JACKSON BOG
STATE NATURE PRESERVE - 57 ACRES

Main Feature:
A boreal fen remnant with many rare plants including pitcher-plant, fringed gentian and round-leaved sundew.

Jackson Bog is a 57-acre preserve located in northern Stark County and owned by the Jackson Township Local Board of Education. The area was dedicated in1980 as an interpretive preserve to be protected for the education and enjoyment benefits.

The "uniqueness" of Jackson Bog is a result of natural events that occurred thousands of years ago. Beginning more than a million years ago, at least four major continental ice sheets advanced into Ohio. The most recent glacier, the Wisconsinian, bulldozed its way south from eastern Canada and lumbered across much of North America about 25,000 years ago.

Jackson Bog, which is actually a fen, or alkaline bog, lies at the foot of a dry, sandy kame (a glacially deposited hill or ridge). The belts of kames in this area of Stark County provide an extensive aquifer. These highly permeable gravel deposits readily absorb surface water and then hold it in staggering quantities as groundwater.

Whenever this groundwater reaches the surface, as it does here in Jackson Bog, artesian springs and seeps result. Springs emerge from beneath the elongated kame that borders the northern edge of the preserve. It is these gravel deposits with their corresponding springs that hold the key to the very existence of Jackson Bog, as well as to its future.

Location:
Located in Stark County 2 miles north of Massillon on Fulton Drive and 1/2 mile west of the intersection of SR 687 and SR 241. Parking is available at the adjacent Jackson Township Park. The preserve is adjacent to the park. Visitor facilities include a boardwalk trail and interpretive signage.

Abide by Preserve Rules at all times