The Golden Spruce

I am mere pages away from finishing The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant (who I must admit I want to refer to as “Johnny Valiant” because it sounds way cooler) and thought I’d pass it along to the readers. My good friend Keith Morrisson (who, for those who know me, is the other half of the duo I play my upright bass in) passed the book along to me, and I’ve very much enjoyed it.

It’s sort of three stories in one, all true, and all tightly intermingled because the story of the golden spruce would make no sense without an understanding of the history of the Haida natives of the BC coast, the history of the logging industry, and the tale of Grant Hadwin, a logger and environmentalist.

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Learn to subtract

darling


We’ve all heard the spiel about the GDP (I got it in high school first and the media later) and how it’s the measure of a country’s economic blahblahblah, and how it’s the primary scorecard that policymakers, economists, international agencies and the media use to show how well we’re doing… but personally, I never did trust suits, so I decided to look a little further.¬† ;)

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Cheap

Imagine a country with a vibrant, bustling economy whose growth seems to know no bounds even in these trying times.¬† New business is springing up everywhere you look and there’s no end in sight.¬† Concrete, steel, ships, textiles, automobiles, you name it!¬† And those are just the big ticket items!

No, it’s not some fairytale land of make believe and puppy dogs… it’s China.¬† Home of all things manufactured!¬† Hell, the toothpicks I bought yesterday are from China!

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