Samara from Otter Books shares a review for John Valliant’s The Golden Spruce.
I vastly prefer fiction to non-fiction, but I try to read one or two non-fiction a year to keep up appearances. A customer suggested I read The Golden Spruce, and I was pleasantly surprised to find myself immediately engaged in Vaillant’s detailed and descriptive writing. The book is firmly grounded in research, but reads like a collection of stories woven carefully together. The book begins by taking us on a journey through an ancient and pristine northwest coastal forest and leaves us with its uncertain fate in the present.
The main thread of the book follows the mystery of Grant Hadwin, an eccentric timber scout, who, one winter night in 1997, attacked a 300-year-old Sitka spruce with a chain saw and then disappeared. This ancient golden spruce was sacred to the Haida people, and had been a popular tourist attraction and scientific marvel. The fact that we’ll never truly know Hadwin’s reasons for this act makes the story all the more interesting.
Along the way, we learn about the history of the logging industry from its earliest roots, the meeting and strained relationship of the Europeans and the Haida, and the present issues surrounding our over consumption of natural resources. Anyone who lives in British Columbia, and has any interest in its history (especially that of the logging industry), should read this book. I found it engrossing, and informative. I recommend it often, along with Vaillant’s newest book, The Tiger.
