Brown: I grew up in a Minnesota bog the size of New York City; I didn't know it was special.

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When I was a kid, my dad and grandpa placated some hard-ass county inspector by piling massive dirt berms along our place in the Sax-Zim Bog. They sought to block the view of our family junkyard from passing motorists on Hwy. 7, but accidentally created a makeshift habitat for frogs.

The vernal pond at the base of the earthen wall teemed with schools of tadpoles thicker than minnows at the bait shop. When the pond began to dry up faster than the tadpoles could grow feet, I took action.

Running the hose from our trailer house, I tried to buy a few more days for my amphibious pals to metamorphize. Alas, when I returned, only mud remained. Hundreds of footprints from a dozen species of birds dotted the sludge. My nascent frog friends had been rendered into cuisine.

Experts regard the 300-square-mile Sax-Zim Bog in northern Minnesota as one of the world's most interesting natural places. Home to more than 3,600 documented plant and animal species, it's one of the few places on Earth where you can easily see the inner workings of a northern boreal forest.

Mature black spruce grow not far from deep, dense thickets of sphagnum moss, making a habitat that not only houses rare wildlife, but that also prevents vast amounts of carbon from entering our atmosphere. The bog also hides swarms of wasps and yellowjackets, which were slower than me but faster than my sisters.

Decades ago, the bog gained fame as a birding mecca, home to several species difficult to see anywhere else, including great gray owls, hawk owls, boreal owls and the Connecticut warbler. In the dead of winter, hundreds of people with high-end camera lenses scour the back roads looking for rare owls that spend the coldest months in the bog.

I should know all this. I grew up there. But when I was a kid, I only knew the omnipresent odor of diesel fuel from my family's junkyard and that nature could be a cruel playmate. Once, while picking angry red ants from my skin, mother suggested I read books instead, which is how I ended up here.

Meanwhile, my oldest son was born with an innate fascination for the natural world. Instead of video games and social media, he took to the woods. I joined him at times as we built a shared interest in birds. Soon enough, I became the stereotypical middle-aged birder. While home from college over winter break, he suggested we return to my old swamping grounds in the Sax-Zim Bog, this time with binoculars.

First, I talked to Sparky Stensaas, executive director of the Friends of the Sax-Zim Bog. The Friends are a nonprofit that preserves bogland while maintaining a series of bog walks and a visitor center staffed with guides for certain parts of the year.

Stensaas refers to the northern boreal forest as the "crown of the globe," circling around Canada, the Nordic nations and Russia. What makes Sax-Zim special is how far south it is. It's relatively close to airports in Hibbing, Duluth and Minneapolis and has rivers, lakes and meadows that attract wide varieties of people and animals alike.

"Not only the bog, but there's aspen and maple forests and lowland willow flats," said Stensaas. "The boreal forest is hard to access, but here it's really easy. That's the magic of this spot."

The Friends of the Sax-Zim Bog welcomes wildlife watchers to its visitor center near the town of Meadowlands. On the cold Saturday in January we were there, birders arrived en masse like a fluttering irruption of finches. The guide said great gray owls had been spotted nearby.

Visitors to the bog, Stensaas said, drive more than $1 million a year in business for Duluth and Iron Range hotels, local gas stations and places like the Wilbert Cafe in Cotton, where my family and I had lunch.

The Wilbert is a classic old roadside restaurant that started more than 100 years ago as a major bus stop. The clientele varies significantly.

"I saw a summer tanager last year," I heard an obvious birder say.

But at the bar, the locals shared laments. "I went to Florida last week," said one man. "I got the chigs. So, that's great."

The place serves a mean hot meatloaf sandwich, and when I thanked the waitress I asked if they got many bog people this time of year.

"You guys keep us alive through the winter," she said, referring to me as a bog person.

Eco-tourism isn't the Friends of the Sax-Zim Bog's primary mission, however. The group now owns about 26,000 acres of undeveloped swamp, which is how they hope to keep it. More than half the Sax-Zim Bog rests on public land, which means that it remains a large, wild land checkered with private farms and homes, including places like our old junkyard.

The balance between nature and neighbors weighs heavily on the bog's protectors. Stensaas said they welcome and support visitors while also making it easy to follow from afar. A live bird camera shows what's at the feeders and a popular series of YouTube videos shows some of the bog's most famous species in action.

In many ways, the bog is a surprising success story in a world struggling with declining species and environmental threats. But that success is tenuous.

Gerald Niemi, a retired biology professor from the University of Minnesota Duluth, has studied Minnesota peatlands for decades. He's also co-author of "The Breeding Birds of Minnesota" released just last year.

"I don't consider myself a birder anymore," said Niemi. "It's just a way of life."

That way of life also includes spreading awareness about threats to the natural world.

"The biggest issue — number one on the list — is land use change," said Niemi. "We're down to 19 million acres of forest [in Minnesota]; we once had substantially more than that. Native prairies are 99% lost. Its habitat changes number one, complicated more by climate change.

"I'm very concerned about my grandchildren and the world they'll see in 50 years," he added.

Our family trip to the bog this month didn't yield much in the way of birds. We saw a purple finch and a variety of woodpeckers, all common at my feeders about 50 miles northwest. But walking under a forest of century-old black spruce is a very rare treat, one that comes in January with some of the freshest cold air you'll ever inhale.

When we passed by the old junkyard, I saw the giant dirt berms had been consumed by sedges and trees, fading into a tapestry of nature that easily outlasted my family's foolish attempt to tame the bog.

I cannot recall which birds I saw as a kid, but vividly remember clouds of fireflies glowing like yellow will-o-wisps under white stars. Winters were hushed with eerie quiet, while summers burst into a cacophony. Dusk invited a chorus of frogs, birds and insects that sang in one endless drone, a sound I have not heard since. I hope another generation enjoys the privilege.