bog walk recap

april's plant walk began by the parking lot in the least muddy spot we could find following a big rain the day before (about half the group ditched their shoes here) we shared some history of the land surrounding the last remaining bit of tamarack bog in the twin cities before heading down to meet some plants.

others shed their shoes when we saw the mostly submerged boardwalk and collectively realized that barefoot is the ideal way to be in a bog.

the narrow boardwalk cuts across a soggy carpet of sphagnum mosses that covers the quaking bog - and one percent of the earth’s surface area! the lush top layer grows atop a dense mat of dead sphagnum that barely decays, instead gradually building up over a veryyy long time.

dead plants usually get broken down into nutrients that can be used by other plants (cute) but the the bacteria and fungi that help with decomposition have a hard time in the low-oxygen, highly acidic conditions of bogs. so plants here find ways to cope with that, which sometimes involves eating bugs.

we splashed onward, pausing to chat about things like:
⁃ the layered history of harvesting peat for fuel in Ireland's bogs
⁃ how dried sphagnum, which holds 25x its weight in water, has been used as wound dressings, menstruation pads, and diapers by the Anishinaabeg/Ojibwe and other peoples around the world living alongside bogs
⁃ tuesday pointed out that if mosquitoes take some of our blood and then get eaten by a carnivorous pitcher plant, that’s sort of a blood sacrifice to the bog??? so definitely still processing that

thanks to all for the reflections and willingness to get oh so muddy. ways to show love to the bog include checking out the quaking bog advocacy committee, trying not to buy compost with peat in it, and supporting Indigenous-led land stewardship efforts.