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The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed, by John Vaillant
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Review
“Worthy of comparison to Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild. . . . A story of the heartbreakingly complex relationship between man and nature.†- Entertainment Weekly“Absolutely spellbinding.†- William Grimes, New York Times“John Vaillant has written a work that will change how many people think about nature.†- Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm“A haunting tale of a good man driven mad by environmental devastation.... [Grant Hadwin's] appalling tree surgery is as vividly wrought as one of Patrick O'Brian's shipboard amputations.†- Frank Clifford, Los Angeles Times“This tragic tale goes right to the heart of the conflicts among loggers, native rights activists, and environmentalists, and induces us to more deeply consider the consequences of our habits of destruction.†- Donna Seaman, Booklist“Vaillant interlaces a well-reported murder mystery with elegantly spun cultural and native history, conjuring the spooky mood of the Northwest forests with the clarity of David Guterson or Jonathan Raban.†- Bruce Barcott, Outside“Make some more space on the shelf of Essential Northwest Books. John Vaillant has crafted a debut book that is a stunning look at this region's history and environment.†- John Marshall, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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From the Inside Flap
In the tradition of Krakauer's Into the Wild, The Golden Spruce tells an astonishing true story of a furious man's obsessive mission against an industrial juggernaut, the struggle of the Haida people to save their world, and the mysterious golden tree that binds them all together. When a kayak and camping gear are found on an uninhabited Alaskan island just north of the Canadian border, they re-ignite a mystery surrounding a shocking act of protest that made international news. On a winter night in 1997, a logger-turned-activist named Grant Hadwin plunged into the frigid waters of the Yakoun River in the Queen Charlotte Islands, towing a chainsaw behind him. When he was done, a unique spruce tree -- 50 meters tall and covered with luminous golden needles -- was teetering on its massive stump. The tree, which baffled scientists, was sacred to the Haida on whose land it had stood for over 300 years. It was also beloved by local loggers who singled it out for protection in the midst of vast clear cuts. Since the 1970s, the mist-shrouded archipelago -- one of the continent's most pristine and vibrant ecosystems -- has been a battleground with government officials and logging companies squaring off against the Haida and environmental groups. The loss of the mythic golden spruce united loggers, natives and environmentalists in sorrow and outrage. But while heroic efforts were made to revive the tree, Grant Hadwin, the tree's confessed killer, disappeared under suspicious circumstances. John Vaillant's article on the death of the golden spruce was published in 2002 in "The New Yorker, and this book has grown out of it, dramatizing the destruction of a deeply conflicted man and thewilderness he loved; in so doing, it traces the rise, fall and rebirth of the Haida nation, and exposes the logging industry -- the most dangerous land-based job in North America -- from a point of view never explored in contemporary non-fiction. "To look at this seedling -- if one could see it at all -- and believe that it had every intention of growing into one of the towering columns that blot out so much of the northwestern sky, would have seemed far-fetched at best. In its first year, the infant tree would have been about two inches tall and sporting a half dozen or so pale green needles. It would have been appealing in the same abstract way that baby snapping turtles are, its alien appearance transcended by the universal indicators of wild babyhood: utter helplessness and primordial determination in equal measure. Despite its bristling ruff and a stem as straight as a sunbeam, the seedling was still as vulnerable as a frog's egg; a falling branch, the footstep of a human or an animal -- any number of random occurrences -- could have finished it there and then. Down there, in the damp darkness of the under story, the sapling's wonderful flaw was a well-kept secret. With each passing year, it dug its roots deeper into the riverbank, strengthening its grip on life and on the land. In spite of the odds, it became one of a handful of young trees that would survive to shoulder their way into the sunlight, competing with giants a dozen feet wide and hundreds of feet tall. In the end, it would be the sun that exposed this tree's secret for all to see and, by the middle of the 1700s, it would have been abundantly clear that something extraordinary was growing on the banks of theYakoun. It was a creature that seemed more at home in a myth or a fairy tale: a spruce tree with golden needles.--excerpt from The Golden Spruce
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Product details
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (May 17, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393328643
ISBN-13: 978-0393328646
Product Dimensions:
5.5 x 0.9 x 8.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.4 out of 5 stars
183 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#69,574 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
This is an excellent book in all respects, but it spoke to me particularly as someone who worked my way through college by spending my summers in the woods (the Cascades) logging old growth timber for Weyerhaeuser in the 1960s, an experience I've written about for Open Spaces Magazine. Valliant manages to capture perfectly the juxtaposition of what a logger (from that era) felt between the excitement and manliness (and money) of his trade, on the one hand, and on the other, the unforgettably troubling sights a logger witnessed first hand as the solemn and silent old growth forest was reduced with such loud and destructive violence to massive swaths of clear cuts and slash. Valliant duly records all the rationalizations of those in the industry (some of which, inconveniently, make reasonably good sense), from the choker setter at the site to the executives in the corporate office. He even gets all the arcane logging terms from that era right. All of this is merely context, though, for a tale that is even-handed, basically non-judgmental, highly disturbing, and likely to linger hauntingly for most who read it.
A gripping book, and much more than simply the tale of the destruction of an icon on Haida Gwaii. The subtitle is apt, although it is an open question whether the term 'madness' refers to the single disturbing act of Grant Hadwin's felling this tree or to the wanton destruction, vastly accelerated following the industrial revolution, of entire ecosystems for no other reason than short sighted self interest or downright greed.The author convincingly introduces readers to the world of Hadwin, the experienced and efficient logger, into the abominable logging practices sanctioned by both government and industry not so long ago, then the protagonist's gradual conversion into becoming what one would now describe as an eco-terrorist. He also writes engagingly about the islands, the Haida themselves, their history and culture, but refrains from romanticizing. We also learn what an important place this iconic tree took in the beliefs of the Haida and about the deep scars its destruction caused.'The Golden Spruce is a fascinating and well written tale, but more than just a story about this tree and Haida Gwaii, In some way it is also one about a microcosm representative of man's uneasy relationship with the world he inhabits since earliest times..
A friend recommended this book. He had read it and knwww my wife and I were going on a trip to Alaska and Victoria Island. This book takes place in both of those areas. The author interweaves a couple of story lines through the book which is more about the areas mentioned and the history of logging there. We spent four days on Victory Island then did a seven day cruise through Alaska. I was still reading the book so it wsss very interesting to see thdd land and get a feel for the native people of the areas. For that reason, I give it a five. I havecrewad this author before and know he can get very drawn out with the details of his historical background. Here, he did it again. I found myself skipping through a good bit of it with still getting a feel for the land, people and the separate stories going on. His characters and how they were woven into the history of logging and hunting were perfect. If you are interested in over harvesting the land (Really, raping the land for lumber), and how that effected the landscape and the Native Indians, this is a great read. The history of the trees, the land and the people will keep you turning pages.
A history of the logging industry and the upper west coast of the U.S. and British Columbia that was informative and moving to read. I've lived in British Columbia and enjoyed reading about areas that I've been but didn't have the time to explore deeply. This book has a true underlining theme of how people of many different cultures tend to go for the latest and greatest hype of making money without consideration or foresight of how our current policies will effect the future. This can be seen in the book in different ways, not just in the logging industry. The true story of the man who cut down the Gold Spruce was woven throughout the book that was expertly written to inform and to bring about different thoughts on the why. An excellent book for an English class as well as a book club read and discussion.
This is a tale that should be read, savored and discussed by the largest possible audience and not just those of us who care about environmental issues. I for one had very little knowledge of the Golden Spruce and the myth surrounding it prior to purchasing this book and came away impressed and wanting to read even more about the whole sordid affair of it being cut down. As to the clear-cutting itself in BC and elsewhere, which apparently motivated Grant Hadwin's actions...it is in the same league with mountain top removal and other ecological disasters: just not necessary, to say the least, in these or any times, notwithstanding the needs of modern civilization. As to the book itself it is an impressive first book by an author I have read before and whose later prose improved in my humble view, but I think it could have been better written and it certainly required more editorial attention...the timeline can be a bit hard to follow, there are too many factoids and the story jumps around so much that it can be distracting at times and as a whole. Still I do recommend it and the map included is very helpful.
Without giving away any spoilers, I'd say that the story arc of this book is of subsidiary importance to me. Reading it taught me many things about the value of old growth forests and about the unsustainable rate at which humans have managed to convert this invaluable resource into lumber. I also learned about the Haida people of the Pacific Northwest.If you have any interest in and/or love for the planet, reading this book will be helpful in improving your world view.
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