Village Squire, 1980-11, Page 27DAYTRIPPING
A tour guide will take your through the Sifton Bog, and admission is free.
[Photo by W.A. Edwards]
Naturalists's Paradise
BY EILEEN CADE-EDWARDS
If you are a naturalist, if the wild and
the primitive appeal to you and the far
North calls, but is out of the question,
consider, instead, London's 15,000 -year-
old Sifton Bog, located on Oxford Street,
just east of Sanatorium Road, directly
across from Oakridge Mall at only a
fraction of the distance!
There's no admission fee to this
70 -acre naturalist's paradise of floating
spagnum, crystal-clear water and rare
inhabitants, no "Keep Off " or "Keep
Out" signs. One is required only to
respect this relic from the ice -age -
taking nothing, destroying nothing. For,
as those who have worked unyieldingly to
save the area from such dangers as urban
development, point out - if everyone who
visited the bog took just one minute
treasure away with them, there would be
nothing left for others to enjoy, in an
unbelievably short time.
Although the visitor can enter the bog
by the small gate at the left of the main
entrance and parking lot and explore the
area by himself, the best way, especially
in the case of a first trip, is to contact the
University of Western Ontario (UWO) at
679-6171 about joining a group led by an
experienced guide who will point out and
identify things of special interest. The
tiny jewel-like sundews, for instance, are
almost indistinguishable to the
unpracticed eye but once they've been
pointed out and examined, it will be
discovered that the whole bog is lavishly
embroidered with them.
Our guide on one of our early bog
expeditions was Dr. W.W. (Bill) Judd,
professor of zoology at U.W.O. Dr. Judd
has written a series of scientific papers on
the bog and its inhabitants and has done
much to stir up interest in preserving the
area, so questions came from all
directions as we followed our knowledge-
able guide across the wooden observation
walk erected by the Public Utilities
Commission to protect the delicate plant -
life. Before its construction people
walked distructively over the floating
spagnum carpet trampling down such
treasures as orchids, pitcher plants,
bladderwort, cotton -grass, bog -cran-
berries and a host of other fragile plants.
"What's THAT that looks like a
mouse?" asked the youngest of our
group.
"It's a bog -lemming," replied our
guide," and you don't find these little
animals anywhere but in a bog."
"How deep is the spagnum?"
"Sixty feep deep, in some places."
"Wow!"
And the questions keep coming. There
will always be questions because Dr.
Judd is so personally involved with the
bog that his interest and enthusiasm are
both contagious. We can't learn enough.
At the very centre of the bog is
Redmond's Pond. It's 60 feet deep and so
clear you can see the stones at the bottom
of it. And this is where we stopped, for
the wooden walk ends and the area is
encircled with black spruce and larch. We
could have been anywhere EXCEPT in
the heart of a city. We could have been in
Algonquin Park or Muskoka ora thousand
miles further north.
Our guide explains the phenomenon.
About 15,000 years ago the whole top
half of the American continent was
covered by a glacier about half a mile
thick. When it receded it left hollows or
bogs in the ground that never drain
completely, although they are subject to
the natural aging process of inland lakes
and ponds, of course.
Unfortunately, this remnant from the
ice age survived this long only because
very little could be done with it, we were
told. In other words, it's intact still, for a
lot of negative reasons. For example—a
drainage ditch which runs from
Redmond's Pond to the Thames River is
the remains of an early attempt to drain
the area for the planting of celery.
Fortunately the water was too deep!
Then, some years later, a railway -type
track was laid to haul peat from around
the pond, out to Oxford Street—the gulley
still remains where the track used to be.
More recently the threat has been from
an encroaching subdivision and already
many fine homes sit right on its doorstep.
But this is as far as they may go, for the
bog is now a protected area. A blessing
indeed for the bog copper, and the bog
elfin butterflies, the black -masked wood
frog, the lemmings and all the other
bog -fauna and bog -flora who call this
home --not forgetting the appreciative
bog -visitor who has grown to love this
hauntingly lovely legacy from our
primeval past.
"Is that an orchid over there by those
bushes?"
"How many years will it take for the
spagnum moss to close over the pond?"
"Wouldn't a person sink if they stood
on this wet stuff for very long?"
The questions go on and on. . . and so
does the involvement.
VILLAGE SQUIRE/NOVEMBER 1980 PG. 25