Wetlands may seem an odd thing to emphasize as they tend to suffer from bad press. Ancient Greeks feared the Nile’s pestilential vapours. The Slough of Despond in The Pilgrim’s Progress was composed of the “scum and filth” of all humanity’s sins. Politicians talk of “draining the swamp.”

On the other hand, First Nations hold wetlands in reverence. Mohawk culture, which includes the Wahta Nation, regards wetlands as a source of riches for medicine, food and raw materials. They offer a supply of black ash and sweet grass for making baskets, utensils and bowls, and ceremonial items. The new Water is Life display at the Muskoka Discovery Centre relied heavily on knowledge of water and wetlands provided by the Chippewas of Rama First Nation.

Aerial maps of Muskoka show wetlands are everywhere. On Highway 11, the entry to Muskoka is straight through the Jevins Lake complex, a wide-open expanse of cattails and willows and alders on the east leading into Jevins Lake. It’s a classic Muskoka wetland, dotted with peat mats, flanked by rocky barren uplands, giving way to fens, marshes and beaver ponds. It’s alive with aquatic insects, turtles and amphibians. Rare plant species and several hundred species of shrub, tree, rush, grass, reed and sedge thrive.

To the west, cut off by Highway 11, there’s a triangle with more of that marshy expanse.

That’s emblematic of the fate wetlands often suffer. It’s easy to build roads through them, easy to blame them for the mosquitoes, easy to forget that they exist.

We are beginning to realize, however, that wetlands are an integral part of the web of nature. Rather than being bleak and lifeless, they are wellsprings of biodiversity. They benefit both land and waterways.

On April 20, the Ontario government renewed its pledge of funding to build a new initiative to protect and manage the Muskoka River watershed including its wetlands.

Sixteen of 19 recomm-endations submitted to the province last year by the Muskoka River Watershed Advisory Group will be supported with the funds.  Guiding it all will be an Integrated Watershed Management approach; a master blueprint to protect the ecosystem of the watershed and manage economic and human demands on it.

It’s the holistic approach the advisory group’s chair, Mardi Witzel, was hoping for. A significant part of that approach will involve one niche of the watershed: wetlands. The proposed Integrated Watershed Management approach will be able to quantify how much Muskoka’s wetlands determine the health of the rest of the watershed.

Unlike southern Ontario, where more than 72 per cent of the wetlands have been lost to development and agriculture, most of Muskoka’s wetlands are still intact. They make up an estimated 7.6 per cent of the entire Muskoka River watershed — an area of approximately 420 square kilometres.

“We’re very fortunate in Muskoka,” says Muskoka Conservancy executive director Scott Young, “because we are in a position where we can protect wetlands, and nature. Further south, it’s all rehabilitation or restoration.”

There are some who feel the estimate of wetland area is low. Aaron Rusak, the land stewardship co-ordinator for the Muskoka Conservancy, says factoring in the linkages between wetlands — vernal pools, headwater creeks, and smaller fens and bogs – would add to the total. By that definition, Rusak says, “you could walk for miles in Muskoka and never leave a wetland.” Even a wetland mapping update commissioned by the District in 2009, using new digital aerial photography, acknowledged the challenge of defining wetland. The consultant found “the boundaries of the wetland often varied significantly, specifically in the southwest where the network of wetlands becomes very complex.”

Broadly, a wetland is a transition zone between open water and dry land. The storybook image is of an area with ponds and water lilies and bulrushes. But a reedy shoreline or stream winding through a forest could qualify. It can also be an abandoned beaver pond; beavers have been the master architects of wetlands and meadows for centuries.

Science classifies four basic types of wetland in Ontario: marshes, swamps, fens, and bogs.

Marshes are areas that are almost always inundated with water and are dominated by non-woody plants such as reeds, cattails, rushes, sedges and grasses. Rusak breaks down marshes into cattail marshes and open water marshes: the difference is just as their names imply.

Swamps are forested wet areas with trees that tolerate water around their roots: silver and red maples, black spruce, and large shrubs like alder and willow.

The two remaining types, fens and bogs, are look-alikes. They both exist in depressions and build up deep deposits of peat formed by layers of vegetation that accumulate over centuries. Fens are fed by groundwater or streams, whereas bogs get all their water from rainfall or runoff. The locally scarcer bogs are more acidic and have low nutrient levels, while fens have higher oxygen content, more nutrients and more life to them generally.

Highlighting just a few wetlands reveals the diversity of Muskoka’s wetlands.

In 1992, the Muskoka Heritage Areas Program surveyed the 425-hectare (1,052 acre) Fawn Lake complex, describing it as “one of the largest intact conifer swamp forests in the District.” It stretches north from Bonnie Lake into Fawn Lake near Stephenson Road 1. Regionally uncommon Swainson’s thrush, ring-necked snakes and blue spotted salamanders were found there. The survey identified at least 50 species of birds, 10 species of dragonflies and 161 species of plants, among a host of other creatures.

Toward the southeast end of Gravenhurst, the Lewisham Wetlands is a 786-hectare (1,942 acre) network of marshes, bogs and forest swamps and features a great blue heron rookery. Regionally rare species of plants, ducks and butterflies are recorded. a vegetation list covers some 203 species of plants.

Georgian Bay Township’s wetlands are ubiquitous, reflecting the region’s glacially scoured topography. Some are awe-inspiring, like the recently protected 2,300-hectare (5,700-acre) Tadenac wetland south of the Moon River. An appendix to the township’s official plan identifies 23 provincially significant wetlands.

Life in wetlands is also diverse and complex, and Aaron Rusak enthuses about the changes from season to season. He sees the earliest signs of springtime activity in vernal pools — large puddles, basically, that fill up in fall and winter and dry out in summer. As the ice melts in those pools, wood frogs and salamanders arrive to mate and lay their eggs.

Out in marshes, the first perceivable activity will be songs from returning song sparrows, then red-winged blackbirds, then common grackles: all welcome signs that warm weather is on its way. Not long after, the spring peepers begin their chorus. These tiny frogs gather in numbers so great their song can be deafening. They’ll be joined by the lazy snoring of leopard frogs.

By June, green frogs and bullfrogs will be calling, and turtles will be laying their eggs. Above the reeds and cattails, uncounted species of butterflies, dragonflies, beetles and other insects will be filling the sky. In fens or bogs, pitcher plants and sundews patiently wait to trap and digest insects.

Article by John Challis

Under the water, there’s a little-witnessed drama unfolding. It’s a rush to eat or be eaten. Dragonfly nymphs are voracious hunters, gobbling mosquito larvae and other invertebrates. Water tigers, predacious diving beetles, giant water boatmen, caddisfly larvae and water striders are all on the hunt for other aquatic meals.

Wetlands are essential to nature but there are broader ecological and human benefits. They’ve been described as the kidneys of the landscape, improving water quality, supporting microbial, bacterial and algal activity that digests nutrients, including fertilizers and sewage runoff, that contribute to blue-green algae blooms.

Kevin Trimble adds that wetlands buffer climate change. An ecological consultant with 30 years of experience in watershed ecology, Trimble is past chair of the Muskoka Watershed Council. He explains that layers of peat laid down by bogs and fens over generations create large storehouses of carbon.

And wetlands help maintain the “water budget” — the storage and slow release of flood flows —moderating water levels both in high water and droughts.

“Muskoka is one of the clearest examples of a strong link between the economy and the ecosystem,” Trimble says.

The role of wetlands in flood flow has drawn a lot of recent attention. In the Muskoka Watershed Council report “The Evolution of Water Management in the Muskoka River Watershed,” author Chris Cragg recommended that wetlands be assessed for their capacity to retain floodwater. It’s not a novel idea: in Winnipeg, wetlands are being successfully employed as temporary reservoirs during spring flood along the notorious Red River. Cragg’s report also noted the use in other countries of inflatable rubber dams to temporarily increase the storage capacity of wetlands.