(Based on existing trade routes and maritime technology…): Lillard, Just East of Sundown, 51.
While attributed to the Haida, this canoe was probably…: Bill McLennan, Curator/Project manager, UBC Museum of Anthropology. Personal communication.
“Islands Coming out of (Supernatural) Concealment”: Guujaaw, Nathalie Macfarlane. Personal communications.
CHAPTER 5: THE WILDEST OF THE WILD
a legendary place called Fousang: Hayes, ff. 9.
“the backside of America”: Ibid, 7.
“as plentiful as blackberries”: Shakespeare’s King Henry the Fourth, Act II, scene iv. Falstaff: “…If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.” This phrase was well known to literate Britons in the eighteenth century.
the equivalent of about $2,400 today: “Inflation Conversion Factors for Years 1665 to estimated 2013,” © 2003 Robert C. Sahr; Political Science Department, Oregon State University.
ice-cube-sized hail would cause birds to drop, dead, from the sky: Michael Scott. Personal communication.
“dreary,” “inhospitable,” “wretched,” “savage,” “barbarous”: Gibson, 147.
“shitting through one’s teeth”: Ibid., 138.
smallpox almost certainly preceded the traders: Acheson, BC Studies, 50.
“These artists of the northwest could dye a horse…”: Gibson, 159.
“it has often been observed when the head of a nail…”: Ibid., 155.
“I could have kill’d 100 more with grapeshot”: Boit, 49–50.
“Before many years…”: “Missouri River Journals,” Aug. 5, 1843, from Alice Ford, Audubon’s Animals, New York, 1954.
“Should I recount all the lawless & brutal acts…”: Gibson, 158.
“Spars of every denomination are in constant demand…”: Gould, 16.
CHAPTER 6: THE TOOTH OF THE HUMAN RACE
“What better way to portray the wealth of our country?”: Sloane, 75.
…the term “firestorm” was coined: Pyne, 204.
“an enemy to be overcome by any means, fair or foul”: Williams, 12.
But the “axe age,” as one historian calls it: Klenman, 7.
Climax, Demon, Endurance, Cock of the Woods, Red Warrior,…: Ibid., 27ff.
“The great size of the Timber and the thick growth…”: Gibson, 71.
“When I stood among those big trees…”: Andrews, Glory Days of Logging. Dust jacket copy.
“I raised my eyes to the sky and could see nothing…”: Gould, 15.
“British Columbia is a barren, cold mountain country…”: Ibid., 95.
“The numerous and extensive milling establishments…: MacKay, 8.
British Columbia’s Supreme Advantage in Climate…: Gould, 24.
“It makes little difference to the people of western Canada…”: MacKay, 21.
“would be selling to the moon…”: Ibid., 109.
CHAPTER 7: THE FATAL FLAW
…the only man-made object besides the Great Wall of China…: Brian Fawcett. Personal communication. 101 the derogatory nickname “Brazil of the North”: Greenpeace ad, 1993.
…replanted and renamed a “New Forest”: Fawcett, 4.
“I was one of the last people to see these areas…”: Queen Charlotte Islands Observer, 1/30/97: 11.
they were “a bottom-tier company…”: Confidential source.
“The essence of the spirituality of the desert…”: Benedicta Ward, Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1987, xxi.
“Get the fuck out of here!”: Confidential source.
“The supply of Sitka spruce suitable for aeroplane…: Lillard, Just East of Sundown, 129.
nearly 30 percent of a cutblock’s usable wood…: Mahood, 52.
9 DAYS WITHOUT AN INJURY: Personal visit, 10/01.
“If this was mine, I’d cut it all down…”: Personal communication.
“somehow closer and more alive…”: Parfitt, 107.
A senior engineer for MacMillan Bloedel who saw the tree…: Jim Trebett. Personal communication.
CHAPTER 8: THE FALL
Chainsaws have been in development since at least 1905,…: “Power Saws Come of Age,” The Timberman, October 1949, 150.
“Upset about the Golden spruce?…”: Ian Lordon, Queen Charlotte Islands Observer, 1/30/97, 11.
“This seems to have opened some kind of wound….”: The Globe and Mail, 1/29/97, A6.
“Can there be another Gandhi or Martin Luther King?”: Robert
“When society places so much value…”: Heather Colpitts, Prince Rupert Daily News, 2/12/97, 1.
“I considered him misguided…”: Confidential source.
“a great idea. It was M & B’s pet tree,…”: Confidential source.
“unofficially, something could happen to him.”: Frank Collison. Personal communication.
“If I see him,” vowed Tranter, “I’ll kill him.”: Personal communication.
“The consensus,” claimed Eunice Sandberg…: Vancouver Sun, 1/25/97, A1.
“nail his balls to the stump.”: Personal communication.
One Haida leader also suggested that Hadwin…: Confidential source.
“whether we should cut a part off the person…”: The Globe and Mail, 1/27/97, A5.
“How serious the worship of trees was…”: Ch. IX, 127.
“it makes me sick; it’s like losing an old friend.”: Queen Charlotte Islands Observer, 1/30/97, 10.
compared Hadwin’s logic to that of the pro-life activist: Prince Rupert Daily News, 1/27/97, 4.
“They’re making it as nasty as they possibly can…” Queen Charlotte Islands Observer, 1/30/97, 11.
CHAPTER 9: MYTH
“Whoever did this,” said a MacMillan Bloedel spokesman…: Victoria Times-Colonist, 1/25/97, 1.
“Even now,” wrote Pliny the Elder…: “Sacred Groves and Sacred Trees of Uttara Kannada,” M. D. Subash Chandran. Chapter from Lifestyle and Ecology. Edited by Baidyanath Saraswati. New Delhi, India, 1998.
“Talking about Skidegate and Masset…”: Hazel Simeon. Personal communication.
“The island population is now shrunk to not over seven hundred…”: Bringhurst, 69.
“unimprovable” parents: Frank, 35.
Lacking anything in the way of the masks…: Voices from the Talking Stick.
CHAPTER 10: HECATE STRAIT
“He did wrong,” she told a journalist at the time.: Vancouver Sun,
Veteran north coast kayakers tell stories…: Stewart Marshall. Personal communication.
“The worst thing you can do…”: Ibid.
there would be “no uniforms…”: Heather Colpitts, Prince Rupert Daily News, 2/12/97, 1.
his wife described him as “indestructible.”: Corporal Gary Stroeder. Personal communication.
“the Paris of the Pacific”: Hayes, 111.
“non-ordinary reality”: “Shamanic Healing: We Are Not Alone”, Shamanism, vol. 10, no. 1 (Spring–Summer), 1997.
“I never met a shaman who isn’t somewhat psychotic…”: Maclean’s, 11/4/96, 65.
having a “special role” in the world: Confidential source.
“very overvalued ideas about the environment…”: Confidential source.
“Instances of such confusion…”: ReVision, 8 (2), 21–31, 1986.
“Religious or Spiritual Problem”: DSM-IV, Washington, D.C., 1994, p. 685.
Spiritual Emergency Resource Center: www.virtualcs.com/se/index.html.
“survive on nuts and berries for six weeks…”: The Daily Sitka Sentinel, 6/10/93, 1.
CHAPTER 11: THE SEARCH
“everyone is suspect”: Confidential source.
Dear Lord, give us one more boom….: Local saying.
“whip the people’s souls” before battle. (and following account): Lillard, “Revenge of the Pebble Town People: A Raid on the Tlingit.”
“mortician’s wax.”: Sgt. Ken Burton. Personal communication.
>
“a perpetual tree”: www.EXN.ca (Discovery Channel Web site), 1/29/97.
“If you live on the edge of the circle…”: Voices from the Talking Stick.
the second tree was a “male”: Collison, 39.
“a Haida princess guided us to the tree…: Victoria Times-Colonist, 1/29/97, A10.
“I wasn’t allowed to come to the public…”: Vancouver Sun, 1/28/97, A1.
“Nature,” it said, “appears reluctant to duplicate a rare, beautiful mistake.”: MacMillan Bloedel, 4.
CHAPTER 12: THE SECRET
“amorphous, irregular seismic signature…”: “Strange Beings,” Lynn Lee, Spruce Roots, December, 2000.
“All you do is attach two wounds together.”: Don Carson, www.EXN.ca [Discovery Channel Web site], 1/29/97.
CHAPTER 13: COYOTE
one of Hadwin’s previous bosses was reluctant…: Confidential source.
“Eight hundred years to grow, and twenty-five minutes to put on the ground….”: Personal communication with unidentified source.
CHAPTER 14: OVER THE HORIZON
“Civilization has never recognized limits to its needs.”: Perlin, 38.
“What is not wanted for any present purpose…”: Williams, 80.
“Man,” he wrote more than 140 years ago,…: Marsh, 228.
“Nearly the entire territory has been logged over….”: F. Roth, “On the forestry conditions of northern Wisconsin.” Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey Bulletin, no. 1. Madison, Wis., 1898. (See J. T. Curtis, The Vegetation of Wisconsin. Madison, Wis., 1959, 469.)
“lady conservationists”: Chase, 70.
these states have lost more than 90 per cent of their old-growth…: Source: Ecotrust.
British Columbia,…has lost 60 percent. Source: Sierra Club B.C.
“Soil and water return to their rightful places…”: From The Book of Rites, quoted in “Brief History of Environmental Protection in China,” Shijiang Peng, Department of Agricultural History, South China University of Agriculture, Guangzhou, Guangdong, PR China. (Research in Agricultural History 1989 (81): 131–165. Transl./interpreted by Dr. W. Tsao, 1/30/2002. Ed. B. Gordon. www.carleton.ca/~bgordon/Rice/papers/peng89.htm.
Starbucks…was forced to abandon a copyright infringement suit…: Lane Baldwin. Personal communication.
“I started out as a redneck logger…”: Prince Rupert Daily News, 3/23/04, 1.
…the Atlantic salmon population, in its wild form, has fallen by nearly 75 percent…: “Status of North American Wild Salmon,” Atlantic Salmon Federation, May 2004.
EPILOGUE: REVIVAL
“It rains a lot here…” Personal communication with unidentified source.
“the mother of everybody”: Collison, 10.
“I’d have run him over in my tug…”: Gunner Anderson. Personal communication.
“Hope the bastard landed on Grant.”: Personal communication.
The grandfather of the artist Robert Davidson….: Related during a talk at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology, 10/26/04.
PHOTO CREDITS
A: Battle between Captain Robert Gray’s Columbia and some Kwaikutls. (photograph by George Davidson, Oregon Historical Society, # OrHi 49264)
B: Tenaktak (Kwakiutl) canoes approaching the beach. (photograph by Edward Sherrif Curtis, reprinted with permission. British Columbia Archives D-08429)
A: Outfit of a north coast warrior. (photograph © Canadian Museum of Civilization, catalogue no. VII-X-1073)n
B: Steel war dagger. (photograph © Canadian Museum of Civilization, catalogue no. VII-B-944)
Dance mask. (photograph © Canadian Museum of Civilization, catalogue no. VII-B-109)
Skid Road, ox team. (photograph used with permission of The Vancouver Public Library, VPL 3598)
“Railroad show.” (photograph by Darius Kinsey, Courtesy Critchfield Logging Company)
Haida fallers. (13017 Merill and Ring at Pysht Darius Kinsey Collection, photograph used with permission of the Whatcom Museum of History & Art, Belligham, WA)
High rigger topping. (Leonard Frank Collection, Vancouver, B.C.)
Faller watching for widowmakers. (photograph courtesy of Al Harvey)
A: Feller buncher. (Craig Evans, courtesy of the Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada [FERIC])
B: Clearcut. (photograph courtesy of Al Harvey)
Grant Hadwin. (photograph by Rudy Kelly)
Grant Hadwin embarking by kayak. (photo courtesy of The Prince Rupert Daily News)
A: Hyder, Alaska. (author photograph)
B: Leo Gagnon and his son. (author photograph)
Mortuary poles. (photograph courtesy of Al Harvey )
Memorial pole for Ernie Collison (Skilay). (author photograph)
praise for THE GOLDEN SPRUCE
WINNER OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL’S LITERARY AWARD FOR NON-FICTION
“A beautifully rendered account of cultural clash and environmental obsession.”
—Maclean’s
“Absolutely spellbinding…[Vaillant’s] descriptions of the Queen Charlotte Islands, with their misty, murky light and hushed, cathedral-like forests, are haunting, and he does full justice to the noble, towering trees…. The chapters on logging, painstakingly researched, make highdrama out of the grueling, highly dangerous job of bringing down some of the biggest trees on earth.”
—The New York Times
“Fascinating…Both a gripping wilderness thriller and a sharply focused summary of forest politics…Essential reading.”
—Georgia Straight
“The Golden Spruce might be claimed as Canada’s first great new adventure book…. [O]ur homegrown answer to the blockbuster danger book: it’s a true Canuck tale, man versus nature, but not too flashy, and hard to define in traditional terms.”
—CBC Arts Online
“A haunting tale of a good man driven mad by environmental devastation…. Vividly wrought.”
—Los Angeles Times
“A gracefully written, ambitiously researched and enthralling story of ecological majesty and human greed. It should enter that pantheon of memorable books that capture [the Pacific West Coast’s] character…. The writing is so vivid [and] the story is so heartbreaking that it will make you question anew where our civilization is going.”
—The Seattle Times
“Vaillant writes eloquently of West Coast rainforests, quirky characters drawn to a dangerous but lucrative life in logging.”
—Canadian Geographic
“A sense of the rank, dark underbelly of the [Queen Charlotte] islands permeates the book…[An] engrossing narrative.”’
—Times Colonist (Victoria)
“Brilliant…The Golden Spruce is a profound elegy for Northwest resources and livelihoods disappearing at a terrifying rate.”
—Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Written in breezy, journalistic style…a compelling read. Vaillant covers a vast territory of difficult material.”
—Calgary Herald
“Balanced and gracefully written…Vaillant’s multi-layered book is a rich investigation of all the factors that went into Hadwin’s act of arboreal vandalism.”
—Edmonton Journal
“In a scrupulously researched narrative worthy of comparison to Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, Vaillant uses a tragic episode to tell a larger story of the heartbreakingly complex relationship between man and nature.”
—Entertainment Weekly (Editor’s Choice)
“[A] great story…[Vaillant] cuts subtle, thoughtful paths through the region’s history.”
—Quill & Quire
“[A] powerful and vexing man-versus-nature tale set in an extraordinary place…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.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“In a vigorous, evocative style, Vaillant portrays the Pa
cific Northwest as a region of conflict and violence…. It is also, in his telling, a land of virtually infinite natural resources overmatched by an even greater human rapaciousness…. A haunting portrait of man’s vexed relationship with nature.”
—Publishers Weekly
VINTAGE CANADA EDITION, 2006
Copyright © 2005 John Vaillant
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Published in Canada by Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in Canada by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2005. Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Vintage Canada and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House of Canada Limited.
www.randomhouse.ca
Peter Trower, “The Ridge Trees,” from Haunted Hills and Hanging Valleys: Selected Poems 1969-2004, © Harbour Publishing. Used with permission. Lines 1-3 of “Canto I,” from Inferno: A New Verse Translation by Dante Alighieri, translated by Michael Palma. Copyright © 2002 by Michael Palma. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. “Ceremony,” from Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, copyright © 1977 by Leslie Silko. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Lines from Faust, Part I, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, translated by Martin Greenberg, Yale University Press. Copyright © 1992 by Martin Greenberg. Used by permission of Yale University Press. Excerpt from “Un-chopping a Tree,” by W. S. Merwin, reprinted with the permission of the Wylie Agency, Inc.
Back Matter:Photo Credits constitute a continuation of the copyright page.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
The Golden Spruce Page 26
