Читать книгу Shaped by Snow. Defending the Future of Winter онлайн

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My father grew up on a fruit farm in Provo, Utah, near the mouth of Rock Canyon. The farm was settled by my greatgrandfather’s family at the beginning of the twentieth century when they immigrated from the mountains of Northern Italy to the mountains of the American West, bringing a knowledge of the land and the family name “Bounous” with them. It was a large plot of productive land that fed the surrounding community for decades, until the city of Provo took the land out from underneath our family through the power of eminent domain. They replaced acres of orchards partially with Timpview High School, one of the largest schools in Utah Valley. Most of the fruit trees, however, were ripped out and replaced with grass. Just grass. My sister, cousins, and I used to wander out of our grandparents’ backyard, which still sits on a small corner of the original farm, to go play on this grass. But there’s not much adventure to have out there. A small playground, a running track; not the adventure that we would have had if we’d been able to chase each other through the rows and rows of fruit trees. They named this plot of grass “Timp Kiwanis Bounous Park,” and gave my grandparents what the city considered “just compensation.” But how can you possibly capture the compensation required of robbing an entire community of fresh fruit, stripping multiple generations’ work of tending to the land and almost century-old trees, and erasing the fantasies and wonder of children not yet born?