My Family Environmental History
September 29, 2026 By: MANLI CHEN
My family’s environmental history begins in Benxi, in Northeast China. Across three generations, my family’s relationship with the environment changed from direct dependence on farmland and forest, to industrial production and town life, to my own more reflective relationship with mountains, lakes, wildlife, and climate in British Columbia. Each generation became more separated from direct resource use, but none of us became separate from nature.
My grandparents lived in a farming town near Benxi. Their environment was partly natural and partly human-made. They had farmland and managed a piece of forest, so their daily life depended directly on soil, trees, crops, animals, seasons, and labour. They grew corn, rice, and soybeans, kept pigs, chickens, ducks, and cows, and grew vegetables in a garden and greenhouse. For them, nature was not mainly scenery or recreation. It was food, work, livelihood, fuel, and family security.
The forest provided timber and fuel, but it was also part of the family’s sense of stability. My grandparents’ environment was not untouched wilderness. Farming and forest use changed the land through fields, gardens, animal pens, houses, paths, and cut timber. Their life depended on transforming nature, but also on living within its limits. Weather, soil, harvests, animal health, and the condition of the forest all mattered directly. I do not know enough about the history of the crops, trees, and animals around their farm to say which were native and which were introduced, but the landscape was clearly shaped by both nature and human activity.
By my parents’ generation, the relationship between farming and the surrounding mountains had begun to change. I remember that the local government restricted farmers from grazing cattle and sheep on the mountains to protect plants and shrubs. During the rainy season, mudslides had sometimes rushed down the mountains and flooded houses below. No one was hurt, but the landscape had become fragile. Measures to close parts of the mountains for reforestation were still being enforced as the local economy gradually shifted from farming toward industry. This showed that the environment was not only something people used. It was also something they had to repair and protect.
My parents also grew up and lived in Benxi, but their environmental world was different. They did not live mainly as farmers. They owned a beer factory with more than 300 workers, which moved the family from direct agricultural life into industrial production. Still, the factory depended on nature. Beer production required water, grain, energy, machinery, bottles, transportation, and workers. Unlike my grandparents’ farm, these resources were less visible as nature. They appeared through pipes, roads, trucks, machines, suppliers, and markets.
Some of my strongest memories are sensory. I remember the smell of fermenting brewer’s grains. From time to time, my mother asked me to go to the factory to fetch yeast for making mantou, or steamed buns. I can still remember those buns having a subtle fragrance of hops. That memory reminds me that industrial production was not separate from family life. The factory entered our home through food, smell, work, and routine.
I also remember the noise. The machinery roared every day. Drivers from the transport fleet left one after another, carrying crates of beer to distant places. Coal trucks moved back and forth across the factory grounds. Toward the end of the 1990s, the factory began shifting from coal to natural gas because of concerns about pollution. This change shows how my parents’ generation lived in a more industrial environment while also beginning to respond to problems created by energy use.
My parents lived in a more urban and built-up environment than my grandparents did. They bought groceries instead of producing most of their own food and travelled by car or bus. My family’s class position also changed. My grandparents lived in a rural farming world, while my parents moved into a more business-oriented middle-class life through the beer factory.
My own relationship with the environment changed as I grew older. In elementary school, I remember more freedom and closeness to the countryside. I think fondly of running through fields and rural spaces. One image that stays with me is the jujube tree in front of my grandparents’ yard. That tree represents childhood, family, and a natural world that felt close and familiar.
In middle school, my life became more separated from that environment. I studied at a private boarding school far from home. Life revolved around studying, and there was little time for play. I was surrounded by tall buildings and heavy traffic. Sometimes I looked out the classroom window at the green mountains and thought of my grandparents’ yard, the jujube tree, and the green hills and clear waters of childhood. That contrast helped me understand that nature can become more meaningful when it is no longer part of daily life.
Later, moving to Canada changed my environmental awareness again. Vancouver introduced me to a different kind of urban nature, but Nelson has shaped me more deeply. Living near Kootenay Lake, the mountains, forests, and wildlife has made nature feel close again. I walk, play soccer, visit Lakeside Park, and see animals such as bears, skunks, and deer nearby. At the same time, the environment around me is still partly human-made through roads, houses, parks, transportation, and other development.
Living in Nelson has also made me more aware of environmental change. Wildfire smoke in summer, low snowfall in winter, and dry conditions make climate change feel more real in my daily life. My grandparents watched weather because it affected farming. My parents dealt with energy because it powered the factory. I watch weather because it affects fire risk, snowpack, lake systems, and daily life.
Looking back, my family history shows a movement from direct use of land, to industrial use of less visible resources, to my own environmental awareness. My grandparents depended on the farm and forest. My parents’ lives depended on business, transportation, water, grain, coal, and natural gas. I live in a world where nature feels both close and vulnerable. In the future, I want my relationship with the environment to be more conscious than passive. Living in Nelson has made me want to use less, waste less, and pay closer attention to the land, water, forests, and climate that support my life. The main lesson for me is that no generation is outside nature. We only experience it differently.