Crawford Lake: Layers in Time

One thin layer of mud at the bottom of Crawford Lake, near Milton, belongs to 1945. It records the first plutonium bomb test at Los Alamos, and that kind of clarity got the lake picked in 2023 as the "golden spike" candidate for the Anthropocene.

The lake's water layers never mix, so each year leaves its own band of sediment, readable like tree rings. You start at a central display that lets you scroll through the layers in fine detail, then move past cases pairing each stretch of mud with life on shore: Indigenous farming from the late 1200s, the Crawford family's 1874 sawmill, fly ash from the region's steel mills. The bands thinned in the acid-rain years and recovered once the pollution was cut. Of 12 sites shortlisted worldwide, the winner is closer than your cottage.

No critic has reviewed it yet, and it's a single-gallery show. It's on Level 3, included with general admission (free for Members), until 3 January 2027.