The Golden Spruce

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The Golden Spruce

Author : John Vaillant
Publisher : Vintage Canada
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2009-03-18
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780307371324

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The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant Pdf

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR NON-FICTION • WINNER OF THE WRITERS’ TRUST NON-FICTION PRIZE “Absolutely spellbinding.” —The New York Times The environmental true-crime story of a glorious natural wonder, the man who destroyed it, and the fascinating, troubling context in which this act took place. FEATURING A NEW AFTERWORD BY THE AUTHOR On a winter night in 1997, a British Columbia timber scout named Grant Hadwin committed an act of shocking violence in the mythic Queen Charlotte Islands. His victim was legendary: a unique 300-year-old Sitka spruce tree, fifty metres tall and covered with luminous golden needles. In a bizarre environmental protest, Hadwin attacked the tree with a chainsaw. Two days later, it fell, horrifying an entire community. Not only was the golden spruce a scientific marvel and a tourist attraction, it was sacred to the Haida people and beloved by local loggers. Shortly after confessing to the crime, Hadwin disappeared under suspicious circumstances and is missing to this day. As John Vaillant deftly braids together the strands of this thrilling mystery, he brings to life the ancient beauty of the coastal wilderness, the historical collision of Europeans and the Haida, and the harrowing world of logging—the most dangerous land-based job in North America.

The Jaguar's Children

Author : John Vaillant
Publisher : Knopf Canada
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2015-01-06
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780307366948

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The Jaguar's Children by John Vaillant Pdf

From the #1 bestselling, award-winning author of The Golden Spruce and The Tiger: a rich, gripping literary thriller in the spirit of The Constant Gardener that showcases the narrative power for which John Vaillant is internationally acclaimed. Hector, a young Zapotec fleeing Mexico for a better life in the US with his friend Cesar, a biotech researcher, pays to be smuggled across the border by unscrupulous "coyotes," concealed in the tightly sealed, empty tank of a water truck packed with illegal migrants. Abandoned by the smugglers in the desert, they are left to die, their only lifeline Cesar's phone. When Cesar slips into unconsciousness, Hector reaches out to the one name with an American code--AnniMac--that becomes his lifeline to the world as he reveals what has brought him to this place, taking us back to an older Mexico; to the lives of his Zapotec grandparents and the ancient, mythic traditions, to the mystery behind the jaguar icon left to him by a mysterious archeologist, and the power of the corn myth. As legends fuse with the terrifying present, the dangers Cesar is fleeing become grippingly apparent: his research was threatening to expose the country's largest manufacturer of genetically modified corn, set to impose economic and cultural genocide on the native population. Finding the courage to survive is critical, even as hope dwindles.

The Tiger

Author : John Vaillant
Publisher : Knopf Canada
Page : 407 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2010-08-24
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780307375278

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The Tiger by John Vaillant Pdf

It's December 1997 and a man-eating tiger is on the prowl outside a remote village in Russia's Far East. The tiger isn't just killing people, it's annihilating them, and a team of men and their dogs must hunt it on foot through the forest in the brutal cold. To their horrified astonishment it emerges that the attacks are not random: the tiger is engaged in a vendetta. Injured and starving, it must be found before it strikes again, and the story becomes a battle for survival between the two main characters: Yuri Trush, the lead tracker, and the tiger itself. As John Vaillant vividly recreates the extraordinary events of that winter, he also gives us an unforgettable portrait of a spectacularly beautiful region where plants and animals exist that are found nowhere else on earth, and where the once great Siberian Tiger - the largest of its species, which can weigh over 600 lbs at more than 10 feet long - ranges daily over vast territories of forest and mountain, its numbers diminished to a fraction of what they once were. We meet the native tribes who for centuries have worshipped and lived alongside tigers - even sharing their kills with them - in a natural balance. We witness the first arrival of settlers, soldiers and hunters in the tiger's territory in the 19th century and 20th century, many fleeing Stalinism. And we come to know the Russians of today - such as the poacher Vladimir Markov - who, crushed by poverty, have turned to poaching for the corrupt, high-paying Chinese markets. Throughout we encounter surprising theories of how humans and tigers may have evolved to coexist, how we may have developed as scavengers rather than hunters and how early Homo sapiens may have once fit seamlessly into the tiger's ecosystem. Above all, we come to understand the endangered Siberian tiger, a highly intelligent super-predator, and the grave threat it faces as logging and poaching reduce its habitat and numbers - and force it to turn at bay. Beautifully written and deeply informative, The Tiger is a gripping tale of man and nature in collision, that leads inexorably to a final showdown in a clearing deep in the Siberian forest.

Big Lonely Doug

Author : Harley Rustad
Publisher : House of Anansi
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2018-09-04
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9781487003128

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Big Lonely Doug by Harley Rustad Pdf

Finalist, Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing Finalist, Banff Mountain Book Competition Finalist, BC Book Prize Globe and Mail best books of 2018 CBC best Canadian non-fiction of 2018 In the tradition of John Vaillant’s modern classic The Golden Spruce comes a story of the unlikely survival of one of the largest and oldest trees in Canada. On a cool morning in the winter of 2011, a logger named Dennis Cronin was walking through a stand of old-growth forest near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island. He came across a massive Douglas fir the height of a twenty-storey building. Instead of allowing the tree to be felled, he tied a ribbon around the trunk, bearing the words “Leave Tree.” The forest was cut but the tree was saved. The solitary Douglas fir, soon known as Big Lonely Doug, controversially became the symbol of environmental activists and their fight to protect the region’s dwindling old-growth forests. Originally featured as a long-form article in The Walrus that garnered a National Magazine Award (Silver), Big Lonely Doug weaves the ecology of old-growth forests, the legend of the West Coast’s big trees, the turbulence of the logging industry, the fight for preservation, the contention surrounding ecotourism, First Nations land and resource rights, and the fraught future of these ancient forests around the story of a logger who saved one of Canada's last great trees.

Understanding Roots

Author : Robert Kourik
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2015-08-24
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0961584866

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Understanding Roots by Robert Kourik Pdf

Understanding Roots uncovers one of the greatest mysteries underground—the secret lives and magical workings of the roots that move and grow invisibly beneath our feet. Roots, it seems, do more than just keep a plant from falling over: they gather water and nutrients, exude wondrous elixirs to create good soil, make friends with microbes and fungi, communicate with other roots, and adapt themselves to all manner of soils, winds, and climates, nourishing and sustaining our gardens, lawns, and woodlands. Understanding Roots contains over 115 enchanting and revealing root drawings that most people have never seen, from prairies, grasslands, and deserts, as well as drawings based on excavations of vegetable, fruit, nut, and ornamental tree roots. Every root system presented in this book was drawn by people literally working in the trenches, sketching the roots where they grew. The text provides a verydetailed review of all aspects of transplanting; describes how roots work their magic to improve soil nutrients; investigates the hidden life of soil microbes and their mysterious relationship to roots; explores the question of whether deep roots really gather more unique nutrients than shallow roots; shares the latest research about the mysteries of mycorrhizal (good fungal) association; shows you exactly where to put your fertilizer, compost, water, and mulch to help plants flourish; tells you why gray water increases crop yields more than fresh water; and, most importantly, reveals the science behind all the above (with citations for each scientific paper). This book contains at least eighty percent more new information, more results of the latest in-depth and up-to-date explorations, and even more helpful guidelines on roots than the author’s previous book (Roots Demystified: Change Your Garden Habits to Help Roots Thrive). This is not a revised edition—it’s a whole new stand-alone book.

Ice Walker

Author : James Raffan
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2020-10-13
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9781501155383

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Ice Walker by James Raffan Pdf

From bestselling author James Raffan comes an enlightening and original story about a polar bear’s precarious existence in the changing Arctic, reminiscent of John Vaillant’s The Golden Spruce. Nanurjuk, “the bear-spirited one,” is hunting for seals on Hudson Bay, where ice never lasts more than one season. For her and her young, everything is in flux. From the top of the world, Hudson Bay looks like an enormous paw print on the torso of the continent, and through a vast network of lakes and rivers, this bay connects to oceans across the globe. Here, at the heart of everything, walks Nanurjuk, or Nanu, one polar bear among the six thousand that traverse the 1.23 million square kilometers of ice and snow covering the bay. For millennia, Nanu’s ancestors have roamed this great expanse, living, evolving, and surviving alongside human beings in one of the most challenging and unforgiving habitats on earth. But that world is changing. In the Arctic’s lands and waters, oil has been extracted—and spilled. As global temperatures have risen, the sea ice that Nanu and her young need to hunt seal and fish has melted, forcing them to wait on land where the delicate balance between them and their two-legged neighbors has now shifted. This is the icescape that author and geographer James Raffan invites us to inhabit in Ice Walker. In precise and provocative prose, he brings readers inside Nanu’s world as she treks uncertainly around the heart of Hudson Bay, searching for nourishment for the children that grow inside her. She stops at nothing to protect her cubs from the dangers she can see—other bears, wolves, whales, human beings—and those she cannot. By focusing his lens on this bear family, Raffan closes the gap between humans and bears, showing us how, like the water of the Hudson Bay, our existence—and our future—is tied to Nanu’s. He asks us to consider what might be done about this fragile world before it is gone for good. Masterful, vivid, and haunting, Ice Walker is an utterly unique piece of creative nonfiction and a deeply affecting call to action.

Blood in the Water

Author : Silver Donald Cameron
Publisher : Steerforth
Page : 265 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2021-11-23
Category : True Crime
ISBN : 9781586422936

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Blood in the Water by Silver Donald Cameron Pdf

“Fascinating! [A] must-read for all concerned about how humans manage to live together. Or not.” —Margaret Atwood “Superb... an instant true crime classic.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) A masterfully told true story, perfect for fans of Say Nothing and Furious Hours: a brutal murder in a small Nova Scotia fishing community raises urgent questions of right and wrong, and even the very nature of good and evil. In his riveting and meticulously reported final book, Silver Donald Cameron offers a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing and its devastating repercussions. Cameron’s searing, utterly gripping story about one small community raises a disturbing question: Are there times when taking the law into your own hands is not only understandable but the responsible thing to do? In June 2013, three upstanding citizens of a small town on Cape Breton Island murdered their neighbor, Phillip Boudreau, at sea. While out checking their lobster traps, two Landry cousins and skipper Dwayne Samson saw Boudreau in his boat, the Midnight Slider, about to vandalize their lobster traps. Like so many times before, the small-time criminal was about to cost them thousands of dollars out of their seasonal livelihood. Boudreau seemed invincible, a miscreant who would plague the village forever. Meanwhile the police and local officials were frustrated, cowed, and hobbled by shrinking budgets. One of the men took out a rifle and fired four shots at Boudreau and his boat. Was the Boudreau killing cold blooded murder, a direct reaction to credible threats, or the tragic result of local officials failing to protect the community? As many local people have said, if those fellows hadn't killed him, someone else would have...

Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908

Author : Lucy Maud Montgomery
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 214 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2020-08-05
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9783752411911

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Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 by Lucy Maud Montgomery Pdf

Reproduction of the original: Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 by Lucy Maud Montgomery

The Great Spruce

Author : John Duvall
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 21 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2016-10-18
Category : Juvenile Fiction
ISBN : 9780698196278

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The Great Spruce by John Duvall Pdf

Together with his grandpa, a young boy finds a way to save his favorite tree in this heartwarming Christmas tale Alec loves to climb trees—the little apple trees, the wide willow trees, even the tall locust trees. But his favorite is the great spruce, with its sturdy trunk and branches that stretch up to the sky. Alec’s grandpa planted it as a sapling years and years before Alec was born, and every Christmas, Alec and his grandpa decorate the tree together, weaving tinsel and lights through its branches, making it shine bright. But one day, a few curious men from the nearby city take notice of Alec’s glistening great spruce, and ask to take it away for their Christmas celebration. Though it’s a huge honor, Alec’s heartbroken at the idea of losing his friend. With great courage and creativity, Alec comes up with a plan to save his favorite tree in this joyful holiday tale.

Breaching the Peace

Author : Sarah Cox
Publisher : On Point Press
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2018-05-01
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9780774890281

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Breaching the Peace by Sarah Cox Pdf

Breaching the Peace tells the story of the ordinary citizens who are standing up to the most expensive megaproject in BC history and the government-sanctioned bullying that has propelled it forward. Starting in 2013, journalist Sarah Cox travelled to the Peace River Valley to talk to locals about the Site C dam and BC Hydro’s claim that the clean energy project was urgently needed. She found farmers, First Nations, and scientists caught up in a modern-day David-and-Goliath battle to save the valley, their farms, and traditional lands from wholesale destruction. Told in frank and moving prose, their stories stand as a much-needed cautionary tale at a time when concerns about global warming have helped justify a renaissance of environmentally irresponsible hydro megaprojects around the world.

Finding the Mother Tree

Author : Suzanne Simard
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 383 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2021-05-04
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780735237766

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Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard Pdf

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *WINNER of the 2021 Banff Mountain Book Prize in Mountain Environment and Natural History* *WINNER of the National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History Literature* *SHORTLISTED for the 2022 BC and Yukon Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Book Prize* *SHORTLISTED for the 2022 BC and Yukon Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award* *SHORTLISTED for the 2021 Science Writers and Communicators of Canada Book Award* A world-leading expert shares her amazing story of discovering the communication that exists between trees, and shares her own story of family and grief. Suzanne Simard is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence; she’s been compared to Rachel Carson, hailed as a scientist who conveys complex, technical ideas in a way that is dazzling and profound. Her work has influenced filmmakers (the Tree of Souls in James Cameron’s Avatar), and her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide. Now, in her first book, Simard brings us into her world, the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illuminates the fascinating and vital truths—that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp but are a complicated, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own. Simard describes up close—in revealing and accessible ways—how trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, have evolved; how they perceive one another, learn and adapt their behaviors, recognize neighbors, and remember the past; how they have agency about their future; how they elicit warnings and mount defenses, compete and cooperate with one another with sophistication: characteristics previously ascribed to human intelligence, traits that are the essence of civil societies. And, at the center of it all, the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain the others that surround them.Simard, born and raised in the rain forests of British Columbia, spent her days as a child cataloging the trees from the forest; she came to love and respect them and embarked on a journey of discovery and struggle. Her powerful story is one of love and loss, of observation and change, of risk and reward. And it is a testament to how deeply human scientific inquiry exists beyond data and technology: it’s about understanding who we are and our place in the world. In her book, as in her groundbreaking research, Simard proves the true connectedness of the Mother Tree to the forest, nurturing it in the profound ways that families and humansocieties nurture one another, and how these inseparable bonds enable all our survival.

Shake Hands With the Devil

Author : Romeo Dallaire
Publisher : Vintage Canada
Page : 585 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2009-02-24
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780307371195

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Shake Hands With the Devil by Romeo Dallaire Pdf

On the tenth anniversary of the date that UN peacekeepers landed in Rwanda, Random House Canada is proud to publish the unforgettable first-hand account of the genocide by the man who led the UN mission. Digging deep into shattering memories, General Dallaire has written a powerful story of betrayal, naïveté, racism and international politics. His message is simple and undeniable: “Never again.” When Lt-Gen. Roméo Dallaire received the call to serve as force commander of the UN intervention in Rwanda in 1993, he thought he was heading off on a modest and straightforward peacekeeping mission. Thirteen months later he flew home from Africa, broken, disillusioned and suicidal, having witnessed the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandans in only a hundred days. In Shake Hands with the Devil, he takes the reader with him on a return voyage into the hell of Rwanda, vividly recreating the events the international community turned its back on. This book is an unsparing eyewitness account of the failure by humanity to stop the genocide, despite timely warnings. Woven through the story of this disastrous mission is Dallaire’s own journey from confident Cold Warrior, to devastated UN commander, to retired general engaged in a painful struggle to find a measure of peace, reconciliation and hope. This book is General Dallaire’s personal account of his conversion from a man certain of his worth and secure in his assumptions to a man conscious of his own weaknesses and failures and critical of the institutions he’d relied on. It might not sit easily with standard ideas of military leadership, but understanding what happened to General Dallaire and his mission to Rwanda is crucial to understanding the moral minefields our peacekeepers are forced to negotiate when we ask them to step into the world’s dirty wars. Excerpt from Shake Hands with the Devil My story is not a strictly military account nor a clinical, academic study of the breakdown of Rwanda. It is not a simplistic indictment of the many failures of the UN as a force for peace in the world. It is not a story of heroes and villains, although such a work could easily be written. This book is a cri de coeur for the slaughtered thousands, a tribute to the souls hacked apart by machetes because of their supposed difference from those who sought to hang on to power. . . . This book is the account of a few humans who were entrusted with the role of helping others taste the fruits of peace. Instead, we watched as the devil took control of paradise on earth and fed on the blood of the people we were supposed to protect.

The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake

Author : Samuel Bawlf
Publisher : D & M Publishers
Page : 418 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2009-09-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781926706245

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The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake by Samuel Bawlf Pdf

In The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, Samuel Bawlf offers fascinating insight into life at sea in the sixteenth century, from the dangers of mutiny and the difficulty of understanding patterns of wind and current to the arduous physical challenges faced every day by Drake’s men. But it is Bawlf's assertion of Drake’s whereabouts in the summer of 1579 that gives his book its exciting originality. Based especially on his seminal study of maps produced after the voyage, Bawlf shows with certainty that Drake sailed all the way to Alaska, much farther north than anyone has heretofore imagined, thereby rewriting the history of exploration. He was, Bawlf claims, in search of the western entrance to the fabled Northwest Passage, at which he planned to found England’s first colony, and wrest control of the Pacific from Spain. Drake’s voyage was in fact so far ahead of its time that another 200 years would pass before the eighteenth-century explorers of record reached the northwest coast of North America.

Lines on a Map

Author : Frank Wolf
Publisher : Rocky Mountain Books Ltd
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2018-10-23
Category : Travel
ISBN : 9781771602907

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Lines on a Map by Frank Wolf Pdf

Shortlisted for the 2019 Banff Mountain Book Award for Adventure Travel Two decades of adventure writing are captured in this entertaining and inspiring collection of travel journalism by renowned adventurer, writer, filmmaker and environmentalist Frank Wolf. Lines on a Map is a compilation of Frank Wolf's best work from the past two decades. Some of the adventures include: two friends on a cycling and volcano-climbing odyssey across Java, the world's most populous island, in the world's most populous Muslim country, Indonesia, in the wake of 9/11; a surreal private lunch with former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau during an 8000 km canoe journey across Canada; discovering the past and present on a 900 km hiking and kayaking journey from Skagway, Alaska, to Dawson City, Yukon; negotiating the cultural divide during a whitewater paddling expedition in Laos and Cambodia with Russian extreme kayakers; exploring the nature and politics of a multi-billion dollar pipeline in northern BC by hiking, biking and kayaking the GPS track of the proposed project route from the oil sands to the British Columbia coast; conducting a mammal tracking survey in the course of a 120 km ski traverse of Banff National Park; discovering the truth about the existence of Sasquatch in northern Ontario; retracing Viking history during a canoe trip across Scandinavia. Complete with dozens of colour photographs, Wolf weaves together humour, drama and local knowledge to transport readers to some of the outermost corners of the globe in an epic quest to celebrate the freedom to move, explore and be wild.

Emma's Gems

Author : Anne Renaud
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 24 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2019-09
Category : Generosity
ISBN : 1927735653

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Emma's Gems by Anne Renaud Pdf

"The moments Emma shares with Grandpa Phil are always filled with beautiful discoveries. That is because her grandfather knows so much.. He even knows how to change simple stones into precious gems...."--