Welcome to the hidden world of peat
Embark with me on a journey to document northern peatlands in Adirondack Park, through the seasons and across the years. A combined aerial and ground-based imaging approach will provide an immersive experience into one of the most remote and inaccessible ecosystems on the planet, while ensuring minimal impact to this fragile habitat.
In the face of climate change, documentation is more important than ever.
Climate change is threatening the persistence of these delicate ecosystems, as well as the plants and animals endemic to this habitat.
I will be exploring the southernmost point where northern peatlands exist––the high peaks wilderness of Adirondack Park. What we learn here will help predict the future of similar habitats further north. By studying changes on the southern range of this ecosystem, perhaps we can help ensure these places––as well as the unique plants and animals who rely on them––continue to thrive.
I invite you to walk with me on a bed of spongy moss, and to float above tannin-stained bogs. Stand with me among ancient black spruce trees, wade among acidic waters, and listen to the squelch of our boots treading lightly across saturated sphagnum.
This is where our journey begins…
Northern Peatlands
Frozen in time
Nestled in the heart of Adirondack Park there are vast swaths of sphagnum moss stretching across the horizon. Ancient black spruce trees and fields of sedges pepper a dense blanket of green, red, and gold moss. This spongy riot of color and texture conceals another world beneath the surface. What looks like a wide and flat valley is actually a floating raft of vegetation submerged in water.
This is not a meadow or tundra stretching across solid ground. This is a water-logged burial ground frozen in time.
The plants thriving on the surface are rooted upon an ancient, water-logged bed of their dead and decaying ancestors. In some areas, this mat is deep enough to bury a three-story building. The oldest vegetation at the bottom of the peatland can be tens of thousands of years old. Saturated in water and deprived of oxygen, dead plant material decays at a sluggish pace, compressed under the pressure of the next generation of living plants.
These expansive, floating mats are called peatlands, and their future is in our hands.
Join me as we explore one of our planet’s wildest places.
Dive into the first chapter of Northern Peatlands below…
First Steps
On October 8, 2021, Peatland research biologist Steve Langdon steps from a dirt path onto a sponge of sphagnum moss, quickly sinking up to his shins. As he treads across the sphagnum moss, I study each step he takes, noting the texture and appearance of the patches he avoids. I take my first step, sinking to my knee and promptly topping my boot. Water squishes between my toes, and the moss hisses as I displace the subsurface water. My next step finds firmer footing, and I find myself suspended upon a floating island of peat.
I can’t stop grinning as I make my way towards Steve, who looks back at me from the shade of a gnarled black spruce.
Steve looks the part. A once-reflective orange vest drapes over his tattered blue-and-gray flannel. He wears a brown ball cap pulled low over his eyes, and his red beard is peppered with gray. He carries a smile in his eyes, and his barking laugh is always close at hand.
He holds a set of four-foot long, canary-yellow, fiberglass rods that thread together into one long pole. In a deep gravelly murmur, he tells me they are chimney-sweep tools. Occasionally he stops to push a rod into the sphagnum, threading sections together until he hits the bottom of the peat. In some places, he attaches all four of the segments before finding the bottom. This is just one of the many tools he uses to study this area and to learn how it is changing over time.
Our steps squelch as water rushes into the small depressions we leave behind, slowly inflating again as we trudge across a sea of sphagnum.
Peatland researcher Steve Langdon poses for a portrait with photographer Dustin Angel and Exhibit Developer Stephanie Hanson. Steve’s portrait and work is featured in Climate Solutions, a permanent exhibit at The Wild Center in Tupper Lake, New York.
Brushing the surface
We take different paths, not wanting to tread on the same plants twice. I’m filled with a sense of awe for this ecosystem that is at once both resilient and fragile. Everything living here can survive extreme acidity, sun exposure, and brutally harsh winters, but repeated compression will spell out their demise. Researchers like Steve have special permission to tread lightly in pursuit of their research.
Walking with Steve and learning about this place that he has spent a lifetime exploring and studying, I’m struck by how little I know about peatlands. As a biologist and science photojournalist who has come across the subject of wetlands frequently––but never studied it deeply––I realize my knowledge is like the living sphagnum layer floating above the dense peat. An entire world lives beneath the surface, and my knowledge gives way each time it is tested.
As we walk deeper into the peat flats, each mystery draws me closer and feeds my curiosity and sense of awe.
One visit is not enough. This first pilgrimage kicked off what has grown into a multi-year project capturing this bizarre landscape. In two years, I am only beginning to brush the surface.