Description

Forests vary from oak-maple along outer fringe to mature undisturbed oak-hickory surrounding a sphagnum covered bog with scattered tamaracks and black spruce. Three meters of open water, 1 m deep around the bog periphery. Small marshes are scattered in upland forest depressions. Small sandy knoll in the Sudden Bog area has some prairie species. May be a remnant of a once larger expanse of prairie. Part of Sudden bog has been used for grazing (slopes to steep for cultivation). Sudden Tract, SW of the bog consists of maple-beech forested moraine hills interspersed with extensive wetland swamp and open water. Also found, are some pine plantations, portions of which are actively logged (N84HAN01ONCA).

Sudden Bog Natural Area

The Sudden Bog natural area is located 400 metres southeast and across Sprague’s Road from the North Dumfries Township Office and the former Stone School. This remarkably undisturbed landscape feature of the Carolinian Zone and horseshoe moraine physiographic region of Ontario has one of the finest remaining examples of a bog. The bog has developed in a series of kettles which are bounded by an esker and steep slopes of coarse gravel and boulder till moraines. This habitat is found nowhere else in Canada.

The natural area is owned by seven landowners on Lots 15, 16 and 17 of Concession 8, Township of North Dumfries. The care taken by those landowners in managing this beautiful natural area, of 87 hectares (218 acres) has been of benefit to the Bog and the community. Botanists have studied this natural area since 1905. The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources conducted an biological inventory in 1990 and found 412 species of plants, of which 36 species are regionally rare. Hill’s Oak, Pignut Hickory, Ternate Grape Fern, Small Beggarticks, Downy False Foxglove and Wood Vetch, which are rare to Ontario, are present in this significant and sensitive area.

Vegetation

Nineteen wetland, upland and anthropogenic vegetation communities identified. Wetland vegetation types are confined to the major kettles and to several smaller kettle depressions scattered through the uplands and include open water-aquatic with submerged and floating-leaved aquatics; emergent marsh; thicket swamps; leatherleaf low shrub bog; and black spruce-tamarack-white pine treed bog.

The steep kettle slopes and tableland areas support a variety of upland forest types, including primarily oak and maple-dominated mesic deciduous forest; oak-hickory dry-mesic deciduous forest; and oak-hickory-white pine and oak-maple-white pine dry-mesic mixed forest. Several small remnant prairie communities are found along the kettle rim, at the north end of the study area. Anthropogenic community types include graminoid old field associated with the Pipeline Right-of-Way, near the south end of the study area; old field regenerating in hawthorn and dogwood; and a small plantation of Norway Spruce. The majority of vascular plant species present are characteristic of the mesophytic woodlands of the region and southern Ontario generally; however; 42 species have Carolinian, northern or prairie/savanna affinities (Sutherland, 1990).

Representation

In terms of significant life science features and overall representative value, Sudden Bog, Paris Cranberry Bog and Oliver's Bog complement each other. Each represents a markedly different bog/pond association.

Landform

Sudden Bog is located in Site District 7-6, a broad till plain with intervening morainic ridges and spillway valleys extending from the Niagara Escarpment in a broad band westward nearly to the shore of Lake Huron (Hills 1959). Within this area, Sudden Bog is situated in the Horseshore Moraines Physiographic Region (Chapman and Putnam 1984). Sudden Bog is part of a kettle-kame formation situated on a "pitted outwash plain" at or near the confluence of the Galt and Paris Moraines. The area is characterized as a rugged, stoney ridge with moderately hilly to very hilly relief pitted with frequent kettle depressions. An esker, running southeast to northwest, parallels the west side of the main kettle depression. Sudden Bog itstelf is an irregularly shaped kettle or series of kettles, bounded by steep slopes of irregularly sorted coarse gravels and boulder till. The coarseness of the parent materials has premitted particularly steep slopes to be preserved (Karrow 1987). The soils of the Sudden Bog area include Mannheim and Dumfries loams, Burford gravelly loam and St. Jacobs sandy loam. These soils are generally well-drained, having developed on the stony-loam and loam tills of the Galt and Paris Moraines (Presant and Wickland 1971). [Sutherland 1990]

References

* Dupuis, L. 1990. Significant species of Sudden Bog/South Walsingham Sand Ridges.. Transcript of telephone conversation between D.A. Sutherland and Linda Dupuis (CNCDC) on February 14. 1 pp.

* Sutherland, D.A. 1990. A Biological Inventory and Evaluation of the Sudden Bog Area of Natural and Scientific Interest. Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Parks and Recreational Areas Section, Central Region, Aurora. OFER 9004. vi + 69 pp. + maps.

© Natural Heritage Information Centre, 1998

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