Karen Wils photo The northern ringneck snake.

ESCANABA — Imagine, laying back in the cool bracken ferns by the river.

The sweet summer moon is now visible, and it sends shards of orange light to dance on the moving water.

The crickets and the frogs serenade.

Tired kids at camp relax on the riverbank. “Watch out for the night snakes down there,” Dad warns from his bench on the hill.

But there’s something adventurous and fun about sitting cross-legged on the ground waiting for the northern lights to paint the sky.

“There’s no such thing as night snakes,” I reply.

Fireflies blink above the weeds and the rushes.

“Oh, I remember the time your uncle Deak and I were tenting out in the field and night snakes slithered right inside of our tent! They even crept into our shoes,” Dad said.

My dad always loved to tease and tell stories, but he sure sounded sincere when he talked about snakes that came out at night.

When I’d ask Dad for more information about these snakes, he said that they were quite small and as black as the nighttime sky and that they carried a little glowing ring around their neck to help them move about in the darkness.

As a youngster, I searched for night snakes with a flashlight as I made my way to the outhouse at night. I never saw a single one.

I liked to read about snakes and I learned that they were cold blooded reptiles. They came out in the spring of the year when the ground warmed up. Snakes love sunshine and the hotter the better your chances of seeing snakes.

Little green “grass” snakes and yellow garter snakes were common in the fields and woods back then. The big ugly pine snake (or western fox snake) was a frequent visitor too.

These critters loved the daytime.

Even though snakes are not the cutest creatures in the Northwoods, I’d take pictures of them in the leaves, or flowers or on the limestone riverbed. As long as I see them first, they are not too scary. And there are no venomous snakes in Upper Michigan.

Snakes are very important for the balance of nature. They eat bugs, worms, eggs, frogs and many, many mice.

When I was in my teens I asked Dad again about his night snakes.

“Oh, they’re real,” he said, “but they hide under things and feed only at night.”

As a young adult I got into beagling which meant being in the woods until dark with dogs. Every once in a while I could almost swear some little creature would crawl across the toe of my boot when I was in the thick woods.

Was it a big salamander or a strange toad? I could never get a good look at it. It was too dark.

I searched books and the internet, and I finally learned that yes, night snakes were real in Upper Michigan. They thrive in moist woodlands and have a mild venom (non-harmful to humans or animals) to help it catch its prey of earthworms, slugs and salamanders.

The real name for them is the northern ring-necked snake.

Over the years I have caught glimpses of them several times, but never got the opportunity to snap a picture of one.

Then last summer, my brother Dave spotted one near camp in broad daylight. They really do exist. He got a nice photo.

My dad told us stories about “snow snakes” too… well now that’s a whole nother column.

——

Karen (Rose) Wils is a lifelong north Escanaba resident. Her folksy columns appear weekly in Lifestyles.