A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed

This haunting tale of a man driven mad by the environmental destruction he sees all around him is a true story and win the Governor General’s Award for Non-fiction. The subject of the book, John Hadwin, first visited the sacred forests of the Haida Gwaii, in British Columbia, in 1966.

There he first sees a special tree known as ‘the golden spruce’ and stumbles into a vortex of conflicting hopes, dreams, and ambitions. Hadwin is an exceptional logger and, as he works in this forest, with its cathedral like mystic presence, he becomes more and more of an environmentalist.

He tries to find some inner peace as he becomes more aware of the corporate lust for money and its lack of respect for people in general, the Haida and their sacred beliefs in particular, and for honouring the ecological balance of the coastal rainforest.

Increasingly tormented, Hadwin leaves his family, commits a surprising crime, and, ultimately, disappears.

The Golden Spruce is a story as majestic as the tree itself and presents both the mystery of Hadwin’s life and a history of the logging industry of British Columbia.

“A culture is no better than its woods.” – W.H. AUDEN