Cedar Bog
Stockton’s Cedar Bog has been “discovered” by generation after generation of students and claimed as their own. A short walk from N Wing transports wanderers into another world, a Narnia of sorts. It is easy to imagine the pristine, untouched land of centuries ago. Suddenly, you smell marshy, clean air, see flowing, clear water, and step onto a well-crafted, quaint wooden bridge. This place has had many names: Ewok Village, the Smoking Bridge, the Enchanted Forest, or just the Cedar Bog.
The first Cedar Bog bridge dates to around 1978. A wondrous place, the Cedar Bog is also a humid place, and unattended structures soon rot. By 1989, the first bridge had become overgrown and decayed. Stockton Action Volunteers for the Environment (S.A.V.E.) cleared the trail and rebuilt the bridge. At least once in the 1980s, students married in a hand-fast ceremony held just past the bridge in a small clearing.
By 2010, the bridge again needed repair. It had become dangerously decayed and the bog area was strewn with litter. Employees of Stockton’s Carpentry Shop cleaned the area and built a new span laid over the remnants of the 1989 bridge. Large support beams were constructed from a fallen cedar, which the team had hauled from the forest and milled in Nesco, New Jersey. The rest of the bridge was constructed from rough cut cedar. By 2021, the bridge again needed renewal and new cedar decking and railings were constructed. Visitors once again stood among the swaying, mast-like Atlantic White Cedars and sat with legs dangling in Cedick Run.
