Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
WINNER OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION
WINNER OF THE PEARSON WRITERS' TRUST NON-FICTION PRIZE
WINNER OF THE RODERICK HAIG BROWN REGIONAL PRIZE
On a winter night in 1997, a British Columbia timber scout named Grant Hadwin committed an act of shocking violence in the mythic Queen Charlotte Islands. His victim was legendary: a unique 300-year-old Sitka spruce tree, fifty metres tall and covered with luminous golden needles.
In a bizarre environmental protest, Hadwin attacked the tree with a chainsaw. Two days later, it fell, horrifying an entire community. Not only was the golden spruce a scientific marvel and a tourist attraction, it was sacred to the Haida people and beloved by local loggers. Shortly after confessing to the crime, Hadwin disappeared under suspicious circumstances and is missing to this day.
As John Vaillant deftly braids together the strands of this thrilling mystery, he brings to life the ancient beauty of the coastal wilderness, the historical collision of Europeans and the Haida, and the harrowing world of logging--the most dangerous land-based job in North America.
Synopsis
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - WINNER OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR NON-FICTION - WINNER OF THE WRITERS' TRUST NON-FICTION PRIZE
The spellbinding true story of one man's obsession and the destruction of a glorious natural wonder. On a winter night in 1997, a British Columbia timber scout named Grant Hadwin committed an act of shocking violence in the mythic Queen Charlotte Islands. His victim was legendary: a unique 300-year-old Sitka spruce tree, fifty metres tall and covered with luminous golden needles.
In a bizarre environmental protest, Hadwin attacked the tree with a chainsaw. Two days later, it fell, horrifying an entire community. Not only was the golden spruce a scientific marvel and a tourist attraction, it was sacred to the Haida people and beloved by local loggers. Shortly after confessing to the crime, Hadwin disappeared under suspicious circumstances and is missing to this day.
As John Vaillant deftly braids together the strands of this thrilling mystery, he brings to life the ancient beauty of the coastal wilderness, the historical collision of Europeans and the Haida, and the harrowing world of logging--the most dangerous land-based job in North America.
Synopsis
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - WINNER OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR NON-FICTION - WINNER OF THE WRITERS' TRUST NON-FICTION PRIZE
"Absolutely spellbinding." --The New York Times
The environmental true-crime story of a glorious natural wonder, the man who destroyed it, and the fascinating, troubling context in which this act took place.
FEATURING A NEW AFTERWORD BY THE AUTHOR
On a winter night in 1997, a British Columbia timber scout named Grant Hadwin committed an act of shocking violence in the mythic Queen Charlotte Islands. His victim was legendary: a unique 300-year-old Sitka spruce tree, fifty metres tall and covered with luminous golden needles. In a bizarre environmental protest, Hadwin attacked the tree with a chainsaw. Two days later, it fell, horrifying an entire community. Not only was the golden spruce a scientific marvel and a tourist attraction, it was sacred to the Haida people and beloved by local loggers. Shortly after confessing to the crime, Hadwin disappeared under suspicious circumstances and is missing to this day. As John Vaillant deftly braids together the strands of this thrilling mystery, he brings to life the ancient beauty of the coastal wilderness, the historical collision of Europeans and the Haida, and the harrowing world of logging--the most dangerous land-based job in North America.
About the Author
John Vaillant has written for
The New Yorker,
The Atlantic,
Outside, National Geographic Adventure, and
Mens 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.
Reading Group Guide
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.
1. What would you say to Grant Hadwin, if you could meet him?
2. Do you agree with John Vaillant when he says that “It seems that in order to succeed – or even function – in this world, a certain tolerance for moral and cognitive dissonance is necessary”? (page 220 of hardcover)
3. Which parts of the book do you find most stimulating? Why? Do you have any criticisms of The Golden Spruce?
4. Do you find The Golden Spruce to be a dispiriting or inspiring read? What do you leave it thinking?
5. Discuss The Golden Spruce as a Canadian book: what does it tell us about our experience of nature, our economy, and how we see ourselves?
6. Would you recommend The Golden Spruce to someone else? Why, or why not?
1. What would you say to Grant Hadwin, if you could meet him?
2. Do you agree with John Vaillant when he says that “It seems that in order to succeed - or even function - in this world, a certain tolerance for moral and cognitive dissonance is necessary”? (page 220 of hardcover)
3. Which parts of the book do you find most stimulating? Why? Do you have any criticisms of The Golden Spruce?
4. Do you find The Golden Spruce to be a dispiriting or inspiring read? What do you leave it thinking?
5. Discuss The Golden Spruce as a Canadian book: what does it tell us about our experience of nature, our economy, and how we see ourselves?
6. Would you recommend The Golden Spruce to someone else? Why, or why not?
Author Q&A
How did you first encounter the story behind The Golden Spruce? In August of 2000 I was sent to Haida Gwaii by Outside Magazine to do a story about kayaking in the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve. This was a trip I had wanted to make for years, particularly because I was fascinated by the old Haida memorial poles that still stand in the abandoned village of Nans dins on Anthony Island. After an amazing 8-day paddle and a visit to the poles I headed north with a tourist map that referred to a “Golden Spruce” standing near the logging community of Port Clements. I had only recently moved to B.C. at this time so, even though the golden spruce had been cut down three years earlier, I was unaware of it. It was in the course of trying to locate this tree that I learned that it had been felled, and that the man responsible had disappeared in a kayak.
What inspired you to write about it?
After that first trip to Haida Gwaii, during which I also witnessed a pair of very moving Haida memorial ceremonies, the puzzle of the golden spruce and the man who cut it down stayed on my mind. I began looking at archived news articles written around this event and realized that almost nothing was known about Grant Hadwin and that the tree itself was also poorly understood. As I chipped away at this pair of mysteries, they grew steadily more interesting and more complex until I realized I had an amazing story on my hands.
The Golden Spruce began life as a magazine article in The New Yorker. What were the challenges of developing it into a book? In particular, could you perhaps describe how you were able to organize the disparate material–scientific, historical, anthropological, etc.–into such a coherent and exciting whole?
One major challenge was recreating the lives of the two lead characters when one of them – the golden spruce was dead, and the other – Grant Hadwin – was missing. It took a lot of interviewing and research to bring these two individuals “back to life”. However, there is no question that my greatest challenge was braiding together all of the disparate but interdependent elements in this story. Because there are a number of weird and wonderful things in this book that aren’t common knowledge, I would continually ask myself: What does the reader need to know now in order to get the most of out what comes next? And what must I supply the reader with in order for him or her to feel the same sense of wonder, astonishment, horror – whatever – that the subject is feeling in a given moment? It was these questions that determined a lot of the structure and much of the content as well.
Have you seen the website http://www.port-clements.org/newgoldenspruce.htm ? Has a new golden spruce has been discovered, against all odds?
I have seen this website and no, a new golden spruce has not been discovered. In fact, this tree, only the crown of which is golden, has been known to the Haida and local loggers for at least forty years. It is indicated on at least one tourist map as the “Second Golden Spruce.” Readers can find a reference to it on p. 196 of the (hardcover) book.
Do you feel that Grant Hadwin may still be alive, somewhere out there?
Many who knew and worked with Hadwin firmly believe that he is still alive. Because I never met him, it is hard for me to name his fate with any certainty, but my personal feeling is that, if he was alive, he would have tried to contact his wife and children. As far as I know, he has not communicated with anybody since his disappearance. Of course, there could be lots of reasons for this, and I explore many of them.
What advice would you give a book club to get the most out of their discussion of The Golden Spruce?
First of all, even though the book is relatively short, it covers a lot of ground so I would urge readers to take their time with it. Second, I wrote this book so that it would be pleasing to read aloud, and readers might like to try this with a chapter or a favourite passage. I wanted to write a book that had a strong narrative and lots of interesting information, but I also wanted it to sound good like a good story should.
Finally, is there a question you are never asked about The Golden Spruce (or the golden spruce), but wish you were?
Yes. Only one person (CBC’s Shelagh Rogers) has asked me about “Spiritual Emergencies,” a term that shows up in chapter 10 (p. 173) in which I examine Hadwin’s motives for cutting the golden spruce down. A “Spiritual Emergency” is an awakening that tends to strike an individual with a ferocious intensity that leaves the rest of us wondering if the person is possessed, crazy, divinely inspired, or simply perceiving some truth more intensely than the rest of us. Most of us have known, or known of, people who have experienced something like this, and it’s a subject I would love to have had more opportunities to discuss with people. Furthermore, I think this ties into the Haida concept of the “gagiid” (p. 235), another topic that never came up during live Q&As.