I spent my entire life in Surrey, British Columbia. I was born in Canada, but my father took me to India when I was about eight months old so my grandparents could raise and care for me. That was because my parents had to work and earn money in Canada, and they had no other choice because no one was willing to look after me while they were both at work. My grandparents came to Canada in the 2000s, and I came with them. When I came back with them, I was around three years old. My mother was born…

My environmental history begins on two coasts of Canada. On my father’s side, my grandparents arrived in the 1950s from Italy, settling in Port Alberni, a small town in the middle of Vancouver Island and on the way to Tofino. On my mother’s side, my grandfather was born in the Prairies, the son of settlers from England. My grandmother, of Scottish descent, was born and raised in East Vancouver. Each side of my family shows a different ecological story. The coastal rainforests of British Columbia, the dry grasslands of the Prairie provinces, and the urban ecosystems of the Lower Mainland….

My family’s relationship with the environment has changed dramatically over just two generations. My grandparents were born in a rural village in northern Yemen, where the mountains shaped everything from how people built their homes, what they ate, how they moved through the world. They lived close to the land, not out of choice but necessity. My grandfather farmed terraced fields carved into steep hillsides, growing wheat, barley, and qat, while my grandmother kept goats and chickens. Water was scarce, so they built stone catchments to store rain and dug deep into the mountains for wells. Their lifestyle was minimalist…

My grandparents left the Soviet Union in the 1930s, where they were small-scale farmers in a Mennonite community in the south. At this time, millions were dying from starvation under Joseph Stalin. My grandparents rarely talked about their lives there but often shared fond memories about life in Canada. After leaving the Soviet Union, they started their new lives in Drumheller, Alberta, where my grandfather and his nine siblings and parents lived on a farm. Although they had land and room to grow food, supporting a family of 11 was difficult. They had a couple of cows and grew a…

   My parents emigrated from Northern India to Ontario Canada in the early 2000’s. The historical environments of my family have mainly been rural and suburban locations in India and Canada. I will show how differences in generational values have influenced views and relationships to the environment for different generations in our family.    My grandparents were born and raised in India, in the city of Amritsar. Occupationally my grandfather worked at a local university. On my fathers side, my grandfather worked for an early telecommunications company. He traveled from a rural village to a major city to conduct business…