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Well its another of those Friday articles! Hopefully if you’ve had the appetite already this weekend you’ll be jetting off to Canada to start your Canada Trip! If not, that’s no problem – you’ll be heading out soon right? And if that’s the case, here’s another trail in that awe inspiring place that is Algonquin Provincial Park.
The trail I’m covering in this article is the Spruce Bog Boardwalk, a completely ‘paved’ trail that, although being longer than the Hardwood Lookout Trail, is actually easier, and is suitable for wheelchair users. As on all my articles on the Trails of Algonquin Park, I’m going to reiterate the usual tips. Remember if you’re going to park up anywhere in Algonquin Provincial Park or do any of the trails, you’ll need to pull up at the gates (big buildings just off the side of the road either end of Highway 60) and go in to get a Permit. These are $15.00 currently but the rates do change depending on the time of year.

Make sure you’ve picked up one of the Algonquin park news papers while you’re getting a permit, they’re free and they’re very .. VERY useful to use the map on the back so you know where you are going!

Before you go on any of these trails, remember to have brought with you, proper walking equipment – for example decent walking shoes with a good degree of tread, and comfortable clothes suitable for what ever the weather may be on the day you go on the trail. Another thing you’ll want to factor in is the bugs! If it’s forecast to be warm, chances are you’ll be up against the Mosquitoes and or Black Fly – so bring your bug repellent!

The Spruce Bog Boardwalk is a 1.5km, wheelchair-accessible loop which will take you across two separate bogs, the Sunday Creek Bog and a small kettle bog, enabling you to see at close range the little known bog habitat. About half of the trail’s length consists of boardwalk sections resting on bog mat.
To be honest, although it’s an easy trail, one of the very easiest in the park, for me it was actually the most fun. The variety of different sites sounds and environments you pass through make no section of it particularly samey.

The Spruce Bog Boardwalk trail is located at the 45.2KM point on highway 60, so keep your eyes open for the kilometer marker posts so you can find your way to it. It should take about 1 hour to go round and as I’ve said previously it’s defined as an easy trail, one of only 3 ‘easy’ trails in the park.

When you pull into the car park, you’ll see there is a small toilet block should you need it while in the area. The trail starts as normal at the big sign which also dispenses your guide booklets. If you want to get the most from the trail, as always I’d recommend you taking one – and even purchasing it by depositing $0.50 into the collection pipe.

As soon as you start on this trail, you’re immediately taken on the board walk. A wooden path built on top of the boggy marsh underneath it. Occasionally you can see underneath the current boardwalk the remains of a previous boardwalk which had existed in the past though had succumb to the damp environment that it rests on top of.

You come fairly soon to the first point in your trail guide which then gives you a round up of the flora that’s around you – including the black spruce trees and the carpets of moss. It’s at this marker also the guide will explain exactly how these bogs were formed and even how the presence of particular animals helped create the environment you’re able to walk through.

After you have walked over the first small arm of the bog, you’ll find yourself back on solid ground briefly, and as you turn to the right on the trail your first view of the open bog can be seen through the parting in the trees where the trail takes you

as you make your way through the trees you see the beginning of the boardwalk once again as it makes its way out into the marshy land, at parts you wonder how it’s not simply sinking in as the bog is completely waterlogged, thousands of years of fallen leaves and dead plant matter built up into a thick peat – and you’re walking on a remarkably sturdy wooden path crossing the very centre of it. This is when you’ll find your second post which explains everything you would need to know about this particular open bog. If you’re unlucky with the bugs – this is going to be one of their hot spots – standing water is right by the boardwalk!

If you walk a little further, on the right there is a bench – built just out from the board walk so you can sit for a while and listen to the birds and the breeze as it rustles through branches. It’s also quite interesting to look around you and see where the bog starts and the trees end – forming this natural clearing in an otherwise very wooded area. If you continue then, further up the trail, you’ll start to see the thin trees which are trying their best to march into the bog, thin and scrawny at first, gradually getting better and better established until you finally set foot on the ground once again to walk through yet more woods. Keep a look out for the various plants the guide book talks about, as it gives you a sense of curiosity to find them, having explained the various uses some of the plants had actually been used for – such as Labrador Tea!

Not much further along you’ll now come to the Kettle Bog. In a nutshell, these form by a large ice block which existed for many many thousands of years, which had been first stranded by a glacier, then buried by sand and gravel. As temperatures rose, the ice melted allowing the covering sand and gravel to sink causing a large almost circular hole in the ground – filled with water. It’s then in this water that the plant life surrounding it encroach on, making the bog. These days – or at least certainly the day that i was there, there was no visible water at all, just what looked to be almost a meadow! but don’t be fooled.. this cover simply masks a small lake of water. Eventually of coarse this will be completely filled with peat, but not for many thousands of more years. Obviously, don’t try walk onto it? You’d only be doing something woolly mammoths were considered stupid for doing many many thousands of years ago, when we find their remains preserved for thousands of years in the acidic, oxygen-poor peat nine metres down!

The kettle bog is about half way round the trail, you start to head back, following the trail, and you initially once again find yourself walking through a wooded bog – the boardwalk surrounded by a number of trees – and the sunlight dappled on the walkway through the canopy. As in my photo below, there’s also a number of trees that haven’t been so lucky in recent storms which can occur in the area, being blown over – though still supported in part by their old neighbours

when you once more find dry land, you’ll have almost finished your bog board walking experience, from here on the most of the walk is on land. There’s some particularly photogenic cliff faces draped in a covering of brown dried old pine needles and other leaves on the left as you make your way back.

The final part of the walk takes you over the last part of the bog, and across a small bridge that almost looks like it’s being washed away by the almost stationary stream flowing beneath it and across the bog – it’s at the next numbered post where you will learn how humble beavers 7,400 years ago built dams to set the stage for the bog in the first place. From here its a straight walk back to the car park!

My only word of caution i will give about this particular trail, is that the boardwalk is as you can see from the photos above, not always fenced on either side. The majority of the boardwalk is actually unfenced, so if you’re going with children, remember to keep a very close eye on them and keep them close..

Honestly though, if there’s only one trail you do, being short of time or short on energy, this is the one I’d absolutely set as a must to do. Its a relaxed beautiful trail where you can set your own pace and just enjoy the nature around you – and as you’re walking over the wooden boardwalk – it almost seems that you’re literally walking on water.. giving you a privileged feeling to be there looking at the middle of a bog.. without the need for the usual accompaniment that goes with seeing the middle of a bog – drowning!

For more information about Algonquin park and its Trails and attractions – remember to check out our Algonquin Provincial Park section
And you can also visit Algonquin Park’s official Website.

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 18th, 2010 at 9:10 am and is filed under Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.