Our little family lives in Kanata, a suburb along the western edge of Ottawa, Canada’s capital. Each morning I drive my kids to school along roads bordered by lush maple and mixed coniferous-deciduous forests. For years, those woods felt beautifully seasonal, vibrant but at the same time fixed. They have been a silent and calming backdrop to our daily moments of connection in the few years I have before they find roads of their own.
The leaves of these sugar maple trees have become a defining symbol for Canadians. Bright, iconic, enduring, they unite us. Their five-lobed leaves wave on our flag - not only stitched into the army uniform I wore most of my life, but stitched into our national identity. Yet the living source of that symbol is being steadily erased. The trees which gave rise to that symbol are increasingly fragile. Large swathes of these spaces along our route, and across our capital, are being cleared in the name of urban expansion. This project stares straight at that quiet erasure.
James Ballantyne
While tracing the history of the maple leaf in Ottawa, I came upon The Village Maple. Captured in 1892 by James Ballantyne, its tree grew long before I was born - in a place that I now call home. It was a living witness to the birth of our nation, growing with us in the capital, a symbol of pride and strength.
That tree no longer exists - removed to make way for a seven-lane highway.
Village Without a Tree sits between those two points, a single tree lost in the past, and the measured sections being swept away presently. These images, their sequencing, their dissemination and social engagement, all seek to ask what it means to belong to a nation that clears its emblem from its land.
The project explores one of many sections identified under Ottawa’s urban expansion plan C-17. These sections, developed natural spaces with lived histories, will be wiped clear to make space for new townhouses, singles, and infrastructure. To see more of this project, please feel free to visit the virtual exhibition found HERE.
Fallen Leaves Virtual Exhibit