Stop 3 is found on the Echo Lake side of the Town of Fort Qu'Appelle, inside the regional campgrounds. When the Geolog Tour was designed, Stop 3 had an observation tower that provided a panoramic view of many points of interest. Unfortunately, this tower has been taken down and all that remains is the marsh along the Qu'Appelle River.

Marshes

Marshes develop in water-saturated locations that are covered by shallow water, and are characterized by emergent vegetation. Emergent plants slow the wind and reduce the circulation of water, which then becomes warm and nutrient-rich.

Abundant nutrients in the marshes result in abundant animal life. There are microscopic animals, plants, and insects such as diving beetles, backswimmers, and water boatmen. Other insects such as dragonflies, damselflies, caddisflies, mayflies, and mosquitoes hatch and spend their larval or nymphal lives in the water before emerging as free-flying adults.

Birds that occupy marshes include Red-winged and Yellow-headed blackbirds, Pelicans, and Kingfishers, as well as ducks such as Blue-winged teals, Mallards, Pintails, Gadwalls, Baldpates and Ruddys. There are also Railbirds, including the American coot, and the Sora.

Finally, fish species that are common to marshes include Pike, Pickerel, Carp, and Bigmouth buffalofish.

Aerial Photo

Click here to see an aerial photograph of stop 3.

Plant species found at stop 3:

Alfalfa	Kentucky bluegrass	Silverweed
Awned northern wheatgrass	Lesser burdock	Slender wheatgrass
Awned sedge	Low prairie rose	Smooth brome
Canada thistle	Manitoba maple	Stinging nettle
Cattails	Marsh hedge-nettle	Stinkweed
Common pepper-grass	Marsh reed grass	Trembling aspen
Crested wheatgrass	Marsh yellow cress	Western shining willow
Dame's-rocket	Northern awnless brome	Western snowberry
Dandelion	Northern wheatgrass	White sweet-clover
False ragweed	Nuttall's salt-meadow grass	Wild cucumber
Flixweed	Pasture sage	Wood blue grass
Foxtail barley	Pineappleweed	Yarrow
Graceful (Canada) goldenrod	Prairie sage	Yellow goat's-beard
Great bulrush	Reed canary grass	Yellow sweet-clover
Hairy golden-aster	Sandbar willow
June grass	Saskatoon