The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth Madness and Greed
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About this book
A tale of obsession so fierce that a man kills the thing he loves most: the only giant golden spruce on earth. As vividly as Jon Krakauer put readers on Everest John Vaillant takes us into the heart of North Americas last great forest where trees grow to eighteen feet in diameter sunlight never touches the ground and the chainsaws are always at work. When a shattered kayak and camping gear are found on an uninhabited island 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 Columbias Queen Charlotte Islands towing a chainsaw. When his nights 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. The tree a fascinating puzzle to scientists was sacred to the Haida a fierce seafaring tribe based in the Queen Charlottes. Vaillant recounts the bloody history of the Haida and the early fur trade and provides harrowing details of the logging industry whose omnivorous violence would claim both Hadwin and the golden spruce.
