John Vaillant
Paperback | Pages: 288 pages Rating: 4.08 | 6753 Users | 812 Reviews
List Books Concering The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed
| ISBN: | 0393328643 (ISBN13: 9780393328646) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize Nominee (2006), Governor General's |
| Literary Awards: | / Prix littéraires du Gouverneur général for Nonfiction (2005), Kiriyama Prize Nominee for Nonfiction (2006), Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize (2006), British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction Nominee (2006) Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction (2005) |
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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.Be Specific About Out Of Books The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed
| Title | : | The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed |
| Author | : | John Vaillant |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 288 pages |
| Published | : | May 17th 2006 by W. W. Norton Company (first published May 17th 2005) |
| Categories | : | Nonfiction. History. Environment. Nature. Cultural. Canada |
Rating Out Of Books The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed
Ratings: 4.08 From 6753 Users | 812 ReviewsCritique Out Of Books The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed
It seems that in order to succeed - or even function - in this world, a certain tolerance for moral and cognitive dissonance is necessary. A Sitka spruce once grew near the banks of the Yakoun River in the remote Haida Gwaii, formerly known as the Queen Charlotte islands off the coast of northern British Columbia. It grew for hundreds of years before it was technically documented for what it was: a rare anomaly of genetics and environment, growing healthy and visible for miles. Revered by theHaving been born and raised in a logging town in British Columbia (my dad was a faller/bucker), and having worked in the West Coast logging industry for a year and a half, this book was definitely of interest to me. That also may make me biased to like it. Regardless, it was a really interesting book. I enjoyed the writing style and for some reason I actually liked how John Vaillant jumped around between topics. For example, one moment he was writing about how badass and drunk West Coast loggers
Since I worked for the Forest Service in Oregon 1979-80, much of the story about logging and the huge trees of the Pacific Northwest resonated with me. I remember logging trucks with one, at the most two huge trees, barreling down the curving logging roads. I didn't realized I was seeing the end of an era. This is more a book about this not-to-long-ago era of rampant logging in the Northwest and the Queen Charlotte Islands, and less about the one man who killed a sacred tree. I appreciated the
This book was informative, fascinating, beautifully written and haunting. Certainly continued the skew in my thinking away from the greed and destructiveness of logging companies....not to mention the continuing removal & killing of Native Americans. Had to weep at the losses.
It's a good book. It reads like a long-form Rolling Stone article by an author with some heavy Krakauer aspirations, and -- as it turns out -- long-form Rolling Stone articles drawn out to book length can get to sounding a bit like listening to stories told by your great-grandpa Milton. But still ... good book. It's compelling where you don't expect it to be; it's informative, even if it leaves you with the impression that you might want to double check before spouting off trivia gleaned from
The story revolves around Grant Hadwin, an expert Canadian logger turned environmentalist, and his seemingly incomprehensible and barbaric act of cutting down an old, beautiful and one of a kind mutant spruce tree with golden needles called the Golden Spruce. Hadwin surreptitiously cut down the Golden Spruce one cold January night in 1997 and fled in the wake of his act never to be seen again. The tree was ancient and huge, over 300 years old, 50 meters tall and sacred to the Haida, the native
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