Contributor: Phil Jenkins

Phil was born in London, England on June 15th, 1951, the day rock and roll began. He moved to Canada to embark on a career of selling English, both as writer and performing songwriter. In 1991 he published Fields of Vision: A Journey to Canada’s Family Farms, a national bestseller. Three books followed; An Acre of Time, River Song: Sailing the History of the St. Lawrence River, and Beneath My Feet: The Memoirs of George Mercer Dawson. He has written for newspapers and magazines, including Canadian and National Geographic. Since 1991 he has been a freelance columnist for the Ottawa Citizen. He writes from a straw bale house in the Gatineau Hills of west Quebec.

marquer le territoire

Laisser sa trace sur une parcelle de terre…

urban rituals for urban acres

We have inherited the city and it’s foundation, we are guardians rather than owners, we are fleeting parts of something more vast and encompassing than we allow.

pénétrer le sol…

Le concept d’individu ne s’applique pas dans la nature. Dans chaque prétendue indépendance, la vie est une colonie de co-dépendants…

to go into soil…

It’s the story, the biography of the field beneath my feet… English settlers imposed their acres on a land that before they arrived had flowed from sea to sea, joyfully free of measurement. (…) The acre’s residents; plants, trees, and animals are familiar miracles but while their story unfolds above ground, there is another running [...]

marking territory

No piece of land knows which flag it is flying or the nation that flag represents. Putting name flags on soil is a matter of convenience, so we can find one another, and state where we are from. Place names, sprayed on maps, street corners and garden gates, like graffiti, lets history know who has [...]