The Sifton Bog is a wetland jointly administered by the city of London, Ontario

London, Ontario

London is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, situated along the Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. The city has a population of 352,395, and the metropolitan area has a population of 457,720, according to the 2006 Canadian census; the metro population in 2009 was estimated at 489,274. The city...

 and the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority

Upper Thames River Conservation Authority

The Upper Thames River Conservation Authority is a body based in London, Ontario, Canada. It was created in 1947. It was responsible for the construction of the Fanshawe Dam, completed in the 1950s, to control flooding from the Thames River, which runs through London. During the last ice age, the...

. It is located west of Hyde Park Road and south of Oxford Street inside the city limits of London. It is a Class 2 provincially significant wetland.

Prior to 1967 the wetland was called "Byron Bog", having been at that time within the boundaries of the village of Byron

Byron, Ontario

Byron is a neighbourhood in the City of London, Ontario, Canada.Located downriver from London on the outer fringes of the city, Byron was originally called Westminster, then renamed Hall's Mill, and then finally Byron. The Byron area was settled in 1800 and first became a village in 1804...

, but it was renamed following the donation of the land by the "Sifton Construction Company". However, it had undergone a series of name changes before this time also, being variously named Foster's Bog and Redmond's Bog in the 1880s, after the occupants of the land at that time, and Spruce Bog in the 1890s. The name Byron Bog was used by the 1920s, but no record exists of its native American name.

The Sifton Bog is one of the most southerly acidic bogs in Canada. It contains a number of rare species including four types of carnivorous plants. Among the latter are the sundew

Sundew

Drosera, commonly known as the sundews, comprise one of the largest genera of carnivorous plants, with at least 194 species. These members of the family Droseraceae lure, capture, and digest insects using stalked mucilaginous glands covering their leaf surface. The insects are used to supplement...

s Drosera intermedia

Drosera intermedia

Drosera intermedia, commonly known as the oblong-leaved sundew or spoonleaf sundew, is an insectivorous plant species belonging to the sundew genus. It is a temperate or tropical species native to Europe, southeastern Canada, the eastern half of the United States, Cuba and northern South America.-...

and Drosera rotundifolia

Drosera rotundifolia

Drosera rotundifolia is a species of sundew, a carnivorous plant often found in bogs, marshes and fens...

and the purple pitcher plant Sarracenia purpurea

Sarracenia purpurea

Sarracenia purpurea, commonly known as the purple pitcher plant, northern pitcher plant, or side-saddle flower, is a carnivorous plant in the family Sarraceniaceae...

. The central bog vegetation is dominated by Sphagnum

Sphagnum

Sphagnum is a genus of between 151 and 350 species of mosses commonly called peat moss, due to its prevalence in peat bogs and mires. A distinction is made between sphagnum moss, the live moss growing on top of a peat bog on one hand, and sphagnum peat moss or sphagnum peat on the other, the...

and Chamaedaphne calyculata (leatherleaf), with a few short larches (Larix laricina) and black spruce

Black Spruce

Picea mariana is a species of spruce native to northern North America, from Newfoundland west to Alaska, and south to northern New York, Minnesota and central British Columbia...

 (Picea mariana)..
The depression which houses the bog was created, like many local geologic features, by the effects of glaciation. A depression in the Ingersoll Glacial Moraine was left by retreating glaciers. The result was a pocket with no drainage which developed into the Sifton Bog. The 0.2 hectare pond at the centre of the bog, Redmond's Pond, is the remnant of what would have originally been a larger 23 hectare water body, which has gradually filled with peat over the last 10000 years. The peat layer at the centre of the bog has been measured at 18 m (60 ft)..

Redmond's Pond is named after the Redmond family, who owned part of the land on which the bog is situated, between 1854 and 1900. The pond is less than 1.5 m (5 ft) deep, and has a pH of around 5. On the margins are surface growths of the carnivorous bladderwort Utricularia vulgaris

Utricularia vulgaris

Utricularia vulgaris is an aquatic species of bladderwort found in Asia and Europe. The plant is a free-floating and does not put down roots. Stems can attain lengths of over one metre in a single growing season, but die back and form turions in winter...

and water lily Nuphar advena

Nuphar advena

Nuphar advena is a species of Nuphar native throughout the eastern United States, and just into the extreme south of Canada. It is similar to the Eurasian species N...

, with sparse growths of duckweed (Lemna minor

Lemna minor

Lemna minor is a species of Lemna with a subcosmopolitan distribution, native throughout most of Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, occurring everywhere that freshwater ponds and slow-moving streams occur, except for arctic and subarctic climates...

) and water flax-seed (Spirodela polyrhiza)..

The bog was previously used as a commercial source of sphagnum moss, an alternative to cotton gauze. It was mined during the First World War to support the war effort and the needs of local hospitals. The Alder Buckthorn, a plant native to the bog, was harvested and used during the Second World War to produce gunpowder

Gunpowder

Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...

.