When we imagine environmental crisis we see devasted landscapes, urban overdevelopment, massive industrial plants, mountains of waste, and overpopulation. We rarely imagine a well-kept conservation area with an undisturbed lake surrounded by a boardwalk and a recreated historical Wendat or Attawandaron village. Yet this scene represents the Anthropocene—the geological epoch marked by human impact that succeeds the Holocene (the previous epoch which spans the past twelve thousand years). Crawford Lake, a tiny body of water in a small conservation area in the heavily industrialized region close to Toronto, has been designated as a potential "golden spike" that marks the moment of global human impact on Earth. The very deep lake on the Niagara Escarpment stores layers of undisturbed sediment that track the climate over thousands of years. This historical environmental record shows us that climate change has accelerated dramatically through the unfettered expansion of industrialization, consumerism, population, and profit. Climate researchers have found layers that contain corn pollen, evidence of the Indigenous settlement and cultivation of food crops, in addition to other layers that contain carbon from steel mills close by, nitrogen from fertilizer use, and chemicals from acid rain. They have also found the radioactive plutonium which was spread globally due to nuclear weapons testing during the 1950s. The planetary memory embedded in this lake bears witness to how humans have accelerated the pace of environmental change.
Through this bucolic vista, provided by the lake, we take pleasure in the slow beauty of trees, water, and the changing seasons. As tourists, we seek relaxation and enlightenment from serene scenes that frame a view of how it was before colonization while also marking the unrelenting process of a human-made environmental crisis. Acceleration Lake is a work-in-progress project that documents a rare site that portrays the contradictory ways we experience the Anthropocene.