 Front paperback cover art for The Golden Spruce. | |
| Author | John Vaillant |
|---|---|
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Kiidk'yaas |
| Publisher | W. W. Norton & Company |
Publication date | May 17, 2005 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover), audiobook, e-book |
| Pages | 272 |
| ISBN | 978-0393058871 |
| OCLC | 66145134 |
| Followed by | The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival |
The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed is a book by American author John Vaillant. [1] It was his first book, published in May 2005. [2] [3]
The book is based on a 2002 article Vaillant wrote for The New Yorker . [4]
While researching the book, Vaillant learned that the oral tradition surrounding The Golden Spruce is considered the property of various clans throughout the Pacific Northwest and requires permission to retell. [5] Speaking about the challenge of writing a book where principal characters are absent or dead, Vaillant said, "Virtually everyone leaves a trail behind them in the form of tracks, objects, relationships, official documents, and the memories of others." [6]
The book tells the story of Kiidk'yaas, or The Golden Spruce, which was a Sitka Spruce tree venerated by the Haida people. The tree itself contained a genetic mutation causing it to appear golden in color. [7] It was felled in Haida Gwaii by forest engineer Grant Hadwin. [8] [9]
From Publishers Weekly :
The Golden Spruce won the 2005 Governor General's Awards for non-fiction. [11]
The Sydney Morning Herald described the book as, "A deep-reaching account of the clash between wilderness values, the voracious logging industry, white settlers, and first nations people." [12] The New York Times said the book, "explore[s] the relationship between man and nature with lush language and page-turning suspense." [1] It has drawn comparisons to Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, The Hot Zone by Richard Preston, H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald and Flash Boys by Michael Lewis. [13] [14]
In 2016, the book was adapted into a feature-length documentary titled Hadwin’s Judgement by filmmaker Sasha Snow. [11] It was the second collaboration between Snow and Vaillant; Snow's 2006 documentary Conflict Tiger was the source of inspiration for Vaillant's 2010 book The Tiger. [4] The film premiered at The Globe Theater in Calgary, Alberta on 22 January 2016. [15]
Haida are an Indigenous group who have traditionally occupied Haida Gwaii, an archipelago just off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, for at least 12,500 years.
A spruce is a tree of the genus Picea, a genus of about 40 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. Picea is the sole genus in the subfamily Piceoideae. Spruces are large trees, from about 20 to 60 m tall when mature, and have whorled branches and conical form.
Haida Gwaii, formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, is an archipelago located between 55–125 km (34–78 mi) off the northern Pacific coast of Canada. The islands are separated from the mainland to the east by the shallow Hecate Strait. Queen Charlotte Sound lies to the south, with Vancouver Island beyond. To the north, the disputed Dixon Entrance separates Haida Gwaii from the Alexander Archipelago in the U.S. state of Alaska.
Kiidk'yaas, also known as the Golden Spruce, was a Sitka spruce tree that grew on the banks of the Yakoun River on the Haida Gwaii archipelago in British Columbia, Canada. It had a rare genetic mutation that caused its needles to be golden in colour. Kiidk'yaas was considered sacred by the Haida people.
The Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, formerly known as the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, is a Canadian literary award presented by the Writers' Trust of Canada after an annual juried competition of works submitted by publishers. Alongside the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction and the Giller Prize, it is considered one of the three main awards for Canadian fiction in English. Its eligibility criteria allow for it to garland collections of short stories as well as novels; works that were originally written and published in French are also eligible for the award when they appear in English translation.
Picea sitchensis, the Sitka spruce, is a large, coniferous, evergreen tree growing to almost 100 meters (330 ft) tall, with a trunk diameter at breast height that can exceed 5 m (16 ft). It is by far the largest species of spruce and the fifth-largest conifer in the world, and the third-tallest conifer species. The Sitka spruce is one of the few species documented to exceed 90 m (300 ft) in height. Its name is derived from the community of Sitka in southeast Alaska, where it is prevalent. Its range hugs the western coast of Canada and the US, continuing south into northernmost California.
Richard Miller Flanagan is an Australian writer, who has also worked as a film director and screenwriter. He won the 2014 Man Booker Prize for his novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North.
The Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize was a Canadian literary award, presented by the Writers' Trust of Canada to a work judged as the year's best work of biography, autobiography or personal memoir by a Canadian writer.
The Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction is a Canadian literary award, presented annually by the Writers' Trust of Canada to the best work of non-fiction by a Canadian writer.
The Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo is located in Bridgeland, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, just east of the city's downtown and adjacent to the Inglewood and East Village neighborhoods. It is accessible via Calgary's C-Train light rail system, by car via Memorial Drive, and by bicycle and footpath via the Bow River pathway. A large portion of the zoo is located on St. George's Island in the Bow River.
Gidansda Giindajin Haawasti Guujaaw, also known as Gary Edenshaw, is a singer, wood carver, traditional medicine practitioner, political activist and leader. He of Gakyaals Kiiqawaay, a Haida family of the Raven moiety. He has currently inherited the name Gidansda from his potlatch in 2017, the title of Gakyaals Kiiqawaay hereditary leader. The family's alternate name, "Skedans", is an anglicized mispronunciation of the family's hereditary leader's title.
Marina Endicott is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. Her novel, Good to a Fault, won the 2009 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Canada and the Caribbean and was a finalist for the Giller Prize. Her next, The Little Shadows, was long-listed for the Giller and short-listed for the Governor General's Literary Award. Close to Hugh, was long-listed for the Giller Prize and named one of CBC's Best Books of 2015. Her latest, The Difference, won the City of Edmonton Robert Kroetsch prize. It was published in the US by W.W. Norton as The Voyage of the Morning Light in June 2020.
Port Clements is an incorporated village situated at the east end of Masset Inlet in Haida Gwaii off the coast of the Province of British Columbia in Canada. Known as Gamadiis in HlG̱aagilda X̱aayda kil, it is one of seven village sites that flourished in the rich waters at the mouth of Yakoun River, where an estuary shelters nine Pacific salmonid species and many kinds of birds. Founded by Eli Tingley in 1907, it was once known under the name Queenstown, but renamed to Port Clements in 1914 after Herb S. Clements, the local MP at the time, when the name "Queenstown" duplicated and therefore became unusable for the post office.
Thomas Grant Hadwin was a Canadian forest engineer. In January 1997, he felled Kiidk'yaas, a Sitka Spruce tree located on the Haida Gwaii archipelago and considered sacred by the Haida people. Hadwin stated that he cut the tree down as a protest against the logging industry. While facing criminal charges for the act, he disappeared en route to his trial. His fate remains unknown.
The Yakoun River is the largest river of Haida Gwaii, in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Located on Graham Island it flows about 58 km (36 mi) from Yakoun Lake north to Masset Inlet, a large saltwater bay located in the heart of the Graham Island and connected to the Pacific Ocean at Dixon Entrance via a long narrow inlet called Masset Sound.
Gordon John Buchanan is a Scottish wildlife cameraman, filmmaker and presenter. His work includes the nature documentaries Tribes, Predators & Me, The Polar Bear Family & Me and Life in the Snow.
John Vaillant is an American-Canadian writer and journalist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and Outside. He has written both non-fiction and fiction books.
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David Christensen is an Alberta film director and producer who since October 2007 has been an executive producer with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) at its Northwest Centre, based in Edmonton.
Hadwin's Judgement is a Canadian documentary film, released in 2015. Directed by Sasha Snow and based in part on John Vaillant's 2004 book The Golden Spruce, the film is about Grant Hadwin, the logger who protested logging company practices by cutting down the sacred Kiidk'yaas in 1997. The film also includes some docudrama elements, in which Hadwin is portrayed by actor Doug Chapman.