An Acre of Time: The Enduring Value of Place

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"Once upon a time all of Canada was land, and the day is coming when it will all be real estate."

phil jenkins is a landscape artist, except that he uses words instead of paint. 

An Acre of Time 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.

Winner of the Ottawa Citizen Award for Non-Fiction

Winner of the Canadian Authors Association Lela Common Award for Non-Fiction

Shortlisted for the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Nonfiction