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An Acre of Time

Auteurs

Phil Jenkins

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Paramètres

274pages
10 heures de lecture

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"An Acre of Time is the history of one acre of LeBreton Flats in Ottawa, Canada. It is about the way land becomes territory, territory becomes property, and property becomes real estate. It’s about the process by which man alters the place he inhabits. By taking a single acre of Canada and examining it in unexpected ways, Jenkins has produced a highly original celebration of place, a book at once eclectic, invaluable, and unique. In this strikingly inventive book, he stakes that acre and recounts the story of its life. He rides a glass elevator up from the earth’s core, describing the geological strata he passes through before reaching the surface. He watches the land submerge beneath salt water that rises as high as the tallest Ottawa skyscraper, a place where 10,000 years ago beluga whales cavorted. He climbs a pine tree and sees Samuel de Champlain paddle up the Ottawa River, intent on converting the native Algonquins and claiming the acre for France. He walks down Duke Street in the early nineteen hundreds and reports on the desolate acre of today, studying its endangered flora, fauna and future. The acre was part of the land expropriated by the National Capital Commission in the 1960s. Buildings were bulldozed, lives transplanted, and a huge government complex was envisioned. Excerpt: 'I’ve come here from my home in those hills to unearth a story, a rolling tale of lava and glaciers, of tropical seas and waterfalls, of whales and white-tailed deer, of Indians and pioneers, millionaires and paupers, firestorms and bulldozers, railways and lumber mills, facts and gossip. It’s the story, the biography, of the field beneath my feet. Every story has its borders; the borders of this story are the four sides of the acre I’m standing on, a single page from the book of land.'"-- Provided by publisher