The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant

Author:John Vaillant
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307371324
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2008-07-25T16:00:00+00:00

DESPITE HIS PROPENSITY for envelope-pushing, Hadwin was injured badly in the bush only once—when the pawl on a jack he was using slipped under load, causing the handle to flip up and shatter his jaw. The alarming frequency of accidents in the woods puts Hadwin’s preference for working alone in a different light. Most responsible companies wouldn’t allow it now. Cutting down big trees in total darkness is also frowned on.

The forest at night, in winter, is a very quiet place, and Hadwin’s saw would have sounded unbelievably loud in that peaceful setting. It roared for hours, unheard, apparently, by all but Hadwin. The bull-bucker for MacMillan Bloedel who later performed what can only be described as chainsaw forensics on the tree, noted that Hadwin knew what he was doing. He employed a Humboldt undercut and then cut a series of “cookies”—small window blocks—to allow his sixty-five-centimetre bar access to the heart of the tree. He had clearly studied his target carefully because he made his cuts and employed falling wedges in such a way that the tree would not fall with its natural lean but rather in line with the prevailing winds and toward the river. Sitka spruce is so strong that two nine-metre logs connected by only ten centimetres of heartwood can be dragged through the forest without breaking, and Hadwin took advantage of this by leaving just enough holding wood so that the golden spruce would remain standing until the next storm blew in.

But as Hadwin was making his cuts, he was—like every logger—also carving his way into the past. Tree rings that had been hidden since Harry Tingley picnicked there with his father, since the last smallpox epidemic emptied the surrounding villages, since Captain Kendrick was riddled with grapeshot, since a time before Captain Pérez and Chief Koyah were born—all this fled by, unnoticed, in a flickering comet’s tail of sawdust. Hadwin didn’t stop cutting until about 1710, when his own ancestors were still living a near-tribal existence in the British Isles and the masts of the first Nor’westman had yet to puncture the southern horizon. Then Hadwin shut down the saw, packed up his gear, and floated it back across the Yakoun, leaving behind an audible silence and a tree so unstable that it would have shivered with every breath.

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