In Life of Pi, Yann Martel describes a floating island of vegetation with its own ecosystem that could be boarded and had animals living on it out in the middle of the ocean. It seems far-fetched, but does anything like this exist? —Tim M., UK
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Floating islands aren’t limited to swamps—Ohio has its famous Cranberry Bog of Buckeye Lake, a 50-acre mass of moss formed when the floor of a valley that was flooded to create a canal reservoir in the 1830s broke loose and floated to the surface. Besides supporting the eponymous cranberry bushes, Cranberry Bog also hosts flowers, trees, and insectivorous plants, and is stable enough that folks can hike on it. The acre-sized floating island of Island Pond in Springfield, Massachusetts, moves around regularly, attaching itself to different parts of the lake as wind, waves, or humans drive it. As this example suggests, tussocks, as floating islands are sometimes called, can be a royal pain in the drainpipe—they can block waterways, destroy lakefront property values, and clog power-plant water intakes.
Loktak Lake in India, covered by yards-thick mats of drifting vegetation called phumdi, contains Keibul Lamjao National Park. This floating wildlife preserve is home to more than 100 endangered Manipur brow-antlered deer, locally known as sangai, or “dancing deer,” because of the balletic gait necessitated by the island’s soggy footing. Though the deer are doing OK for the moment, the habitat that sustains them is threatened by the manipulation of water levels to run a nearby hydroelectric plant.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration by Slug Signorino.
