Kids and nature.
I have a handful of children. Literally, I have five kids. That is a lot. So as a parent I have to be intentional about spending quality time with each of them... individually. Each one of them has their own interests and my wife and I do our best to encourage them. My five year old is young naturalist at heart. He spends hours of the day either pouring through oceanography books, drawing pictures of animals, or assisting in filling the bird feeders. If it creeps, crawls, swims or flies outdoors he's into it.I'm setting the table so you don't find what I'm going to say next so weird... While some of the kids have gone with me to baseball games, or airshows, etc... I knew we would need to find something else for the little naturalist. Something more in his wheelhouse. So he and I talked about it and came to a decision. We would drive to a boreal forest bog in northern Minnesota to look for Owls. Odd for a five year old right? ...Well he was ecstatic!
About the bog.
Our trip was planned for the Sax Zim Bog, located east of Grand Rapids and north west of Duluth, MN. The Minnesota DNR website says the bog consists of a mixture of state, county, private land, the Cloquet Valley State Forest, Whiteface River State Forest, the Sax, and two units of the Zim Wildlife Management Area. The sand and peat soils are perfect for lady's slippers and other species of bog vegetation. The bog is most well known as a wintering area for the elusive Great gray owls, Northern hawk owls, and Rough-legged hawks. Beyond the rare raptors the bog is also home to a host of other uncommon birds that bring birders from around the country.
We departed well before the sun rose and arrived just after it breached the eastern horizon. We spent around six hours combing the bog. While our primary search was for the Great Gray Owls, and we failed to spot any, we did stumble across a lot of other fun critters. We got some great photos of some gray jays which the little guy was hoping to see. At one point a large Northern Goshawk skimmed over the treetops and flew directly over the sun roof of our SUV.
We also had fun finding two different porcupines. They were easy to spot in the sparse winter treetops. They look like diminutive wookiees clinging to the branches. My son circled several times around the bottom of the tree while the chunky quill pig kept a wary eye on him. We talked about how the only natural predator the porcupine had to fear was the fisher.
Now for the hiking element...
During winter, many areas of the bog can be freely traveled on snowshoe. There are both trails near the welcome center as well as open space in the wildlife management areas that make for a hiker/snowshoe paradise. The forest is extremely quiet and there is something about a bog that makes you feel like you are walking in a forgotten time.
I can't speak for the experience in the summertime, but I'm recommending a winter trip for hikers, birdwatchers, or nature freaks. If nothing else, you can come back with a good bog monster story! ;)
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