Darren Bush
A drone view above Hook Lake Bog.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, to reach the Hook Lake Bog, a.k.a. State Natural Area Number 242, you simply follow an unmarked path.
“Though challenging, there is a non-marked path from Sand Hill Road. It is about 1/3 of a mile to the water’s edge.”
Though challenging. My shins look like they have been challenged until they bled. They were, and they did. But it was worth it in the end.
Hook Lake is just a few miles south of Madison. It’s a rare body of water this far south in Wisconsin. As far as a lake goes, Hook Lake is slowly disappearing, with more and more bog moving into the open water. The lake may be dying, but the bog is growing. Eventually it will be unnavigable by canoe. I’m okay with that.
Hook Lake Bog is a soft water bog, which is exactly what it means: soft water, but without the Culligan man and bags of softener salt. The water that comes out of your faucet is generally neutral, with a pH of about 7. Bogs are characterized by mildly acidic water with a pH between 5 and 6. By comparison, coffee has a pH of 6.
Instead of a Culligan man, soft water bogs contain massive amounts of sphagnum moss, which soak up magnesium and calcium ions, and release hydrogen ions, which are acidic. This amount of sphagnum moss is the primary driver of a bog ecosystem, and Hook Lake has plenty.
Acidic bogs also are also lower in nutrients. Carnivorous plants love the acidic water, but they must supplement their intake of nutrients by eating insects. Pitcher plants are cool, but I really love round-leaf sundews, nature’s flypaper, if flypaper digests you. They’re abundant and look like an alien lollipop, and there’s plenty of food for them. Every mosquito eaten was one less to chew on my neck.
Despite the challenging warnings from the DNR, I had to see it in person. I grabbed the lightest canoe in the garage (my wife’s 26-pound solo), and a paddle and PFD. I did as much research as I could, using Google maps and reading all the DNR pages.
I used a small canoe cart with big wheels to better float over grass. Throwing everything in the boat, I started toward the water via a skinny strip of public land. Shotguns sounded from the nearby Oregon Sportsman’s Club, shooting clay pigeons.
I wish I had brought a machete, a pruning saw, a chainsaw, and a flame thrower. Challenging, they said. When I finally saw water, it was still behind a huge fallen cottonwood and a forgotten barbed wire fence. The bog/lake presented a small lead, just wide enough for a canoe. I had gone too far north on the lake, so it was rough going.
Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, it has been said, so rather than curse the bog, I got down to the business of enjoying the fruits of my trek, despite the blood, sweat, and more blood. No tears; I was happy. There are times when you know you’re the only person on a body of water, and it’s delicious. No one else would be insane enough to hack through where I bushwhacked.
I got down to the business of not taking too many pictures, and enjoyed the scene. There were so many species of vegetation that I didn’t know (and now do only because of the DNR), and more dragonfly species than I could count.
The eastern amberwing (Perithemis tenera) is one of my favorites, and they were everywhere. They’re the second tiniest dragonfly in the upper Midwest; their abdomens under an inch long and striped like a wasp. When they perch on a piece of dried grass, they pump their abdomens to mimic wasps, discouraging predators.
I could paddle easily a few hundred feet, but then it became (wait for it) challenging. I turned around with some effort, like doing a U-turn in a Lincoln Continental on a one-way street. I decided that the journey was the destination, because the journey wasn’t going to happen.
But it did happen. Paddling 80 miles down the Wisconsin River is one thing; paddling a hundred yards on a beautiful bog lake can be just as rewarding. And challenging to boot.
