A Flin Flon-area art project is back in place for the summer. A rock snake, similar to one found last year along an east Flin Flon roadway, has found its way back into the grass.
The head of the snake, a larger rock painted with eyes, a snout and fangs, was placed on the hill near St. Ann’s Roman Catholic Church last week - the head is located near the sidewalk along Highway 10A, close to the Highway 10A and Centre Street intersection. The start of the snake is marked with a sign, reading “the rock snake… leave a painted rock to help me grow.”
The idea behind the snake is simple - to extend his “body” as long as possible using a series of hand-painted rocks. The rocks can feature any colour scheme or design and can be painted by artists of any age and skill level - as long as they’re placed on the hill behind the head, making the snake longer and longer each time.
Amanda Fleury and her family started the rock snake last summer on the hill, with it growing dozens of feet in length as more and more painted rocks were placed as the summer went on. The idea came from a Facebook post, seen by Fleury’s stepdaughter.
“She said to her dad, ‘Hey, this is something we should do,’” she said.
“We went out on the perimeter and the highway and found some rocks and painted them.”
Over the summer, the project grew and grew. Local kids’ groups started painting and adding rocks, as did several families. By the time the snake needed to be gathered up and stored for the winter, the snake had gone a long distance up the hill - not bad for a creature built with a few inches of rock at a time.
“It was just a family thing that we wanted to start, to get the community involved - it’s cheap, it’s fun and it kind of took off,” said Fleury.
“It just started off as a fun family thing, a tradition that we wanted to start within our community and just kind of get different people within Flin Flon and the surrounding area involved. I think it's going to take off - I think it's going to be bigger than it was last year.”
The name of the snake, according to Fleury, is “Leverite”, pronounced “leave-right” - a mining slang term for a rock that, while it looks interesting, should just be left alone where it was.
“It means ‘leave it right where you found it’ - like it’s not worth anything,” said Fleury.
She says the project's goal is to spread happiness and to engage people with art in a new way, as well as learning new skills along the way. She hopes that the snake will be even longer this year - hopefully stretching all the way up the hill to the Highway 10A and Wright Avenue intersection, maybe even further if the number of rocks holds up.
“We’re hoping to get it to go all the way to the other end, the whole length of the walkway before you cross over to go to the highway. I’m thinking that’s our plan,” she said.
“With Blueberry Jam and stuff coming up this summer, there’s more people coming into our community and it’s a cheap and fun thing for people to do with their kids.”
Fleury also said the feedback she’s received from people in the community has been overwhelmingly positive.
“It’s nice to hear people say, ‘Oh, I drove by and saw the rocks,’” she said.
“It just kind of took off and we thought, ‘Well, we’ve got to do it again,’ and we’ll continue to do it every year.”
Participants only need to find a rock, paint it then visit the site itself to place the rock, with no registration or further information needed.
