A monster bog parked stubbornly on a lake near Brainerd appears to be on the move at last.
Brainerd's bog is budging, just a bit
Crews cut a middle section and unblocked some of the beach.
June 11, 2018 at 4:34AM
The 4,000-ton, 4-acre floating marsh broke away last October and collided with several boat lifts and docks on North Long Lake, drifting for weeks before planting itself on a beach in Legionville, Minn.
Despite efforts to move it along or chop it into pieces, the mass remained stagnant, causing the American Legion to cancel its youth safety camps scheduled to start Monday.
On Friday, the bog completely blocked the beach area. But by Sunday, crews of volunteers were able to move the middle section by cutting it into chunks, Kevin Martini of the Department of Natural Resources told KARE 11.
The DNR plans to chain the portions they moved so they can't drift back to the Legionville beach.
Moving the section in front of the beach was Sunday's goal, according to the KARE 11 story. Other pieces will have to be shifted later.
American Legion officials nixed its annual camp, which hosts 600 children for school patrol training, because they feared that a curious camper might try to explore the slough.
The waterlogged soil is unstable, and a child could be pulled beneath it, trapping them under the water.
Breakaway bogs aren't uncommon on lakes, but this one — made of bulrushes, tamarack trees and muck —is especially large, officials said.
A daylong effort in mid-May failed to move the mass. More than three dozen volunteers attacked with a flotilla of boats packing thousands of horsepower, trying to pull the bog offshore. The bog refused to budge.
Erin Adler • 612-673-1781
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