We live just above a Black spruce bog. Actually, our property is about two feet from the edge of the bog, although now that I think of it, a few years of lean precipitation and escalating temperatures and the bog is five feet away, a terrified retreat toward the pond at its center.
Technically it is called a Northern Spruce Bog (Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, 2003) or Treed Bog: black spruce/ericaceous shrub/Sphagnum (Harris and others, 1996) or Muskeg (Epstein and others, 2002) or Byzantine Bogmass Infested With Biting Insects of Jurassic Proportions With No Fear of Man (Schmoller, 2006).
A man could get lost in there, I suppose, but he is never more than a half mile from the seven houses propped up on its western boundary. He can just head toward the sunset and he is in the arms of a hospitable soul. But, of course, if he shows up on our doorstep in the middle of June, the poor soul needs a hospital. His blood count is four and dropping quickly. His eyes are wild, he complains about a whirring noise in his head. His beard is moving, but no, it is a swarm of black flies. His head is out of focus, you rub your eyes, ah, it is just the cloud of mosquitoes. This is no exaggeration. I have been there. Though scarred, I am alive to tell tales of epic battles with legions of armor clad, heavily armed, battle hardened, airborne assassins.
But, there are two ways to get to my house from the bog down below. You can walk straight up the hill with a confident stride, like a golfer on the way to an eagle putt, or you can bumble about in the bog, clueless and disoriented, slapped by branches, tripped by roots into hollows filled with black peat, like tar, like black lips that suck the boot from your foot, then your sock, then your foot, so you plant the other foot on some solid ground to give it a yank, but the solid ground is a set of roots forming a leghold trap, and they wont let go either, so you contemplate gnawing it off at the ankle. But one good leg is still down there somewhere, so you pull on it with all you have got until you hear a pop, and it is your tendons! but they can be sewn up, so you pull again and another pop and out comes your leg, in one piece, and you tumble backward out of the leghold and over a hummock and you land on a cleft in the bog mat and you slither through into an underworld of anaerobic decay and tannic acid where you experience a most marvelous transformation. Saturated by acid, avoided by microbes, chilled by groundwater, you are pickled like a cucumber, preserved for centuries as a boneless brown bag, arthritis no more, tooth decay a thing of the past, sporting a wicked tan, brain perfectly preserved, but somehow, somebody forgot to include the memory. No matter, let me fill you in. Two thousand years from now, some university types in white lab coats with pocket protectors full of gnawed pencils, scratching sun baked scalps, will stand on this spot, now an archaeological dig enclosed by tarps and bleached by fluorescent lights, and explain how this fellow came to be:
"The fellow was about 25 years of age, well over six feet tall and over 60 inches in circumference. It is not unusual to find specimens from this stratum with these dimensions; excavations show that society was exiting a period of vast wealth. Food and leisure time was abundant in many regions and it is reflected in increased body mass and decreased longevity.
"His hair was dyed a reddish-orange and a curious cross-shaped symbol was shaved in the back of his head. His body had tattoos of animals and deities. Several explanations are proposed: these were signs of tribal loyalties, were sympathetic magic to assure the success of the hunt or were protection to ward off bad spirits.
He was probably hard of hearing; our scans show he had lost most cilia and both tympanic membranes were blown open. He was nearsighted and developing cataracts. We have evidence that ultraviolet radiation reached dangerous levels during this period. His choice of this low tract of land for a travel route was probably strategic; across the continent this strata contains fire scars, an indication that roving mobs were terrorizing the countryside, probably in search of food and shelter as resources dwindled. And he may have been in the lowlands to avail himself of the cooler temperatures and water one would find there. The distribution of artifacts and skeletons suggests that many peoples were migrating from the south. Pollen studies have shown that wildfires, heat and drought ravaged the landscape during the 21st century. A bog may have been one of the few places left where one could find respite from the heat and quench his thirst.
"Piercings and scars were located on his back, shoulders, and face, showing he was tortured before he met his death. His body was left in the bog. One can only think that, as civilization deteriorated, he may have been one of the lucky ones."
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. 2003. Field Guide to the Native Plant Communities of Minnesota: the Laurentian Mixed Forest Province. Ecological Land Program, Minnesota County Biological Survey, and Natural Heritage and Nongame Research Program. MNDNR St. Paul, MN.
Harris, A.G., S.C. McMurray, P.W.C. Uhlig, J.K. Jeglum, R.F. Foster and G. D. Racey. 1996. Field Guide to the wetland ecosystem classification for northwestern Ontario. On. Min. Natur. Resour., Northwest Sci. & Technol. Thunder Bay, Ont. Field Guide FG-01. 74 pp. + Append.
Epstein, Eric, Emmet Judziewicz and Elizabeth Spencer. 2002. Wisconsin Natural Heritage Inventory Recognized Natural Communities - Working Document. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Bureau of Endangered Resources. Madison, WI.
Technically it is called a Northern Spruce Bog (Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, 2003) or Treed Bog: black spruce/ericaceous shrub/Sphagnum (Harris and others, 1996) or Muskeg (Epstein and others, 2002) or Byzantine Bogmass Infested With Biting Insects of Jurassic Proportions With No Fear of Man (Schmoller, 2006).
A man could get lost in there, I suppose, but he is never more than a half mile from the seven houses propped up on its western boundary. He can just head toward the sunset and he is in the arms of a hospitable soul. But, of course, if he shows up on our doorstep in the middle of June, the poor soul needs a hospital. His blood count is four and dropping quickly. His eyes are wild, he complains about a whirring noise in his head. His beard is moving, but no, it is a swarm of black flies. His head is out of focus, you rub your eyes, ah, it is just the cloud of mosquitoes. This is no exaggeration. I have been there. Though scarred, I am alive to tell tales of epic battles with legions of armor clad, heavily armed, battle hardened, airborne assassins.
But, there are two ways to get to my house from the bog down below. You can walk straight up the hill with a confident stride, like a golfer on the way to an eagle putt, or you can bumble about in the bog, clueless and disoriented, slapped by branches, tripped by roots into hollows filled with black peat, like tar, like black lips that suck the boot from your foot, then your sock, then your foot, so you plant the other foot on some solid ground to give it a yank, but the solid ground is a set of roots forming a leghold trap, and they wont let go either, so you contemplate gnawing it off at the ankle. But one good leg is still down there somewhere, so you pull on it with all you have got until you hear a pop, and it is your tendons! but they can be sewn up, so you pull again and another pop and out comes your leg, in one piece, and you tumble backward out of the leghold and over a hummock and you land on a cleft in the bog mat and you slither through into an underworld of anaerobic decay and tannic acid where you experience a most marvelous transformation. Saturated by acid, avoided by microbes, chilled by groundwater, you are pickled like a cucumber, preserved for centuries as a boneless brown bag, arthritis no more, tooth decay a thing of the past, sporting a wicked tan, brain perfectly preserved, but somehow, somebody forgot to include the memory. No matter, let me fill you in. Two thousand years from now, some university types in white lab coats with pocket protectors full of gnawed pencils, scratching sun baked scalps, will stand on this spot, now an archaeological dig enclosed by tarps and bleached by fluorescent lights, and explain how this fellow came to be:
"The fellow was about 25 years of age, well over six feet tall and over 60 inches in circumference. It is not unusual to find specimens from this stratum with these dimensions; excavations show that society was exiting a period of vast wealth. Food and leisure time was abundant in many regions and it is reflected in increased body mass and decreased longevity.
"His hair was dyed a reddish-orange and a curious cross-shaped symbol was shaved in the back of his head. His body had tattoos of animals and deities. Several explanations are proposed: these were signs of tribal loyalties, were sympathetic magic to assure the success of the hunt or were protection to ward off bad spirits.
He was probably hard of hearing; our scans show he had lost most cilia and both tympanic membranes were blown open. He was nearsighted and developing cataracts. We have evidence that ultraviolet radiation reached dangerous levels during this period. His choice of this low tract of land for a travel route was probably strategic; across the continent this strata contains fire scars, an indication that roving mobs were terrorizing the countryside, probably in search of food and shelter as resources dwindled. And he may have been in the lowlands to avail himself of the cooler temperatures and water one would find there. The distribution of artifacts and skeletons suggests that many peoples were migrating from the south. Pollen studies have shown that wildfires, heat and drought ravaged the landscape during the 21st century. A bog may have been one of the few places left where one could find respite from the heat and quench his thirst.
"Piercings and scars were located on his back, shoulders, and face, showing he was tortured before he met his death. His body was left in the bog. One can only think that, as civilization deteriorated, he may have been one of the lucky ones."
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. 2003. Field Guide to the Native Plant Communities of Minnesota: the Laurentian Mixed Forest Province. Ecological Land Program, Minnesota County Biological Survey, and Natural Heritage and Nongame Research Program. MNDNR St. Paul, MN.
Harris, A.G., S.C. McMurray, P.W.C. Uhlig, J.K. Jeglum, R.F. Foster and G. D. Racey. 1996. Field Guide to the wetland ecosystem classification for northwestern Ontario. On. Min. Natur. Resour., Northwest Sci. & Technol. Thunder Bay, Ont. Field Guide FG-01. 74 pp. + Append.
Epstein, Eric, Emmet Judziewicz and Elizabeth Spencer. 2002. Wisconsin Natural Heritage Inventory Recognized Natural Communities - Working Document. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Bureau of Endangered Resources. Madison, WI.
0 comments:
Post a Comment