Building Exhibits: Life Sciences Gallery: Building a Bog
The first thing you see upon entering the Ecozone portion of the Life Sciences Gallery is a Moose standing hock-height amongst lichens and waterlogged hummocks of sphagnum moss . The moss and lichen are real plants collected from bogs and forested areas around La Ronge in northern Saskatchewan, and collecting these plants required both ingenuity and tenacity.
Taiga Summer diorama in the Life Sciences Gallery.
The exhibits staff knew that collecting the moss would present some interesting challenges. They needed a system to transport chunks of moss from the middle of a bog to the roadside. They decided to attach long ropes to both ends of a plastic sled so that a team in the bog and a team at the roadside could pull it back and forth between them. The sales people at Canadian Tire gave them funny looks when asked for snow sleds in August, but luckily they had some in storage.
The crew knew the moss would be full of water, so they created a kind of strainer from a reclining lawn chair by removing the nylon straps and replacing them with wire mesh. In addition to the sleds and makeshift strainers, they packed hip waders, insulated rubber gloves, knives, and wooden trays that would hold the moss. A large truck was rented, and three shelves were built inside to hold the trays.
Once they arrived in La Ronge, the team scouted the area for bogs that were near the road. They parked the truck as close as possible, and three people headed out in their hip waders to the middle of the bog. It was tricky keeping their balance while walking on the moss hummocks because the thick floating mats periodically gave way under their weight, plunging them hip-deep into the icy water! The team removed rectangular chunks of moss about 1 by 0.5 metres in size, reaching under the water to cut the roots from below (this is when they learned that the rubber gloves were too big and unwieldy). Even though the waterlogged sphagnum was up to a metre thick and very heavy, the sled system worked perfectly, skidding smoothly over the bog as first the road team and then the bog team pulled the ropes. They laid the sopping wet moss out on the lawn chair "strainers" to drain. Once the water was mostly gone, the moss was placed on the wooden trays and loaded in the truck. It only took an afternoon of work to get everything they needed. Although they filled about fifty 0.9 by 0.6 metre trays, only a small area in the bog was affected.
The crew then went in search of reindeer lichen which grows on dry forested land. Finding an area with plenty on the ground was no problem. Here the only problem was an unanticipated encounter with a Black Bear. They collected about 25 trays of this creamy-coloured, feather-light plant.
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Natural plant materials contain lots of insects which are unwelcome within any museum. Once back in Regina, a fumigator was called in to treat the material before it was removed from the truck. It was then sprayed with a special glycerin mixture several times to preserve it in a supple state and to prevent it from crumbling. An air brush was used to paint the moss with its natural green and rusty-red colours. The moss and lichen were installed to match the hummocks in the diorama painting, and artificial specialty plants made by Hans Serger and volunteers were added to create a picture-perfect scene from Saskatchewan's north. |
For further information contact the Exhibits Unit