From the Publisher
The Golden Spruce is the story of a
glorious natural wonder, the man who destroyed it, and the
fascinating, troubling context in which his act took place.
A tree with luminous glowing needles, the golden spruce was unique,
a mystery that biologically speaking should never have reached
maturity; Grant Hadwin, the man who cut it down, was passionate,
extraordinarily well-suited to wilderness survival, and to some
degree unbalanced. But as John Vaillant shows in this gripping and
perceptive book, the extraordinary tree stood at the intersection
of contradictory ways of looking at the world; the conflict between
them is one reason it was destroyed. Taking in history, geography,
science and spirituality, this book raises some of the most
pressing questions facing society today.
The golden spruce stood in the Queen Charlotte Islands, an
unusually rich ecosystem where the normal lines between species
blur, a place where "the patient observer will find that trees are
fed by salmon [and] eagles can swim." The islands' beauty and
strangeness inspire a more personal and magical experience of
nature than western society is usually given to. Without
romanticizing, Vaillant shows that this understanding is typified
by the Haida, the native people who have lived there for millennia
and know the land as Haida Gwaii - and for whom the golden spruce
was an integral part of their history and mythology. But seen a
different way, the golden spruce stood in block 6 of Tree Farm
License 39, a tract owned by the Weyerhaeuser forest products
company. It survived in an isolated "set-aside" amidst a landscape
ravaged by logging.
Grant Hadwin had worked as a remote scout for timber companies;
with his ease in the wild he excelled at his job, much of which was
spent in remote stretches of the temperate rain forest, plotting
the best routes to extract lumber. But over time Hadwin was pushed
into a paradox: the better he was at his job, the more the world he
loved was destroyed. It seems he was ultimately unable to bear the
contradiction.
On the night of January 20, 1997, with the temperature near zero,
Hadwin swam across the Yakoun river with a chainsaw. Another
astonishing physical feat followed: alone, in darkness, he tore
expertly into the golden spruce - a tree more than two metres in
diameter - leaving it so unstable that the first wind would push it
over. A few weeks later, having inspired an outpouring of grief and
public anger, Hadwin set off in a kayak across the treacherous
Hecate Strait to face court charges. He has not been heard from
since.
Vaillant describes Hadwin's actions in engrossing detail, but also
provides the complex environmental, political and economic context
in which they took place. This fascinating book describes the
history of the Haida's contacts with European traders and settlers,
drawing parallels between the 19th century economic bubble in sea
otter pelts - and its eventual implosion - and today's voracious
logging trade. The wood products industry is examined objectively
and in depth; Vaillant explores the influence of logging not only
on the British Columbia landscape but on the course of western
civilization, from the expansion of farming in Europe to wood's
essential importance to the Great Powers' imperial navies to the
North American "axe age." Along the way, The Golden
Spruce includes evocative portraits of one of the
world's most unusual land- and seascapes, riveting descriptions of
Haida memorial rites, and a lesson in the difficulty and danger of
felling giant trees.
Thrilling and instructive though it may be, The Golden
Spruce confronts the reader with troubling questions. John
Vaillant asks whether Grant Hadwin destroyed the golden spruce
because - as a beautiful "mutant" preserved while the rest of the
forest was devastated - it embodied society's self-contradictory
approach to nature, the paradox that harrowed him. Anyone who
claims to respect the environment but lives in modern society faces
some version of this problem; perhaps Hadwin, living on the cutting
edge in every sense, could no longer take refuge in the "moral and
cognitive dissonance" today's world requires. The Golden
Spruce forces one to ask: can the damage our
civilization exacts on the natural world be justified?
From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
John Vaillant has written for The New Yorker, The
Atlantic, Outside, National Geographic Adventure, and
Men's Journal among others. He lives in Vancouver with his
wife and children. Of particular interest to Vaillant are stories
that explore collisions between human ambition and the natural
world. His work in this and other fields has taken him to five
continents and five oceans. The Golden Spruce
is his first book.
From the Hardcover edition.