Ive had this article bookmarked for some time - and never gotten around to posting. The  photo essay is a few years old and tells the story of the coastal bogs found on the Calvert Island-Hecate Islands in British Columbia, Canada. Over half of the islands  375 acres are covered with unusual endangered bogs.  While sharing typical plants found in Sphagnum bogs, including sundews,  wizend cedars and pine, butterwort -  the topography is very different.  Many of the bogs are found on slopes, some  as steep as 60 degrees, atypical since most bogs are  on level land, where the water will slowly wend its way through beds of Sphagnum mosses picking up tannins and hydrogen  and losing minerals creating acidic bog conditions. 

The combination of science writing and photography makes it an immersive read, and again serves as a reminder while bogs and its plants, aren't large and showy they are often are beautiful and endlessly imaginative in how they source limited nutrients from  a very harsh environment. 
 
The article and photos also won a  gold award for Best Photojournalism from the 2017 Canadian Online Publishing Awards.

Wetlands in the News

28 April 2024