never, ever found in open water. But "practically never" leaves open the possibility of swimming in the crystal waters of Georgian Bay side by side with a snake, which does solve the problem of what bathing suit to bring. None.
Almost all the Web sites we checked offered sound advice on how to avoid being bitten by a snake, like "never pick up a snake until you have positively identified it." I say, try and explain that to our dog, who I fear will be fetching Massasauga rattlers and bringing them to the cabin door.
The experts also advise you to wear boots, thick socks and long pants or gaiters, which should go nicely with the various sun dresses I was planning to pack. That solves another problem: shaving. Seeing as I won't be swimming and I'll be dressed like that guy from the Red Green Show, why bother?
What's really frustrating about this is that I think scientists could easily solve the problem of snakes and people. Many researchers (including a group in the Bruce Peninsula) have implanted snakes with transmitters so they could record such variables as location. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would volunteer to have a transmitter implanted in me so that researchers could keep track of my location as well. Then, whenever the snake signal and mine got too close, someone could give me a ringy and I'd leap out of harm's way.
Sadly, there isn't time to arrange that with the Ontario government before we leave, so I can only hope that because we will arrive during the mating season, the rattlers will be so busy being amorous they won't notice me. I wish it was the other way around, but between the lack of bathing, shaving, the boots and the gaiters, I figure my chances are, how shall I put this, sssssslim.