The walk itself was a colourful delight as hues of autumn draped the bog, and I could have found my way around the maze of trails using the laminated map from the information kiosk, but this Nature Conservancy nugget came to life with help of an expert.

Situated on the state line between Maryland and West Virginia, Cranesville Swamp Preserve is the southern rendition of a “subarctic swamp”— a frost pocket where cool air settles to create a habitat more similar to my Canadian homeland. Hiking here is not about elevation gain or distance (there are five trails, all less than two miles long), it’s about diversity in a habitat formed during the last Ice Age about 15,000 years ago and I was fortunate enough to join a small group lead by Kevin Dodge, the Director of Natural Resources and Wildlife Technology at Maryland’s Garrett College.

Driving from Wisp Resort in Garrett County, Maryland along the winding, rolling backroad of Sang Run (only a local expert would be able to fill in the story behind this name! A run is creek, “sang” is slang for “ginsang” or rather the native ginseng growing along the waterway), I learned a little more about local culture and customs (including the annual “Ramp” festival held at Deep Creek Lake State Park, where locals bring in their favourite wild onion recipes to be judged).

Right off the parking lot at the swamp, Kevin dove into a litany of plant names – taking me back to college days. He pointed out cinnamon ferns, bracken ferns, red maple, black cherry, mountain ash, bristly dewberry, deerberry (the most disappointing blueberry ever – never seems to ripen), pitch pine, mountain laurel, bracken fern, club moss, teaberry, trailing arbutus, and witch hazel.

Busy repeating names, we walked deeper into the swamp, looking at sedges and sphagnum mosses, bog goldenrod and cotton grass, beak rushes and teeny-tiny carnivorous sundew plants. On my own I might have wandered on a side trail to view pitcher plants and late blooming ladies’ tresses orchids and got a wet toe as the peat moss settled beneath my feet; but I wouldn’t have guessed that this swamp was the headwaters of Muddy Creek and therefore responsible for at least one set of falls at Swallow Falls State Park. With 45-50’of precipitation a year, this is wettest part of Maryland. Nor could I have known that Cranesville Swamp is the southernmost location for tamarack – a coniferous (or cone-bearing) tree that loses its needles each autumn.

Garrett County has 90,000 acres (20% of its land base) designated as “Public Lands” – which includes State Parks, State Forests, and Wildlife Management Areas and, as I discovered with a little expert interpretation, Cranesville Swamp is one of its gems.

How to find people to interpret the hiking landscape:
• Join a hiking club and sign up for a guided hike.
• Check out your local nature centre, bird sanctuary or nearby State or National Park for scheduled walks and talks.
• Take a continuing education course in birding, plant identification, or outdoor photography.
• Volunteer for environmental conservation organisation such as The Nature Conservancy.