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The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed, by John Vaillant
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A tale of obsession so fierce that a man kills the thing he loves most: the only giant golden spruce on earth.
When a shattered kayak and camping gear are found on an uninhabited island in the Pacific Northwest, they reignite a mystery surrounding a shocking act of protest. Five months earlier, logger-turned-activist Grant Hadwin had plunged naked into a river in British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands, towing a chainsaw. When his night's work was done, a unique Sitka spruce, 165 feet tall and covered with luminous golden needles, teetered on its stump. Two days later it fell.
As vividly as John Krakauer puts readers on Everest, John Vaillant takes us into the heart of North America's last great forest.
- Sales Rank: #85601 in Books
- Published on: 2006-05-17
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.30" h x .90" w x 5.60" l, .78 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 288 pages
From Publishers Weekly
The felling of a celebrated giant golden spruce tree in British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands takes on a potent symbolism in this probing study of an unprecedented act of eco-vandalism. First-time author Vaillant, who originally wrote about the death of the spruce for the New Yorker, profiles the culprit, an ex-logger turned messianic environmentalist who toppled the famous tree—the only one of its kind—to protest the destruction of British Columbia's old-growth forest, then soon vanished mysteriously. Vaillant also explores the culture and history of the Haida Indians who revered the tree, and of the logging industry that often expresses an elegiac awe for the ancient trees it is busily clear-cutting. Writing in a vigorous, evocative style, Vaillant portrays the Pacific Northwest as a region of conflict and violence, from the battles between Europeans and Indians over the 18th-century sea otter trade to the hard-bitten, macho milieu of the logging camps, where grisly death is an occupational hazard. It is also, in his telling, a land of virtually infinite natural resources overmatched by an even greater human rapaciousness. Through this archetypal story of "people fail[ing] to see the forest for the tree," Vaillant paints a haunting portrait of man's vexed relationship with nature. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* This powerful and vexing man-versus-nature tale is set in an extraordinary place, Canada's Queen Charlotte Islands, and features two legendary individuals: a uniquely golden 300-year-old Sitka spruce and Grant Hadwin, a logger turned champion of old-growth forests who ultimately destroys what he loves. With a firm grasp of every confounding aspect of this suspenseful and disturbing story and a flair for creating arresting allegories and metaphors, Vaillant conveys a wealth of complex biological, cultural, historical, and economic information within an incisive interpretation of the essential role trees have played in human civilization. Breathtaking evocations of this oceanic realm of giant trees and epic rains give way to a homage to its ghosts, for this is the sight of a holocaust, where the creative and dauntless Haida were nearly decimated by Europeans who also clear-cut the mighty forests. It is this legacy of greed and loss that rendered the immense golden spruce, a miraculous survivor, sacred, and that drove Hadwin to cut it down. 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
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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)
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
The Haida People, Their Golden Spruce and the Man Who Felled It
By Fairbanks Reader - Bonnie Brody
This is a very well-written and interesting book. It has several plots, each of them holding the reader's interest throughout the book.
One of the plots deals with the history of logging in the northwest, specifically in Alaska where the Haida Indians live. The Haida live in a very remote area of Alaska, difficult to get to and accessible only by air or boat. On the islands they call home, there is an amazing tree - a Golden Spruce. The Haida have incorporated this tree into their spirituality.
The book also deals with the history of this tree. Because of its color, it is an obvious mutation. How it came to be, how it survived, and how it is now replicated is a theme of this book.
The most striking plot that weaves in and out of the whole book is the story of a man named Hadwin, an extreme athlete also known for his eccentricity and confrontational manner. Hadwin has destroyed this tree and disappeared. Supposedly he drowned in the turbulent Alaskan waters. However, because of his ability to survive the most extreme conditions, there are many who think he faked his death and still lives.
My only difficulty with this fascinating book is the portrayal of Hadwin. As a clinical social worker, I am very familiar with serious and chronic mental illness. What the author portrays as a variant of the norm is actually something far more serious. Anyone who has to stuff cotton in their ears to keep the voices at bay suffers from auditory hallucinations. Hadwin has a history of hallucinations, paranoia and varied delusions. To discuss him as an eccentric or quirky type of guy is to do injustice to the fact that this man is very, very ill.
All in all, I found this book to be a fascinating page-turner, one I highly recommend.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
A true tale to be read & discussed...but could have been better written & edited
By William D. Brisbane
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.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
I am disappointed that the author did not make territorial acknowledgements at ...
By John Smith
Well written and researched. Vaillant's writting style is captivating. However, I am disappointed that the author did not make territorial acknowledgements at the start of the book, since as the author live in Vancouver it was no doubt written on occupied and unceded Coast Salish territories, of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ Nations. It would be a good thing if they acknowledged this. I also wished that the author focused on colonialism and decolonization as much (if not more) as they focused on the logging industry and its history. I feel like the book gives more attention to the logging industry than it does to the Haida people. Additionally, I wish the author made use of numbered citations throughout the work.
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