When I asked an Estonian native for advice on must-see sights in the country, the first recommendedation was to visit a bog. Bogs are like American marshes or wetlands but involve slighty deeper bodies of water. Bogs and mires together cover about a fifth of Estonia's territory. They are at the center of recreational activities in Estonia, such as swimming, hiking and mushrooming, and they are celebrated in traditional folklore. By far the strangest thing that people do in bogs is "bogshoe," which is like snowshoeing, but in the middle of the moss and pits of the bogs.
The bogs and mires of Estonia boast several species of plants that can only be found in this swampy environment such as Lunaria rediviva (a hairy perennial herb), Rubus arcticus (an Arctic bramble or raspberry), and Mulgedium sibiricum (a Siberian daisy-like flower). You can also find Estonia’s only carnivorous plant , the sundew, in its bogs. Interestingly, the thickness of the bogs' moss layer, which can be up to six meters, preserves old fossils and plant life very well, to the point that Estonian bogs and mires sometimes harbor species that originated in the last Ice Age!
