The Golden Spruce
The award-winning international bestseller
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- £6.99
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
THE AWARD-WINNING INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER, FROM THE AUTHOR OF FIRE WEATHER, WINNER OF THE 2023 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NONFICTION
WINNER OF A WINDHAM-CAMPBELL PRIZE 2014
'Absolutely spellbinding' New York Times
'Will change how many people think about nature' Sebastian Junger
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JOURNEY INTO THE HEART OF NORTH AMERICA'S LAST GREAT FOREST.
On a bleak winter night in 1997, a British Columbia timber scout named Grant Hadwin committed an act of shocking violence: he destroyed the legendary Golden Spruce of the Queen Charlotte Islands. With its rich colours, towering height and luminous needles, the tree was a scientific marvel, beloved by the local Haida people who believed it sacred.
The Golden Spruce tells the story of the sadness which pushed Hadwin to such a desperate act of destruction - a bizarre environmental protest which acts as a metaphor for the challenge the world faces today. But it also raises the question of what then happened to Hadwin, who disappeared under suspicious circumstances and remains missing to this day.
Part thrilling mystery, part haunting depiction of the ancient beauty of the coastal wilderness, and part dramatic chronicle of the historical collision of Europeans and the native Haida, The Golden Spruce is a timely portrait of man's troubled relationship with a vanishing world.
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'Worthy of comparison to Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild . . . A story of the heartbreakingly complex relationship between man and nature.' ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
'His story is about one man and one tree, but it is much more than that. John Vaillant has written a work that will change how many people think about nature.' SEBASTIAN JUNGER
'A haunting tale of a good man driven mad by environmental devastation' LOS ANGELES TIMES
'Absolutely spellbinding . . . descriptions of the Queen Charlotte Islands, with their misty, murky light and hushed, cathedral-like forests, are haunting, and Vaillant does full justice to the noble, towering trees.' NEW YORK TIMES
'A haunting portrait of man's vexed relationship with nature.' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The felling of a celebrated giant golden spruce tree in British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands takes on a potent symbolism in this probing study of an unprecedented act of eco-vandalism. First-time author Vaillant, who originally wrote about the death of the spruce for the New Yorker, profiles the culprit, an ex-logger turned messianic environmentalist who toppled the famous tree the only one of its kind to protest the destruction of British Columbia's old-growth forest, then soon vanished mysteriously. Vaillant also explores the culture and history of the Haida Indians who revered the tree, and of the logging industry that often expresses an elegiac awe for the ancient trees it is busily clear-cutting. Writing in a vigorous, evocative style, Vaillant portrays the Pacific Northwest as a region of conflict and violence, from the battles between Europeans and Indians over the 18th-century sea otter trade to the hard-bitten, macho milieu of the logging camps, where grisly death is an occupational hazard. It is also, in his telling, a land of virtually infinite natural resources overmatched by an even greater human rapaciousness. Through this archetypal story of "people fail to see the forest for the tree," Vaillant paints a haunting portrait of man's vexed relationship with nature. Photos.
