Bog life

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After finishing the following article I was accused of being Anglocentric and presuming that everyone understood what a bog was. I cannot apologise enough. Here's a quick explanation for those less-familiar with wetland classification. 

Swamp - Essentially a very slow moving river that looks like a lake with trees in it.
Bog - An ex-lake that became clogged with dead plant matter and now is full of peat. No trees here. 
Marsh - A wetland at the edge of a lake or river characterised by grasses and reeds. 

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You know that moment when you're in a pub and some loudmouths on the table next to you are arguing about what the defining bio-geographical characteristic of Finland is? They'll probably be harping on about Europe's most densely forested country or The Land of a Thousand Lakes. Well next time that happens have a big swig of your Babycham, get your metaphorical cat out and throw it among the pigeons because what people often overlook about Finland are the bogs. It's all about the bogs.

Last weekend Girlf., Dog and I were lucky enough to join the local branch of the Suomen Luonnonsuojeluliitto (the Finnish National Trust) for a day trip out to Torronsuo, Finland's deepest bog, a title that Dog seemed determined to verify by regularly hopping off the special wooden walkways and sinking down into the mud. It's also a good place for birding although by the time we visited most had already naffed off to warmer bogs, in fact in the distance we could see a cloud of thousands of birds disappearing into the distance. Apparantely I heard a hippiäinen, Finland's smallest bird but he too proved elusive.

Hippiäinen. The sweetest bird ever. 

It's estimated that up to 1/3 of Finland was originally covered by bog though much has now been drained to grow more trees but the boggy impact on Finnish culture is not to be underestimated. Here are some boggy facts.

1. Many intelligent people think that Finland's name in Finnish, Suomi, comes from the Finnish word for bog, Suo. Factastic!
2. Much like the (perhaps apocryphal) fact about Eskimo vocabulary for snow, Finland has an amazing bog vocabulary

• Aapa - A concave bog
• Kermi - The elevated parts of the bog
• Kulju - The lower, wetter parts of the bog
• Rimpi - The eye of Sauron the bog

Finallly. Finland is the home of the great bog sports such as:

Suolentiksen - Bog volleyball, which despite the ingredients (mud, volleyball, Finnish people) is not nearly as sexy as you might think.

  

Suopotkupallo - Bog football, which is essentially the same as playing on any school field in the UK between October and March as Brian Glover wonderfully demostrates here

 

Finally, Suojuoksu - Bog running which is not at all demonstrated by this clip but I just really liked it.

There were also rumours that in winter the snowed-over bogs make for great cross-country skiing. Please, please Accuweather, God of snow, let that happen.

Next week, mushrooms.