llewelly"The previously mentioned muskeg was something that provided a whole host of problems. For the workers that had to build the railroad through the hundreds of kilometres of muskeg, in what we call Lake Country today, they could have never known that their own personal hell would become a tourism destination a century later. One legend of the building of the line says that near Fort William, one stretch of muskeg swallowed an entire train and 1,000 feet of track."
imagine, a muskeg in Ontario, haunted by the ghost of the train it swallowed.
note: It seems to me that in the past I've read descriptions of an additional danger of muskeg, which is not mentioned here (maybe Canadians consider it too obvious to deserve mention? Or perhaps it was exagerated?) : In winter, muskeg can become frozen quite solid, easily solid enough to bear the weight of large vehicles, including trains, and therefore one might build upon it in winter, only to have whatever was built sink into the muskeg in the thaw.
nevermind, it's actually in the next paragraph:
"During the winter, the workers would build huge fills that seemed like they were stable but as soon as the frozen muskeg melted in the spring, the entire foundation would heave and totter. Muskeg holes would be filled, only for the muskeg sinkhole to appear once again. The Poland Swamp was one terrible place to work, but nothing compared to the Julius Muskeg that stretched for 10 kilometres and was of an unknown depth."
"During the winter, the workers would build huge fills that seemed like they were stable but as soon as the frozen muskeg melted in the spring, the entire foundation would heave and totter. Muskeg holes would be filled, only for the muskeg sinkhole to appear once again. The Poland Swamp was one terrible place to work, but nothing compared to the Julius Muskeg that stretched for 10 kilometres and was of an unknown depth."