DCHP-1 Online

muskeg [< Algonk.; Cree muskāk swamp]

• 1 n. an organic bog which is a brown to black mixture of water and living and dead vegetation often covered with a carpet of sphagnum or other mosses and often of considerable depth.

  See also: pothole (def. 4)  sink-hole (def. 1)  muskeg swamp (def. 1)  

  • 1775  (1951)  [We passed over one Carrying Place of 1/4 Mile called Muskake or swampy carrying Place, also lead canoes over two falls.]
  • 1806  (1897)  We passed through three abominably ugly mashquegies, in which our horses were nearly knocked up.
  • 1824  (1955)  He saw no Tracks on that side & Le Prise from the other says he could not make out to walk at all between the Lake & the mountains being a Muskegue & much water.
  • 1933  In summer this type of country becomes almost impassable; but when winter freezes the swamps and muskegs, and a layer of snow covers everything, progress proves much easier.
  • 1964  The muskegs were stunted spruce, labrador tea, and reindeer moss.

• 2 n. terrain made up of or characterized by such bogs.

  See also: muskeg swamp (def. 2)  

  • 1860  He was two days dragging his canoe through the Muskeg, which is here nine miles broad.
  • 1880  To the north of the Fort a large extent of territory is covered by muskeg, swamp, lakelet and stream.
  • 1961  A group of CPR officials . . . attended the ceremonies in honor of the man who as managing director of the railway company helped push it through the rocks and muskeg of northern Ontario. . . .

• 3 n. the substance (humus, vegetation, etc.) of which such bogs consist.

  See also: muskeg soil  

  • 1884  There is not much farming land in this section of the line, but what there is is good, the remainder of the land is principally sand and muskeg, and also some fine timberlands.
  • 1905  The trail being spongy and full of muskeg we travelled in the water on the firm gravel of the lake-bottom for a full mile to its north-east corner.
  • 1966  . . . most of the muskeg in Canada started accumulating about 10,000 years ago, when the last glacier retreated.

• 4a n. Prairies loosely: See pothole 1902 quote.

  See also: pothole (def. 3a)  

  • 1875  His neighbour regards the prairie as smiling for the husbandman ; its "muskegs" as offering the choicest food for his stock.
  • 1953  Moving slowly, the [buffalo] were heading for a swamp country to the north where they could find green pasture in the muskeg flats.

• 4b n. loosely: a swamp or mud-hole.

  • 1897  The whole thing is a perfect gamble, there are no surface indications whatever, and the coarsest gold has been found in the most unlikely places, a good deal of it in black muck, under a muskeg.
  • 1910  (1921)  These muskegs was all made by beavers dammin' up streams, so they dry out.
  • 1942  To be sure we raise a few cattle in our small salt meadows and cut wild hay from the muskegs for our work oxen. . . .

• 5 n. Figurative use.

  • 1934  (1965)  His mind is a muskeg of mediocrity. John MacNaughton, on a Canadian professor: Queen's Quarterly, 1934, 362.
  • 1963  Mrs. Held's . . . lively prose makes the jargon and collocations of most social scientists and philosophers look like an intellectual muskeg.