Sloane, Eric. A Reverence for Wood. New York, 1965.
Snyder, Gary. The Gary Snyder Reader: Prose, Poetry, and Translations. Washington, D.C., 1999.
Swanton, John R. (John Enrico, ed.). Skidegate Haida Myths and Histories. Skidegate, B.C., 1995.
Thoreau, Henry D. The Maine Woods. Boston, Massachusetts, 1864.
Trower, Peter. Bush Poems. Madeira Park, B.C., 1978.
———. Chainsaws in the Cathedral. Victoria, B.C., 1999.
———. Haunted Hills & Hanging Valleys: Selected Poems 1969–2004. Madeira Park, B.C., 2004.
Van Syckle, Edwin. They Tried to Cut It All: Grays Harbor—Turbulent Years of Greed and Greatness. Aberdeen, Washington, 1980.
Villiers, Alan. Captain James Cook. New York, 1967.
Weigand, Jim, et al. “Coastal Temperate Rain Forests: Ecological Characteristics, Status and Distribution Worldwide.” Ecotrust/Conservation International, Occasional Paper Series, no. 1. Portland, Oregon, June, 1992.
Williams, Gerald R. “The Spruce Production Division”. Forestry History Today, Spring 1999.
Williams, Michael. Americans and Their Forests: A Historical Geography. Cambridge, England, 1989.
Wright, Robin K. Northern Haida Master Carvers. Vancouver, B.C., 2001.
Wyatt, Gary. Spirit Faces: Contemporary Native American Masks from the Northwest. San Francisco, California, 1995.
VIDEOS
Voices from the Talking Stick. Todd (Tyarm) Merrell, 1997.
Personal footage; Archie Stocker.
ENDNOTES
PROLOGUE
Kayak find information: Scott Walker. Personal communication.
CHAPTER 1: A THRESHOLD BETWEEN WORLDS
dumped twenty-eight metres of snow…: “The National Climate Extremes Committee’s Evaluation of the Reported 1,140-Inch National 1998–99 Seasonal Snowfall Record at the Mount Baker, Washington, Ski Area.” Findings presented at the 57th Eastern Snow Conference, Syracuse, New York, 2000, www.easternsnow.org/proceedings/2000/leffler.pdf.
Information on original range and distribution of coastal temperate rainforests: based on Weigand, et al.
“biological desert”: Luoma, 42.
It has been estimated that a square metre of temperate forest soil…: Ibid., 94.
Andy Moldenke, an entomologist at Oregon State University…: Ibid., 97.
“west of west”: Lillard, The Ghostland People, 33.
“One conspicuous feature of the atmospheric effect…”: Ibid., 305.
Very Wet Hypermarine Subzone: Peterson et al. 4.
Twenty-three species of whale live in or pass through the region’s waters: Doug Sandilands, researcher, B.C. Cetacean Sightings Network. Personal communication. waters: Doug Sandilands, researcher, B.C. Cetacean Sightings Network. Personal communication.
“She’s a black-hearted bitch…”: Dalzell, The Queen Charlotte Islands, Book 2: Of Places and Names, 152
“I didn’t even make an axe mark on it…”: MacMillan Bloedel, 6.
CHAPTER 2: THE BEGINNING OF THE END
“You’d gouge into the ground that deep, too….”: Wesley Pearson. Personal communication.
One county on the Washington coast…: Grays Harbor County; Van Syckle, 65.
“How’dya like that?”: Aubrey Harris. Personal communication.
CHAPTER 3: A BOARDWALK TO MARS
“There were some awful bloody animals…”: Peter Trower. Personal communication.
“a wizard on the pegboard”: Truls Skogland. Personal communication.
“He was very polished….”: Tom Lundgren. Personal communication.
“You never won an argument with Tom Hadwin”: Harry Purney. Personal communication.
“Even with his hands in his pockets,…”: Paul Clark. Personal communication.
“the unexpected heaped atop the unforeseen”: Fawcett, 55.
CHAPTER 4: THE PEOPLE
“first-class prospectors, and know all about gold mining…: Downie Report 10/10/1859. Lillard, The Ghostland People, 92–95.
“very large and capable of carrying one hundred…”: “The Haidah Indians of Queen Charlotte’s Islands,” James G. Swan, 1873. Lillard, The Ghostland People, 121.
There has been a great deal of speculation about how far the Haida travelled…: See Tilikum: Luxton’s Pacific Crossing—Being the Journal of Norman Kenny Luxton, Mate of the Tilikum, May 20, 1901, Victoria B.C., To October 18, 1901, Suva Fiji. Sidney, B.C., 1971.
(Based on existing trade routes and maritime technology…): Lillard, Just East of Sundown, 51.
While attributed to the Haida, this canoe was probably…: Bill McLennan, Curator/Project manager, UBC Museum of Anthropology. Personal communication.
“Islands Coming out of (Supernatural) Concealment”: Guujaaw, Nathalie Macfarlane. Personal communications.
CHAPTER 5: THE WILDEST OF THE WILD
a legendary place called Fousang: Hayes, ff. 9.
“the backside of America”: Ibid, 7.
“as plentiful as blackberries”: Shakespeare’s King Henry the Fourth, Act II, scene iv. Falstaff: “…If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.” This phrase was well known to literate Britons in the eighteenth century.
the equivalent of about $2,400 today: “Inflation Conversion Factors for Years 1665 to estimated 2013,” © 2003 Robert C. Sahr; Political Science Department, Oregon State University.
ice-cube-sized hail would cause birds to drop, dead, from the sky: Michael Scott. Personal communication.
“dreary,” “inhospitable,” “wretched,” “savage,” “barbarous”: Gibson, 147.
“shitting through one’s teeth”: Ibid., 138.
smallpox almost certainly preceded the traders: Acheson, BC Studies, 50.
“These artists of the northwest could dye a horse…”: Gibson, 159.
“it has often been observed when the head of a nail…”: Ibid., 155.
“I could have kill’d 100 more with grapeshot”: Boit, 49–50.
“Before many years…”: “Missouri River Journals,” Aug. 5, 1843, from Alice Ford, Audubon’s Animals, New York, 1954.
“Should I recount all the lawless & brutal acts…”: Gibson, 158.
“Spars of every denomination are in constant demand…”: Gould, 16.
CHAPTER 6: THE TOOTH OF THE HUMAN RACE
“What better way to portray the wealth of our country?”: Sloane, 75.
…the term “firestorm” was coined: Pyne, 204.
“an enemy to be overcome by any means, fair or foul”: Williams, 12.
But the “axe age,” as one historian calls it: Klenman, 7.
Climax, Demon, Endurance, Cock of the Woods, Red Warrior,…: Ibid., 27ff.
“The great size of the Timber and the thick growth…”: Gibson, 71.
“When I stood among those big trees…”: Andrews, Glory Days of Logging. Dust jacket copy.
“I raised my eyes to the sky and could see nothing…”: Gould, 15.
“British Columbia is a barren, cold mountain country…”: Ibid., 95.
“The numerous and extensive milling establishments…: MacKay, 8.
British Columbia’s Supreme Advantage in Climate…: Gould, 24.
“It makes little difference to the people of western Canada…”: MacKay, 21.
“would be selling to the moon…”: Ibid., 109.
CHAPTER 7: THE FATAL FLAW
…the only man-made object besides the Great Wall of China…: Brian Fawcett. Personal communication. 101 the derogatory nickname “Brazil of the North”: Greenpeace ad, 1993.
…replanted and renamed a “New Forest”: Fawcett, 4.
“I was one of the last people to see these areas…”: Queen Charlotte Islands Observer, 1/30/97: 11.
they were “a bottom-tier company…”: Confidential source.
“The essence of the spirituality of the desert…”: Benedicta Ward, Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Kalamazoo, Michigan,
1987, xxi.
“Get the fuck out of here!”: Confidential source.
“The supply of Sitka spruce suitable for aeroplane…: Lillard, Just East of Sundown, 129.
nearly 30 percent of a cutblock’s usable wood…: Mahood, 52.
9 DAYS WITHOUT AN INJURY: Personal visit, 10/01.
“If this was mine, I’d cut it all down…”: Personal communication.
“somehow closer and more alive…”: Parfitt, 107.
A senior engineer for MacMillan Bloedel who saw the tree…: Jim Trebett. Personal communication.
CHAPTER 8: THE FALL
Chainsaws have been in development since at least 1905,…: “Power Saws Come of Age,” The Timberman, October 1949, 150.
“Upset about the Golden spruce?…”: Ian Lordon, Queen Charlotte Islands Observer, 1/30/97, 11.
“This seems to have opened some kind of wound….”: The Globe and Mail, 1/29/97, A6.
“Can there be another Gandhi or Martin Luther King?”: Robert
“When society places so much value…”: Heather Colpitts, Prince Rupert Daily News, 2/12/97, 1.
“I considered him misguided…”: Confidential source.
“a great idea. It was M & B’s pet tree,…”: Confidential source.
“unofficially, something could happen to him.”: Frank Collison. Personal communication.
“If I see him,” vowed Tranter, “I’ll kill him.”: Personal communication.
“The consensus,” claimed Eunice Sandberg…: Vancouver Sun, 1/25/97, A1.
“nail his balls to the stump.”: Personal communication.
One Haida leader also suggested that Hadwin…: Confidential source.
“whether we should cut a part off the person…”: The Globe and Mail, 1/27/97, A5.
“How serious the worship of trees was…”: Ch. IX, 127.
“it makes me sick; it’s like losing an old friend.”: Queen Charlotte Islands Observer, 1/30/97, 10.
compared Hadwin’s logic to that of the pro-life activist: Prince Rupert Daily News, 1/27/97, 4.
“They’re making it as nasty as they possibly can…” Queen Charlotte Islands Observer, 1/30/97, 11.
CHAPTER 9: MYTH
“Whoever did this,” said a MacMillan Bloedel spokesman…: Victoria Times-Colonist, 1/25/97, 1.
“Even now,” wrote Pliny the Elder…: “Sacred Groves and Sacred Trees of Uttara Kannada,” M. D. Subash Chandran. Chapter from Lifestyle and Ecology. Edited by Baidyanath Saraswati. New Delhi, India, 1998.
“Talking about Skidegate and Masset…”: Hazel Simeon. Personal communication.
“The island population is now shrunk to not over seven hundred…”: Bringhurst, 69.
“unimprovable” parents: Frank, 35.
Lacking anything in the way of the masks…: Voices from the Talking Stick.
CHAPTER 10: HECATE STRAIT
“He did wrong,” she told a journalist at the time.: Vancouver Sun,
Veteran north coast kayakers tell stories…: Stewart Marshall. Personal communication.
“The worst thing you can do…”: Ibid.
there would be “no uniforms…”: Heather Colpitts, Prince Rupert Daily News, 2/12/97, 1.
his wife described him as “indestructible.”: Corporal Gary Stroeder. Personal communication.
“the Paris of the Pacific”: Hayes, 111.
“non-ordinary reality”: “Shamanic Healing: We Are Not Alone”, Shamanism, vol. 10, no. 1 (Spring–Summer), 1997.
“I never met a shaman who isn’t somewhat psychotic…”: Maclean’s, 11/4/96, 65.
having a “special role” in the world: Confidential source.
“very overvalued ideas about the environment…”: Confidential source.
“Instances of such confusion…”: ReVision, 8 (2), 21–31, 1986.
“Religious or Spiritual Problem”: DSM-IV, Washington, D.C., 1994, p. 685.
Spiritual Emergency Resource Center: www.virtualcs.com/se/index.html.
“survive on nuts and berries for six weeks…”: The Daily Sitka Sentinel, 6/10/93, 1.
CHAPTER 11: THE SEARCH
“everyone is suspect”: Confidential source.
Dear Lord, give us one more boom….: Local saying.
“whip the people’s souls” before battle. (and following account): Lillard, “Revenge of the Pebble Town People: A Raid on the Tlingit.”
“mortician’s wax.”: Sgt. Ken Burton. Personal communication.
“a perpetual tree”: www.EXN.ca (Discovery Channel Web site), 1/29/97.
“If you live on the edge of the circle…”: Voices from the Talking Stick.
the second tree was a “male”: Collison, 39.
“a Haida princess guided us to the tree…: Victoria Times-Colonist, 1/29/97, A10.
“I wasn’t allowed to come to the public…”: Vancouver Sun, 1/28/97, A1.
“Nature,” it said, “appears reluctant to duplicate a rare, beautiful mistake.”: MacMillan Bloedel, 4.
CHAPTER 12: THE SECRET
“amorphous, irregular seismic signature…”: “Strange Beings,” Lynn Lee, Spruce Roots, December, 2000.
“All you do is attach two wounds together.”: Don Carson, www.EXN.ca [Discovery Channel Web site], 1/29/97.
CHAPTER 13: COYOTE
one of Hadwin’s previous bosses was reluctant…: Confidential source.
“Eight hundred years to grow, and twenty-five minutes to put on the ground….”: Personal communication with unidentified source.
CHAPTER 14: OVER THE HORIZON
“Civilization has never recognized limits to its needs.”: Perlin, 38.
“What is not wanted for any present purpose…”: Williams, 80.
“Man,” he wrote more than 140 years ago,…: Marsh, 228.
“Nearly the entire territory has been logged over….”: F. Roth, “On the forestry conditions of northern Wisconsin.” Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey Bulletin, no. 1. Madison, Wis., 1898. (See J. T. Curtis, The Vegetation of Wisconsin. Madison, Wis., 1959, 469.)
“lady conservationists”: Chase, 70.
these states have lost more than 90 per cent of their old-growth…: Source: Ecotrust.
British Columbia,…has lost 60 percent. Source: Sierra Club B.C.
“Soil and water return to their rightful places…”: From The Book of Rites, quoted in “Brief History of Environmental Protection in China,” Shijiang Peng, Department of Agricultural History, South China University of Agriculture, Guangzhou, Guangdong, PR China. (Research in Agricultural History 1989 (81): 131–165. Transl./interpreted by Dr. W. Tsao, 1/30/2002. Ed. B. Gordon. www.carleton.ca/~bgordon/Rice/papers/peng89.htm.
Starbucks…was forced to abandon a copyright infringement suit…: Lane Baldwin. Personal communication.
“I started out as a redneck logger…”: Prince Rupert Daily News, 3/23/04, 1.
…the Atlantic salmon population, in its wild form, has fallen by nearly 75 percent…: “Status of North American Wild Salmon,” Atlantic Salmon Federation, May 2004.
EPILOGUE: REVIVAL
“It rains a lot here…” Personal communication with unidentified source.
“the mother of everybody”: Collison, 10.
“I’d have run him over in my tug…”: Gunner Anderson. Personal communication.
“Hope the bastard landed on Grant.”: Personal communication.
The grandfather of the artist Robert Davidson….: Related during a talk at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology, 10/26/04.
PHOTO CREDITS
A: Battle between Captain Robert Gray’s Columbia and some Kwaikutls. (photograph by George Davidson, Oregon Historical Society, # OrHi 49264)
B: Tenaktak (Kwakiutl) canoes approaching the beach. (photograph by Edward Sherrif Curtis, reprinted with permission. British Columbia Archives D-08429)
A: Outfit of a north coast warrior. (photograph © Canadian Museum of Civilization, catalogue no. VII-X-1073)n