The Golden Spruce
Page 27
Vaillant, John (John H.)
The golden spruce: a true story of myth, madness, and greed / John Vaillant.
Includes bibliographical references.
eISBN: 978-0-307-37132-4
1. Historic trees—British Columbia—Yakoun River Region. 2. Sitka spruce—British Columbia—Yakoun River Region. 3. Hadwin, Grant. 4. Forest policy—British Columbia. 5. Haida Indians. 6. Chlorosis (Plants) 7. Malicious mischief—British Columbia—Yakoun River Region. 8. Port Clements (B.C.)—History. 1. Title.
HV6405.C32B75 2006 364.16´4´0971112 C2005-905100-0
v1.0
FOOTNOTES
*1 Jeans cut off just below the knee to prevent snagging.
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*2A gymnasium exercise in which one climbs a vertically mounted board by inserting handheld pegs into successively higher holes.
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*3 An oily, finger-sized fish and highly valued trade item that can be eaten, rendered for its oil, or stood on end and lit like a candle.
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†4 While attributed to the Haida, this canoe was probably made by the Heiltsuk people who live on the central mainland coast of British Columbia.
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*5 The Plains Indian practice of demonstrating one’s courage and fighting prowess by getting close enough to the enemy to touch him with one’s hand or a coup stick. It was also used as a means of humiliation: “See? I could kill you if I chose, but you’re not worth the trouble.”
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*6 54°40’ was the latitude at which Captain Pérez and his men grew too sick to carry on and turned around. It still stands today as the southern boundary of Alaska.
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*7 By comparison, the eruption of Mount St. Helens destroyed about four hundred square kilometres of forest.
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*8 Like the spotted owl, this rare, semi-aquatic seabird prefers to nest in old-growth forests.
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*9 Twenty years later, during World War II, the British-built DH-38 Mosquito, made almost entirely of Sitka spruce, Douglas fir, birch, ash, and Ecuadorian balsa, was the fastest, most versatile airplane in the Allies’ arsenal. Variously armed with reconnaissance equipment, cannon, or machine guns, it could also carry an 1,800-kilogram “blockbuster” bomb. Not only did it suffer the lowest loss rate of any Allied warplane, it was also the easiest and cheapest to repair. The lightweight fighter-bomber was so fast that the Americans issued standing orders for their swiftest plane, the P-38 Lightning, never to be flown alongside it. Despite being powered by propellers, the Mosquito had a top speed of more than six hundred kilometres per hour (unloaded), making interception all but impossible by any other aircraft.Its headline-friendly name notwithstanding, Howard Hughes’s famous Spruce Goose, the largest airplane ever built, included only a small amount of Sitka spruce.
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*10 The Inuit won the right to vote in 1950. “Status Indians” (those formally registered with the federal government) followed in 1960, while Metis people had always been considered citizens and so were eligible to vote in both provincial and federal elections as long as they met basic criteria, such as the possession of property, etc.
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*11 Implied here is a scientific definition of “living,” as opposed to that traditionally used by most Native peoples, which held that everything was alive and interconnected. Increasingly, the world of science is subscribing to this view as well.
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*12 Bamboo, an exceptionally fast-growing species of giant grass, is becoming an increasingly popular source of flooring material, and Woodstalk, a construction grade fibreboard made from wheat straw, is useful for shelving, cabinetry and flooring underlay. Meanwhile, straw bale and rammed earth construction offer renewable, inexpensive alternatives to traditional timber and plywood houses. Kenaf, a fibrous and fast-growing plant that does well in North America, is becoming increasingly popular for paper-making.
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*13 According to the New York Times Company, about 25 percent of their paper is derived from recycled material.
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*14 Some tribes did sign a handful of limited, local treaties granting rights to specific coal mines and other resources.
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*15 In 2003, Starbucks, the international, multi-billion-dollar coffee conglomerate, was forced to abandon a copyright infringment suit against Haida Bucks Café, a tiny restaurant in Masset, after facing an unanticipated wave of negative publicity and boycotts from around the world.
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†16 The decision was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2004, but the duty to consult was shifted to the province.
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*17 In 2005, Brookfield Asset Management (formerly Brascan), an international assets management corporation based in Toronto, took over Weyerhaeuser’s coastal logging operations, including those in Haida Gwaii. Many felt that the sale violated the 2004 Supreme Court ruling requiring the province to consult with the Haida before such transfers, and this prompted a month-long blockade of logging operations by Islands Spirit Rising, a coalition of Haida and white islanders, many of whom are loggers.
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*18 The grandfather of the artist Robert Davidson described the gagiid as “a person whose spirit was too strong to die.” Says Davidson of the Haida people, “In this way, we are all gagiids.”
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