"A world-class bog"

This caption on a photo in the local broadsheet has me snickering. Canadians - or at least the Canadian media - are obsessed about any Canadian thing that can - or cannot - be described as “world class”. Here we have that most iconic of Irish landscapes - a bog - smack in the middle of a Vancouver suburb, which has according to the Vancouver Sun attained the coveted status.

Here’s what it looks like, btw.

More pics at the link. It’s mostly privately owned, sadly, so I’ve never had a chance to go hiking there, or to steal a fragment of turf to burn for the sake of the unique scent.

I’m not sure what they mean by “world class”. We just got back from Ireland and saw lots of bogs, and they didn’t look anything like that. Over there, they mainly looked pretty dry, covered with pretty uniform green/brown vegetation. Here’s an interesting article on the various types of bog. Where we were, they were of the “blanket bog” variety.

http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/geography/bogs.html

My family and I love the bog vegetation. Bog cotton, sundews, pitcher plants. . . And the feel of bog turf – a person can jump 10 feet away and you feel the reverberations under your feet. Very cool.

“Of monsters and mud” … Hey, where are the monsters? I feel totally cheated. Like, world-class cheated.

When I read the topic title, what came to mind was something more like this:

Yet another reminder that Hiberno-English is not bog standard American.

Bob