The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed

· W. W. Norton & Company
4.4
12 reviews
Ebook
288
Pages

About this ebook

A tale of obsession so fierce that a man kills the thing he loves most: the only giant golden spruce on earth. When a shattered kayak and camping gear are found on an uninhabited island in the Pacific Northwest, they reignite a mystery surrounding a shocking act of protest. Five months earlier, logger-turned-activist Grant Hadwin had plunged naked into a river in British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands, towing a chainsaw. When his night's work was done, a unique Sitka spruce, 165 feet tall and covered with luminous golden needles, teetered on its stump. Two days later it fell.

As vividly as John Krakauer puts readers on Everest, John Vaillant takes us into the heart of North America's last great forest.

Ratings and reviews

4.4
12 reviews
A Google user
July 29, 2012
John Vaillant's recount of the Haida Tribe, Grant Hardwin, and the sitka spruce, 300 years old, 165 feet tall with its golden needles growing in this beautiful place in the world left me speechless. I think John Perbin said it right. "Civilization has never recognized limits to its needs. Richard McFaul
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Mark Bousho
February 22, 2014
Keeps you enthralled throughout the entire book.
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Hugo Sarlandie
August 30, 2019
Similar to a documentary, very interesting topic. Beautiful writing
1 person found this review helpful
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About the author

John Vaillant’s acclaimed, award-winning nonfiction books, The Golden Spruce and The Tiger, were national bestsellers. His debut novel, The Jaguar’s Children, was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award. Vaillant has received the Governor General’s Literary Award, the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, and the Pearson Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. He has written for, among others, The New Yorker, the Atlantic, National Geographic, and the Walrus. He lives in Vancouver.

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