According to a 1991 report by the Wildlife Branch of Manitoba Natural Resources in Canada, it was fashionable in the 1880s to picnic at a "hibernaculum" near Stony Mountain. But this place and others like it caused local unrest as well -- the one near Stony Mountain was at the center of Manitoba's first major labor strike, when penitentiary construction workers refused to work there until the hibernaculum was destroyed. But now visitors are again drawn, seasonally, to Manitoba's Interlake region, particularly the Spring spectacle that occurs there. It is so popular that highway signs in the area direct visitors to the appropriate places to view the yearly event. The community of Inwood has gone so far as to erect a monument in recognition of this aspect of Manitoba's natural heritage.
What do people make an annual journey to the hibernaculum to see?
First correct answer posted to comments wins a Bacardi "Your Night Just Got Interesting" promotional headband. No Googling or asking any professional comedian, most of whom are Canadian and we;l-informed nature lovers with summer homes in rural Manitoba. One guess per comment, but you may comment as often as you like.
Posted by BT at April 30, 2004 10:31 AMSleeping bears?
Posted by: Gavin on April 30, 2004 10:52 AMOr alternatively, leprechauns?
(Or would that be a Hibernianaculum?)
The springtime emergence of bears from caves.
Posted by: Jonathan on April 30, 2004 10:54 AMThe St. Patrick's Day procession of dwarfs as they emerge from the mines.
Posted by: Jonathan on April 30, 2004 10:58 AMThe Annual Outdoor 36-Hour Rural Manitoba Poetry Slam (AO36RuMPS.
Posted by: Jonathan on April 30, 2004 10:59 AMThe Annual Outdoor 36-Hour Rural Manitoba Poetry Slam (AO36RuMPS).
Posted by: Jonathan on April 30, 2004 11:00 AMI'm sure there is some sex involved.
Posted by: Scott on April 30, 2004 11:00 AMNeither bears nor mini-humans real,mythical, bearded or giggling and lucky, constitute the springtime wonder to which we refer.
Posted by: BT on April 30, 2004 11:01 AMAh, Scott may be alluding to the Hibernian dwarf miner "boom-boom" bear cave (doubled as a green room for the poetry slam).
Posted by: Jonathan on April 30, 2004 11:02 AMNotice -- he didn't rule out the poetry.
Posted by: Jonathan on April 30, 2004 11:03 AMThe Manitoban muse is not involved.
And as for sex -- it makes the world revolve,
But something else will be required to solve
The quiz today, so press on with solve.
Argh -- press on with resolve.
Posted by: BT on April 30, 2004 11:05 AMNice "Argh" interjection. The pirates learned it from the dwarfs, you know, and then taught it to the poets.
Posted by: Jonathan on April 30, 2004 11:10 AMAn unusual lichen?
Posted by: Gavin on April 30, 2004 11:18 AMThe aurora borealis?
Posted by: Gavin on April 30, 2004 11:18 AMGavin, you're the Romanish street urchin of wombatanswers. Settling for geysers here.
Posted by: LAURA on April 30, 2004 11:28 AMThe phenomenon is seasonal and natural, but is neither mineral nor astronomical-meteorological, nor does it involve that funky symbiote you find growing on rocks and trees.
Posted by: BT on April 30, 2004 11:32 AMhippies jam?
(not hippies' jam)
The birds and the bees do it
White House interns on their knees do it. . .
I don't think you want to watch bears mate. But some other creature less dangerous. Which probably rules out moose rutting, too.
But maybe caribou do it. . .
This was before the Nature Channel, after all.
Posted by: Scott on April 30, 2004 11:55 AMThere's sort of a jam involved. But no hippies.
Posted by: BT on April 30, 2004 11:55 AMOh, something else instead of sex, rather than something else in addition to sex.
(Funny, I could swear I just had the same conversation with my wi. . . ehrm.)
Hmmm. . . jam?
Posted by: Scott on April 30, 2004 12:07 PMAll the moose come to eat the emerging strawberry crop. In a cloud of butterflies.
Posted by: Scott on April 30, 2004 12:22 PMThe belated emergence of Punxsutawney Phil's northern cousin, Manitoba Mike?
Posted by: KF on April 30, 2004 12:45 PMbees pissing honey?
Let me add: do not mix wraparound skirts, thongs, and bicycle-riding in 9am downtown manhattan traffic. Definitely wilder than Manitoban jams.
Posted by: LAURA on April 30, 2004 12:47 PMFrom Nature North, a Manitoban nature website/zine:
"Our most famous ****, and probably our most common and best studied species, is the *******, one of 7 distinct subspecies of the *****. This is the ****** that has made Manitoba's Interlake region world-famous for *****-watching! Some ****(or hibernacula, singular = hibernaculum) contain XXX [number of] ****** each winter. In spring their mass emergence creates an awesome natural spectacle."
Mayflies.
Posted by: Jonathan on April 30, 2004 01:32 PMCicadas
Posted by: Jonathan on April 30, 2004 01:33 PMPoets
Posted by: Jonathan on April 30, 2004 01:33 PMJonathan is for some reason hung up on versifiers.
The beasts in question aren't insects or buzzy rhymesters. Though, as with those categories of being, many people find them less than beautiful (although one late legend of R&B testified to his love of the species on a widely-watched television program).
Posted by: BT on April 30, 2004 01:41 PMFrogs
Posted by: Jonathan on April 30, 2004 01:49 PMUm. Bats.
Posted by: KF on April 30, 2004 01:49 PMRats.
Posted by: KF on April 30, 2004 01:51 PMHerpetologists
Posted by: Jonathan on April 30, 2004 01:51 PMElephants.
Posted by: KF on April 30, 2004 01:56 PMThe scientific name of the particular subspecies of which Manitoba is so proud is Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis.
Posted by: BT on April 30, 2004 02:27 PMMoths?
Posted by: LAURA on April 30, 2004 02:28 PMNewts?
Posted by: LAURA on April 30, 2004 02:33 PMToads
Posted by: Scott on April 30, 2004 02:37 PMnothing yet
Posted by: BT on April 30, 2004 02:49 PMSnakes! Snakes! Snakes!
Posted by: KF on April 30, 2004 04:51 PMKathleen has it. As the poet said...
ON A MEMORABLE EXCURSION TO THE MANITOBAN COUNTRYSIDE
by Willy Wordsyworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats o'er Manitoba's lakes
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A mass of wiggling garter snakes
Whence came these serpents? wondered I
And mutely questioned sky and glen
Then haply found a cheering sign
With rustic script that read "Snakes' Den."
An hibernaculum! I cried,
That doth in April oft discharge
A living knot, which, when untied
Reveals worms both small and large.
And as I stood in wondrous trance
A-looking 'pon their legless scrum
A four-by-four appeared by chance
And knocked me on my dazzled bum
For lo, the Springtime Serpent-Fest
Off-roading Canucks swarm to see
Oh, nature-bards, use caution best:
Watch for that f***king S.U.V.
http://www.naturenorth.com/spring/creature/garter/snake1.htm
And that, dear readers, is a poetic Smackdown.
Posted by: Jonathan on April 30, 2004 07:10 PMWasn't Barry White pro-snake-whacking?
Posted by: Gavin in Chicago on May 1, 2004 04:39 PMStaunchly anti-, once informed on the issue. Lent famous silky baritone to snake-saving efforts in episode climax.
Posted by: BT on May 1, 2004 11:58 PMAh. I better remembered his other Simpsons appearance, as a guest on "Springfield Squares."
"Come on up to my square, where it's safe... and sexy."
Posted by: Gavin on May 2, 2004 10:45 AM