Fringed orchid
While this column usually focuses on farmers and large-scale gardeners, I decided to take a slight detour into our local Sax-Zim Bog to explore what grows and thrives there. The bog attracts visitors from all over the world, especially for its winter birding opportunities. The bog is actually a mix of habitats including “black spruce and tamarack bog, upland aspen/maple forests, floodplain forest, sandy upland pine stands, rivers, lakes, farms, meadows and towns” according to the website (https://saxzim.org ) It encompasses an amazing 300 square miles extending from just south of Zim almost to Floodwood north-to-south, and stretches from the Toivola Swamp to Stone Lake and Hwy 53, west-to-east. The bog is probably best known for its birds, especially Great Gray Owls in winter and hard-to-find species like Yellow-throated Vireos in the summer, it is home to over 2,400 species of living wonder.
I attended the bog Bioblitz on Saturday, July 17—where 65 citizen-naturalists in ten teams led by area experts found and identified over 400 species of spiders, insects, butterflies and ladybugs, dragonflies and damselflies, birds, bees, moths, lichen, fish and aquatic life, wildflowers, plants, sedges, shrubs and galls (growths on plants). It was pretty amazing to see the array of flora and fauna collected that day! I’m no expert, so it was all new to me. But to the well-versed folks gathered for the event, there were some exciting, rare finds in the bee and gall categories.
Sundew
The entire bog area was formed after the last glacial retreat in Minnesota, about 10,000 years ago. It is a wet and poorly drained area not really suitable for agricultural development or large settlements. It was discovered by a traveling minister in 1963 who saw six Northern Hawk Owls while driving down Highway 7. It turns out this family of owls was one of the first documented nesting in the lower 48 states. The Minnesota Ornithologist’s Union heard about the siting and folks started coming to see for themselves. The bog was catapulted to fame in 2004-5 when hundreds of owls came south due to a shortage of voles in Canada. That spurred Duluth bird guide Mike Hendrickson and the town of Meadowlands to cooperate in creating the Sax-Zim Bog Winter Bird Festival in 2008. The festival continues and brings folks from far and wide to our unique wetland.
It has been designated as an “Important Bird Area” by international and national organizations. But three area folks took that designation a step further in 2011 when they formed Friends of Sax-Zim Bog to “preserve and protect the Sax-Zim Bog for future generations.” Since then, Friends has purchased over 500 acres of bog in the area. They specifically purchased Black Spruce bog which provides habitat for species like the Great Gray Owl that depend on large areas of undisturbed bog to survive. In 2013-14, with local labor and materials, they built the Welcome Center at 8793 Owl Ave, Meadowlands, which now hosts field trips and other events year-round.
Bottled gentian
Volunteers and supporters of the bog have also constructed three boardwalks in various areas of the bog to highlight various bog characteristics. Auggie’s Bogwalk, sponsored by Heidi and Ben Yokel in memory of a friend of the family who lost an infant son, spans a Fringed Gentian Bog with 360 feet of tamarack for walking. The Bob Russell Bogwalk at Winterberry Bog is 1200 feet long! It was made possible by the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Regional Trails grant and fundraising by Kim Eckert, longtime friend of Bob Russell, a dedicated bird advocate. The third boardwalk is the Warren Woessner Bog Boardwalk through the Warren Nelson Bog, a Black Spruce bog. This boardwalk was made possible by a generous gift form Warren Woessner and Iris Freeman. There are also five completed trails and two under construction. You can find a map and description of all the bog tracts at https://saxzim.org/about-sax-zim-bog/sax-zim-bog-land-tracts/
Social media has really helped to spread the word about this unique area. The private group, Sax-Zim Bog on Facebook has 7,700 members! Folks share amazing photos and videos of wildlife and bog plants they’ve seen as well as educational materials and related events. A favorite is the frequent photos of “Manny” the tripod owl who lands on birders’ tripods and other posts and signs. Facebook tells us that Sunday, July 25 is International Bog Day, established in Scotland in 1991. Here is some brief information from Facebook “Bogs are peatlands of the north country. Around the world, these amazing ecosystems host bizarre plants including carnivorous pitcher plants and sundews, nestled among an often-floating carpet of sphagnum moss. Tamarack trees, spruce and cedars are joined by heath family shrubs such as bog rosemary and leatherleaf …. For centuries bogs have provided peat for fuel, and in Northern Europe, have revealed preserved human remains dating over 2,000 years old! Today few bogs remain undisturbed. Canadian peatlands are mined, their peat being shipped to China to fuel power plants in order to supply the world with goods. IBD promotes awareness of these fascinating, rare ecosystems and encourages preservation of bogs and other peatlands around the world.”
Between 5-6,000 folks from all over the U.S. and the world visit this bog each year. Far from being just a “swamp,” (with all those negative connotations), bogs are home to rare orchids (first included photograph is of a fringed orchid seen on the recent bioblitz), and carnivorous plants that eat insects (see photo of the sundew also from the recent bioblitz) as well as an amazing array of wildflowers. Bogs are peatlands, important carbon sinks and areas of rare biodiversity. And Minnesota has six million acres of them. Sax-Zim is probably the largest bog habitat at the southern end of the boreal forest. Check it out!
Monkey flower