Snow pictograms made for the Catskills villages flooded in 1915 to provide drinking water for New York. Photo by Trebbe Johnson

New York City needed water--water for drinking, cooking, bathing, cleaning apartments and offices. And where was this water to come from? It would come from the valleys along the Esopus Creek in the Catskill Mountains, decided the newly created New York City Board of Water Supply. Wielding the principal of eminent domain, the agency began buying up the lands of twelve communities a hundred miles north of the city.

On the day in 1915 when the water began flowing out of the new Ashokan Reservoir and through taps in New York, city people celebrated and children jumped up and down in the spray of fire hydrants. But in the Catskills, a feeling of bitterness has lingered for generations.

Ever since Radical Joy for Hard Times was founded in 2009, the board of directors has included in their annual board meeting an Earth Exchange for a wounded place. On March 7, at this year's gathering, they went to Ashokan Reservoir. After spending reflective time along the waterway, the group decided that for their act of beauty they would draw pictograms in the snow to depict the houses, churches, school, stores, trees, and creek that were flooded to make the dam.