It would have been easy to stay curled up in the recliner, but I’d signed my husband and me up for a Wisconsin Natural Resources class “Beautiful Bogs: Bog Ecology & Tour,” and it was time to grab our tall rubber boots. We gathered at Eagle River’s environmental center, Trees for Tomorrow. Once we met our instructors and twenty-some enthusiastic participants, I was glad we’d made the effort. I began a mental list of general life lessons. The first one was inspired by Nike. When given the opportunity, Grab your boots and get out there. Just do it.

The instructors began by sharing several bog facts. 

• Bogs take hundreds or thousands of years to develop. They’re formed when a lake slowly fills with plant debris. The vegetation eventually covers the lake's entire surface.
• They’re acidic and don’t have nutrients, so bog plants like sundew and pitcher plants need to lure in insects. 
• The sundew plant’s glittery but sticky tendrils attract unsuspecting insects. Once they land on them, it’s too late. 
• The pitcher plant allows insects to slide down its colorful pitcher, but hairs keep them from getting back up. 

The devious carnivorous pitcher plant and sundew bring a second random life lesson to mind. If it seems too good to be true, it’s probably a trap.  

The instructors had mentioned that bogs are highly acidic, lack oxygen, and contain cold temperatures, but they’d failed to talk about how that prevents the usual decomposition of bodies. I found it fascinating that the famous “Tollund” man, who was found in a bog, was so perfectly preserved the Danish people believed he’d died recently, not over 2,300 years ago. 

After we climbed aboard one of the facility’s well-used vans, I shared that I’d seen a bog body while touring a museum in Ireland. “It had leathery skin, braided hair, and I could even see fingernails.” The woman across from me wrinkled her nose. Not everyone has the stomach to hear about mummified bodies.

I decided not to mention that, according to National Geographic, (https://bit.ly/3WCwH94), some bog victims were found with nooses around their necks or arrows to their chests. Life lesson #3. Read the crowd and filter comments.

We parked and hiked through ferns and thin woods to the Katie Lake Bog. The open water is as large as a football field and surrounded by spongy sphagnum moss, various plants, and small trees. “We only have an hour,” one of our instructors said, “so we probably won’t make it all around. Remember, don’t get too close to the edge or you could fall in a bog hole.”

I try not to visualize the terror of falling in, being swept under the mat, and having to find the small hole to resurface. Instead, I delight in the reddish-colored sphagnum moss that’s springy and just plain fun. Life lesson #4. Changing my attitude changes my life.

One instructor described the mat as a water bed. My husband bounced around on the moss trampoline, trying it out. I hear a swoosh and see an older woman falling onto the mat. She had tried to lift her boot, but it had sunk. One helper offers her a hand. I get on the side with the stuck boot and tell her once she’s able to get upright, I’ll pull her boot back on her foot. It works. Life lesson #5. Sometimes it takes a team to get the job done.

One instructor pointed to a narrow area with thick leatherleaf on one side and a deep bog hole on the other. “This area is tricky. The secret is not to stop.” She demonstrates. Several of us follow. While navigating the unstable bog mat, it would be tempting to hesitate, but life lesson #6, one of my favorites, comes to mind. The secret to success is to keep going.

It’s time to return to the van, but I hope to take another class soon. Trees for Tomorrow is offering “Forest Bathing” and “Plant ID” this fall. I’ll be sure to check them out. There’s a lot more to learn in this life, and as tempting as the recliner is, I’m keeping life lesson #1 in mind. Grab your boots and get out there. Just do it.