Pod Insights National Park After Dark The Killing of K’iid K'yaas: Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site About this episode In 1997 a lifelong Canadian logger had reached the end of his rope. For years, Grant Hadwin attempted to sound the alarm to the dangers of the logging industry, but his attempts to speak for the trees repeatedly fell on deaf ears. Ultimately, he did something almost unforgivable, he cut down K’iid K'yaas - a sacred, protected and beloved Sitka Spruce. His hopes of using the act to garner attention to the evils of logging backfired and shortly after committing the crime, Grant Hadwin disappeared forever. For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page! Thank you to the week’s partners!iRestore: For a limited time only, our listeners get $625 off their iRestore Elite when you use code NPAD at iRestorelaser.comSkylight: Go to SkylightCal.com/NPAD for $30 off your 15 inch Calendar.
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Transcript 14,885 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:02 Danielle LaRock? Tears mixed with rain on the afternoon of February 1st, 1997, off the coast of British Columbia. A large crowd was gathered for a memorial service led by members of the Haida Nation, the indigenous peoples of the Haida Gua Islands. And the community was in deep mourning. Some attendees had to park a mile away as people from all across the islands had traveled in for the ceremony. One in which Haida leaders played drums and sang songs in somber remembrance. A foundational member of their community had been unexpectedly killed, and everyone was feeling their loss. As sobs, drumbeats, and songs of mourning filled the cold island air, gazes drifted
1:44 Danielle LaRock? across the river, where the body of the elder that they had lost laid untouched on the riverbank.
1:52 Danielle LaRock? The elder's arms stretched out onto the banks, reaching up towards the gray sky. You wouldn't have known it at first glance, but the crowd that gathered that day was not there to mourn a human. They were grieving the loss of a tree. A massive Sitka spruce, more than 300 years old, lay dead on the ground. The tree was known as kid kias, or old tree to the Haida people. Ten days earlier, just before daybreak, a man swam across the freezing river and made a series of calculated chainsaw cuts that put an end to the generation's old Sitka spruce's life. The tree's killer had spelled out his motives for this strange and devastating crime in a letter that he later publicized himself.
2:37 Danielle LaRock? But for every answer in this story came a new and puzzling question. Some of them remain unanswered to this day, and while the life of this monumental tree ended in 1997, its killer's case remains open.
2:53 Danielle LaRock? Welcome to National Park After Dark.
3:16 Cassandra Yahnian? Speaking to my heart in this episode, I am already upset. Something about tree episodes, they always get me.
3:25 Danielle LaRock? Well, your Julia Butterfly Hill episode that you did years ago is made very...I have a little tidbit about that in here, too.
3:34 Cassandra Yahnian? How interesting. Do they like...
3:36 Danielle LaRock? Because it's kind of...
3:37 Cassandra Yahnian? Is there a little bit?
3:38 Danielle LaRock? Tangentially related, a little. But yeah, I know you're a big fan of tree episodes, and I think you've done almost every one of them up until this point in time, so I'm taking the reins. And I decided to do this story this week because of Arbor Day. So Arbor Day is actually the 25th of April, so we would have just missed it. But yeah, that's why we're doing this episode today. Yeah.
4:03 Cassandra Yahnian? Cool. Well, I'm excited. And welcome, everyone. If you're new here, this is National Park After Dark, and I'm Cassie.
4:09 Danielle LaRock? And I'm Danielle, and I'm telling you a story today about Kid Kiasse, and you may also know it as the Golden Spruce. So here we go. And this was, just mentioning, a recommendation from a listener literal years ago, so.
4:24 Cassandra Yahnian? It's just like put in your pocket for years. One day you woke up like most of the time.
4:31 Danielle LaRock? All right, here we go. If you were to walk along the banks of the Yakun River on Haida Gwaii, a string of islands off the coast of British Columbia, before Kid Kiasse was chopped down, you would have spotted it right away, even if you didn't know anything about it, even if you weren't looking for it. It was said that the Sitka spruce glowed from within. And while that usually alludes to some sort of inner beauty, people didn't mean this in some kind of metaphorical way, because this was no ordinary Sitka spruce. It was a golden spruce. It had golden needles. And I'm not talking about just a couple of branches or a vague gold undertone or a soft gold that sparkles in just the right sunlight at just the right time of day if you squint your eyes or tilt your head.
5:16 Danielle LaRock? This spruce was over 160 feet tall and warm golden needles lined every single branch. In a sea of dark green spruce trees that hugged the coast of the Yakun River, Kid Kiasse's needles stood out like a beacon of light. The tree was such a bizarre sight that people came up with different theories and stories as to why it was golden. Some thought that it had been struck by lightning, while others thought it was sick and dying. In reality, though, the cause for this tree's unusual golden needles was neither magic or a sign of death. The tree had a mutation. It was chlorotic, meaning it lacked 80% of the normal amount of chlorophyll that would have otherwise made all of its needles green. Other spruce trees do have this mutation,
6:00 Danielle LaRock? but it usually just affects a branch or two. But this mutation made the golden spruce particularly sensitive to light. It could have just as well been cold, the Goldilocks tree, because conditions needed to be just right. Direct sunlight could kill it, but not enough, and it would have never grown at all. Considering this fragility, It was nothing short of a wonder that the golden spruce not only survived, but grew to the towering height that it did. Haida Gwaii provided the perfect gentle environment for this unusual tree to come into its own. The foggy, soft light reflecting off of the Yakun River was likely just enough to keep this tree alive without killing it. A series of highly unlikely odds, all lined up perfectly, made it possible for the golden spruce to grow.
6:45 Danielle LaRock? Some call it a miracle, others call it a statistical one in a billion occurrence. And it was remarkable enough to warrant its own scientific name. Picea sitgesis aurea.
6:57 Cassandra Yahnian? Say that three times fast.
6:58 Danielle LaRock? Ooh, don't even know if I said it right the first time, so I'd rather not. But this tree was absolutely stunning and it definitely stood out like a golden thumb across this swath of endless green in British Columbia. Um, if you've ever been there or seen pictures of it, it's just, it looks like the forest goes on forever. So to see this just like beacon of a tree, especially an old growth tree over a hundred and sixty feet tall, it was a sight to behold for sure.
7:27 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, it sounds really interesting and really special.
7:30 Danielle LaRock? This one in a billion golden spruce grew in what was later to become a national park.
7:36 Cassandra Yahnian? Ah, there it is, of course.
7:38 Danielle LaRock? There it is.
7:39 Cassandra Yahnian? There's a national park tie-in, National Park After Dark.
7:43 Danielle LaRock? It took root on the banks of the Yakun River on the Queen Charlotte Islands, otherwise known as Haida Gwaii, part of an archipelago that lies off of the coast of British Columbia, Canada. The lands are a part of the Gwaihannas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site, which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And this park is what I would say, kind of like the definition of an ecological wonderland. It is so ecologically diverse, it's often referred to as the Galapagos of Canada.
8:14 Cassandra Yahnian? Wow.
8:15 Danielle LaRock? Quite the title.
8:16 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
8:17 Danielle LaRock? The ocean surrounding the islands is home to salmon, octopus, sea lions, and over twenty species of whales and dolphins, safe in the surrounding National Marine Conservation Area that kind of safeguards and protects. The islands. Its temperate rainforests stretch from the ocean all the way to the base of the San Cristobal Mountains. A long jagged mountain range, which is the highest on the islands. Moss-covered cedar, hemlock and spruce trees from an impressive swath of aged old giants line the island's coasts. Part of the park that is protected from mountain top to sea floor. And many of the species and subspecies on Haida Gua are endemic, which we've been over before, but essentially means they only exist there.
9:00 Danielle LaRock? And some examples of those are the Haida short-tailed weasel and the Haida Gua black bear.
9:06 Cassandra Yahnian? Wow. They have their own black bear?
9:08 Danielle LaRock? They sure do.
9:09 Cassandra Yahnian? That's really cool.
9:10 Danielle LaRock? I know there are some physiological differences, but looking at them, I couldn't. Like if somebody put an American black bear and this subspecies side by side, I don't think I could differentiate, but they exist.
9:23 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh yeah, they look like a black bear.
9:25 Danielle LaRock? Yep. Checks out.
9:27 Cassandra Yahnian? Checks out. That's a black bear for sure.
9:31 Danielle LaRock? A safe haven on paper since 1985, prior to the arrival of European settlers in the 1860s, Haida Gua's Haida people lived on the island for thousands of years. As is the story elsewhere from around the world, settlers brought war and diseases, including smallpox, measles and typhoid, which spread like wildfire and took a harrowing toll on the Haida people. Pre-European contact, the Haida numbered around 20,000. By the late 19th century, that number was down to a staggering 600 individuals. Losing over half of their population also meant losing huge portions of Haida oral history, culture and traditions. As with numerous other Indigenous and First Nations groups,
10:14 Danielle LaRock? oral storytelling is an integral part of the Haida culture. And with the loss of thousands of their people, entire generations just gone, their stories and family histories that had been passed down through generations died with them. The story of the Golden Spruce, however, survived. It was one of the few things the epidemics and the settlers did not wipe out. So here is a condensed version of the story of Kid Kios. And it goes like this. There was once a great storm and a grandfather and a grandson were the only two survivors and were forced to leave their village. The grandfather told his grandson, don't look back. If you look back, you will go into the next world. People will be able to stop and admire you, but they won't be able to talk to you.
10:58 Danielle LaRock? But the young boy, leaving behind everything he knew, couldn't help but stop and turn to look back one last time. In that moment, in that final glance, his feet grew roots and he transformed into Kid Kias, the golden spruce. His grandfather told him not to worry, that his people would always tend to him and know his story. He would be loved and he would not be alone. And the Haida people kept that promise. They tended to the golden spruce and the story of this young boy was passed down from generation to generation. For such a visually beautiful tree and one that had been held in such a high regard for centuries. You might think that in order to kill a tree this special, you'd have to hate it.
11:42 Danielle LaRock? Or at least be like indifferent to it, not have really any opinion about it.
11:46 Cassandra Yahnian? Right.
11:47 Danielle LaRock? But surprisingly, neither was the case. Because the tree's killer didn't see his crimes as one of hatred, but one of profound love. A way to defend and advocate for all trees. A sort of bizarre environmental protest. And they say that love makes you do some crazy things. So how did forty seven year old Canadian forest engineer Grant Hadwin's love drive him to commit such a devastating act? So let's talk a little bit about Grant.
12:16 Cassandra Yahnian? Okay.
12:17 Danielle LaRock? Grant was born in nineteen forty nine and raised in a middle-class family in West Vancouver, Canada. When he was around seventeen years old, he quit high school to join the workforce and wound up joining his uncle's logging company. Despite the insanely dangerous aspects of the job, which pretty much comprised the entire job. I mean, loggers and arborists in general have a really dangerous profession. It had a major perk for Grant and that was he got to spend most of his time in the forest, which is where he felt most at home. At the time that Grant entered into the Logging world in the 1960s, the long held belief that forests and timber were this infinite resource was still held in pretty high regard by the logging industry as a whole.
13:00 Danielle LaRock? The hills of British Columbia were blanketed in a seemingly endless sea of trees that seemed to stretch on forever. And it seemed as if no amount of clear cutting appeared to even make a dent in the sheer volume of trees that covered nearly two thirds of the province of British Columbia, which is Canada's third largest. And to me, I was like, okay, I don't know too much about Canada as a whole, even though they sit right on top of us. So I wanted to put some context to this a little bit, because I can spew numbers at you, which so B C is about 364,764 square miles, which seems like a lot, because it is. It's nearly four times the size of the entire UK.
13:44 Cassandra Yahnian? Wow. Okay. That definitely puts it into perspective a little bit better.
13:48 Danielle LaRock? And most of it is forest. At the time, it felt like there was nothing to lose and just everything to gain for the logging industry, especially up here. There's money, resources and power. And conservation was the last thing on any timber company's minds, and certainly, certainly never discussed at any team meeting, or board meeting, or anything, especially with the workers.
14:13 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, if you're under this belief that you have an infinite resource that's just going to regenerate quickly, and it's a forest, it's always growing, and you have this huge landscape that's making you money, you're not going to be like, hey, maybe we shouldn't cut down things and make less money.
14:30 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, no. And they perpetuated that to everyone from the top down. And many loggers, you know, just on boots on the ground people, were sold this myth that there was just simply no way that they could clear cut fast enough to cause any sort of permanent damage or devastation to the landscapes. And that tree felled would simply grow back, kind of like you just alluded to. Companies like Evans Woods Products, British Columbia Forest Products, Rayonier, and more, clear cut mountainsides. And forests with little to no regulations in place, resulting in devastation that Grant started to wake up to before anybody else. Grant was a very polite and reserved person, but there was a fierceness that boiled under the surface of his mild nature.
15:15 Danielle LaRock? And everyone that knew him and reflected back on him would describe him as intense. Like, that's a word that just repeatedly came up over and over. And he gained quite the reputation in the communities that he lived in, primarily Goldbridge, B.C., about a five-hour drive north of Vancouver. He was, first of all, always up for a wilderness challenge of any kind and would take on anyone who dared to compete with him. Whether it be at a bar or just a friendly competition at work or whatever, he was always down to beat somebody outside.
15:50 Cassandra Yahnian? Very competitive nature.
15:52 Danielle LaRock? On one occasion, he disappeared into the snowy woods, wearing only a jean jacket and carrying a half-empty bottle of vodka and a rifle, and returned two days later with a mountain goat he'd killed, strung over his shoulder. On another occasion, a friend of his was in the woods with him when they ran into two grizzlies. Instead of trying to avoid the bears, Hadwin taunted them, yelled at them, and provoked them until they charged towards the two of them. Grant sprinted across the river and escaped their attack, but stunts like this earned him this, like, cowboy of the forest type of moniker and reputation.
16:28 Cassandra Yahnian? Like daredevil, adrenaline junkie, kind of fearless, but in a reckless way.
16:34 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, it kind of like feels invincible.
16:37 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
16:37 Danielle LaRock? Whether it's with animals or the the elements or weather or whatever, just like, kind of, just at home in the forest, but also maybe kind of like, it can't harm me type of thing. I don't know.
16:48 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
16:49 Danielle LaRock? And despite consuming large amounts of chewing tobacco and going on occasional vodka-fuel binges, he was in top physical condition. He would head outdoors so often in the midst of said binges that locals even had a joke. They would say, hey, look, that snowbank is moving. It must be Grant. Because he would go out in the snow and pass out in a snowbank.
17:09 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh, man.
17:10 Danielle LaRock? Just like.
17:11 Cassandra Yahnian? Like, oh, it's just Grant drunk again in the snow.
17:14 Danielle LaRock? Yeah. He lived to be in nature and the danger and challenge rugged landscapes provided absolutely fueled him. He loved the old growth forests of Canada and they fueled his mind, body, and his spirit. He did drop out of high school, like I said, when he was a teenager, but he did go on to earn his forest technician's degree. And that combined with this just intuitive understanding of the forest just made him so insanely good at his job. Like, he stood out amongst this entire community of loggers, of being like the best of the best. He just had a really innate and natural ability for this type of stuff. And he began to work his way
17:55 Danielle LaRock? up in responsibility. He started as a logger and then onto a rock driller, a blaster, a prospector, and eventually landed a job as what was titled a layout superintendent for a lumber company called Evans Wood Products. So essentially, it was his job to trek deep into the woods, many of which were places so remote that he was likely the first non-Indigenous person to step foot in them. He was going out there. And he basically needed to take a lay of the land and see if they could get logging trucks up there, how they would bulldoze roads to get their machinery up there, and what trees were viable, and things like that.
18:37 Cassandra Yahnian? He mapped it out a bit to see what the conditions of the landscape was.
18:41 Danielle LaRock? Exactly.
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19:15 Danielle LaRock? By this point in the 1980s, most of the easy or obvious terrain in British Columbia in the area that they were operating within had already been logged, thanks to over 100 years of indiscriminate destruction. And because of this, Grant had to find ways for logging trucks to access steeper, more technical sections of forest. It was a challenging task, but he had a knack for it, a vision that made him unique, as he was known to be able to look at a swath of land that would stump others and still somehow be able to lay out a gentle path to navigate to the heart of the forest and the trees that they wanted the most. His intimate knowledge of the forest helped him penetrate its most
19:55 Danielle LaRock? vulnerable regions with ease and precision. And in this way, his work was also devastating. His love of the forest was helping destroy it. According to EcoTrust, which is an Oregon-based conservation group, California, Oregon, and Washington had lost 90% of their combined coastal rainforest, while British Columbia, which originally had twice as much forested area, had lost nearly 40%, all by the time that Grant was aiding in the logging industry. And for him, these figures weren't numbers on paper, they weren't percentages, they weren't something in a graph. He was seeing this catastrophic reality day in and day out, and he had a heavy hand in it.
20:36 Cassandra Yahnian? Did he have any feelings towards it, or he just thought he was doing?
20:40 Danielle LaRock? Did he have feelings on it? Yes. And that is what this entire episode is about.
20:45 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh, yes, he did, for sure.
20:46 Danielle LaRock? Many of Grant's colleagues would later reflect back on that time and their hand in the logging industry as well. Al Wanderer, for example, who was interviewed for The New Yorker in 2002, told John Valiant, who is also the author of the book, The Golden Spruce: The True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed, which is one of the, I mean, I read that book for this, for this episode, and he's an awesome writer. Yeah, so Al said, quote, "Good God, we gutted that place. I didn't think it was possible to log this much. I've made a good living, but sometimes you wonder if it was all worth it." Day after day,
21:23 Danielle LaRock? Month after month, year after year, the largest log barges in the world would carry off millions of cubic feet of timber sourced from some of the oldest trees in the world. One tree, however, was spared from all of this, and that was Kid Kias. In the mid 1960s, Macmillan Bloedel, which was the biggest logging company in Canada at the time, agreed to not touch the sacred tree or the 12 acres directly surrounding it. Even an industry at its peak of ruthlessness in their quest for money and power was willing to protect this golden giant, albeit reluctantly. So I don't think you're like, oh, my God, they did so good. They fought, they fought to log.
22:03 Cassandra Yahnian? Well, 12 acres is a pretty small, small chunk to give people back when they've just decimated the amount that you're talking about.
22:13 Danielle LaRock? I know, but I had to say, because it's like, I think they used it for a while. It was like,
22:18 Cassandra Yahnian? we care.
22:18 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, we're a logging company, but we're also like, look at what we've protected. But it was only after a lot of advocacy advocacy from other groups that pushed them into ultimately saying, okay, we'll protect it. In 1988, they relented after a years-long battle with both the Haida and several environmental groups, resulting in setting aside that few acres of old growth forests that surrounded the Golden Spruce. So just had to make mention of that. For the first handful of years into his work, Grant was able to manage the ideological tension of his job in the logging industry and like his feelings about what was happening. He was having this like heart and what is it, the head and the heart kind of struggle.
23:03 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
23:04 Danielle LaRock? It kept him up at night, but he was able to manage it for, for a long time. But as time went on, he started to become completely overwhelmed by the impact that his work was having on the forest that he loved so dearly. He watched on horrified as whole sections of the forest were completely gutted. The logging industry's ideas of infinite lumber felt like this distant myth to Grant, who saw a very finite world being methodically stripped and destroyed in front of his eyes. So he's like, okay, and in one. Here, the logging industry is like saying all this stuff of like, oh, it's fine. And we have this infinite amount of resources and it's all good. And then he is physically in the forest and seeing that it's in fact, not all good.
23:49 Danielle LaRock? And that no one is raising the alarm at all.
23:52 Cassandra Yahnian? Well, he's also.
23:53 Danielle LaRock? At this point in time.
23:54 Cassandra Yahnian? Well, he's also there for you've said years at this point. So this narrative that the trees grow back, the trees grow back and this is an infinite resource. He's seeing firsthand, like I logged this five years ago and it looks exactly the same.
24:08 Danielle LaRock? Right. It's just, yeah. And it's also, there's something to be said about, he is so steeped in a community that every other person is a logger. Every other person's family has been in logging here for the, for generations. It's just like what you do. And you don't question it really. Like, it's just the way it is.
24:27 Cassandra Yahnian? And I mean, when you look at it too, logging offers resources and an important resource for a lot of different things and a lot of different people. So you can look at it and be like, this is, I'm doing something good. I'm doing something beneficial. I'm outdoors. But then there's a point where it's like, okay, where, when did this change where it was something sustainable to something detrimental?
24:49 Danielle LaRock? And super valid, totally valid point. I mean, here I am. There's wood all around me. There's wood around you.
24:56 Cassandra Yahnian? Paper.
24:57 Danielle LaRock? You know.
24:57 Cassandra Yahnian? You know, yeah, there's just so many things that we utilize that we need wood for. But as with everything and anything, when you're using the resources that the world provides you, you can't strip them of their existence. You have to find a way to do it where you can utilize it for years. And so it's not just your generation that gets them, but for.
25:17 Danielle LaRock? Yeah.
25:17 Cassandra Yahnian? Hopefully, the rest of the world's life.
25:20 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, I will say off the bat here, there was nothing done in a sustainable way up until this point here in this part of the world.
25:29 Cassandra Yahnian? He's the first person to be like, wait a minute, this isn't.
25:32 Danielle LaRock? He's among the first.
25:34 Cassandra Yahnian? Okay.
25:35 Danielle LaRock? For sure.
25:35 Cassandra Yahnian? Because there's clearly people who are protesting if they're asking to save the golden spruce. But.
25:41 Danielle LaRock? And yeah, we'll get, we'll get into it a little bit more as the episode goes on, but primarily the height of people that have already had so much ripped away from them and taken away from them. And now.
25:52 Cassandra Yahnian? That doesn't surprise me at all, especially when you take a community of people who are so ingrained and intertwined with nature and the world to be the first ones to raise the flag and be like, hey, what you're doing is wrong and you can't do this to the planet. You're really harming the earth.
26:11 Danielle LaRock? Yeah. And not only that, but it's something I don't even really touch too, too much on in the episode. But if you are to read the book by John Valiant, The Golden Spruce, he spends pretty much the first, I would say almost half of the book, talking about the history of logging in general, and then more specifically in Haida Gua, and then also talking about the devastation that I touched on regarding what happened to the, the people there, not only because of logging, that came secondary. First, it was like overfishing and then the otter industry and pelts and like just one resource extraction to another uh, over the centuries that European settlers, they're like, okay, well, this is what we
26:56 Danielle LaRock? can take from you. Okay, that's depleted. Now we're going to go on to something else. Oh, that's depleted. Okay, now we're going to take this from you. And then, so it's kind of like the snowball effect and like they're getting more and more upset because yeah, to your point, we want to do this in a sustainable way. They have a completely different relationship to the land and resources than the Western world does. And that's talked a lot about as well, but it's a lot more than that. It's like so deeply rooted.
27:23 Cassandra Yahnian? It's like this is the cherry on top of a way larger problem that's been going on for a long time.
27:28 Danielle LaRock? Yep, exactly. But going back to Grant. So yeah, he's seeing all this unfold in front of him. He's getting really fed up and he's becoming outraged, uh, for lack of a better word. He's not only sad, he's frustrated, he's mad, he feels like he's just alone. In seeing what's happening and I had to write, kind of go off to the side for a second. There is one quote that I love so much and it reminds me so much of Grant now, um, that I know Grant's story. And it's a quote by Aldo Leopold, and I think a lot of people have either heard this or can relate to this in some way, especially our listeners. And it goes like this, "One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.
28:12 Danielle LaRock? Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to the layman. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not wish to be told otherwise." So.
28:31 Cassandra Yahnian? Oof, heavy.
28:32 Danielle LaRock? Deep.
28:33 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, it's really deep.
28:34 Danielle LaRock? So part of Grant's job was not only to go out and find these different logging routes and options and where they could lay roads and which trees are the best to harvest, but he also had to write reports about the different areas that he surveyed. And his concern grew for the forest the more and more that he did so. He started to begin to use his reports as a way of conveying that concern because he would write like in the margins of like, "Hey, maybe we shouldn't go here because of this," or like, "We need to avoid this area," or "Let's seek alternative options here." And then he started to criticize logging methods and began pointing out parts of the forest that he believed should be spared altogether. So he started.
29:18 Cassandra Yahnian? The opposite of what he was employed to do. He was supposed to find the spots that they were supposedly not able to go to and bring them there. And now he's like, "Wait a minute, maybe we shouldn't go here."
29:29 Danielle LaRock? And a lot of people, a lot of his coworkers reflect back and think like, there's probably an untold amount of times that he never reported good spots to log because he didn't want to tell anybody about them and he wanted to spare them altogether. His environmental concerns were not amusing to his supervisors and his criticisms of the company cost him both promotions and the respect of some of his coworkers. Grant grew so frustrated with the lack of receptiveness amongst his peers that he quit and started his own business focusing on salvaging trees that had fallen due to various beetle infestations, attempting to adopt a more sustainable approach to forestry and logging than was the
30:10 Danielle LaRock? status quo at the time. Because again, he's not anti-logging, which is a really big distinction to make. Like, he is not anti-logging altogether. This is his livelihood. It's what he knows. It's what his family had done. It's what all of his friends had done. And like you said, it's a resource. It's not like we're never going to log anything. He just was frustrated at the way in which it was being done. So he was seeking this alternative, like, hey, maybe there's a better way to do this. And no one's doing it, so let me try.
30:44 Cassandra Yahnian? Right. And like you said, this is his livelihood. So if he's seeing that these mass forests are being destroyed, and now they're having trouble finding places to log, that's also his livelihood. If they get rid of everything that exists, how is he gonna work anymore?
31:00 Danielle LaRock? Yep.
31:00 Cassandra Yahnian? What are they gonna do? So I feel like it's so multifaceted, where there's so many reasons to be concerned with what they're doing.
31:08 Danielle LaRock? So he works really hard at this job, his new operation. Like, he was a one-man show. He didn't have any employees. It was just him. And ultimately, he couldn't keep up his business. He couldn't keep it afloat, especially in an industry that wasn't in the business of forward-thinking forestry. Like, just plain and simple. In this way, Grant was way ahead of his time. Considering conservation as a part of forestry wouldn't become a common practice for decades. Brian Tremblay, a man who had known Grant since they were young, recalled, quote, "He was on his own trajectory. He was talking environment and proper forest management before anybody." And while Grant was outspoken about his beliefs, he wasn't alone in this type of heartbreak. In
31:49 Danielle LaRock? the documentary, Hadwin's Judgment, which I think I use your Vimeo account to...
31:56 Danielle LaRock? So if you see that on there, that was me. One of Grant's oldest friends and fellow logger reflected on one particular day at work. After a 15 hour shift, and this is like a seasoned, you know, I, he had been doing this for 30 plus years. It's status quo type of day, but for some reason, it just like, he had a really day of reflection and really was paying attention to what he was doing more so than going through the motions. And he said that he went home to his wife and said, I heard the trees cry today.
32:29 Cassandra Yahnian? That's really sad.
32:30 Danielle LaRock? Yeah.
32:31 Cassandra Yahnian? You know, at the beginning of this episode, you really made me feel like I was not going to like Grant at all. And now the more you're talking about him, I'm like, wait a minute. I thought he was the villain of the story and now you're making me like him. So I'm a little confused.
32:47 Danielle LaRock? He's a confusing guy and I tried to do that intentionally because I have mixed feelings about him. And I think everyone who already knows his story does. And I think people who are learning about him now, towards the end of this, you'll probably also feel the same.
33:02 Cassandra Yahnian? Okay.
33:03 Danielle LaRock? And we can talk about it a little bit more because what he did wasn't great, but I can see why and his intentions behind it.
33:10 Cassandra Yahnian? He had like a reason.
33:12 Danielle LaRock? Yeah.
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34:40 Danielle LaRock? In 1987, something significantly shifted in Grant. He was doing contract and freelance work for timber companies, but in between jobs, he would escape away for chunks of time, a week or so, 10 days or so. And this was not anything new for him. Wandering into the wilderness as a way to retreat from the world and the horrors that he had to bear witness to and had a hand in was not something that was abnormal for him. But this time, he was gone for about 10 days. And when he returned, his friends and family noticed something about him that had shifted like fundamentally, like there was something that they could, they couldn't quite put their finger on it, but everyone sensed that something was a little off about him, whether it was something in his eyes or the way that he moved in the world
35:23 Danielle LaRock? or how he behaved. He was still Grant, but something had shifted. He was nearing the end of his rope with his resentment for the men at the heads of large logging companies, many of which had, he was very, he was very passionate about this point, too. Many of these people making these decisions would have no way and no knowledge of getting around the forest themselves because they're hardly in it. They're making decisions from behind a desk in the city, not
35:50 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh, right. And he's the one who's on the front line seeing what's happening.
35:54 Danielle LaRock? Yep. Grant later revealed that during his 10 day retreat, he had some sort of vision or revelation, one that not only strengthened his conviction that logging was corrupt, but now he felt personally called by some sort of higher power to put an end to the logging industry's destruction. And right now, it needs to be mentioned that Grant was also struggling with his mental health. Members of his family dealt with significant mental illnesses and his brother's battle with paranoid schizophrenia. Was so extreme that it ultimately led to death by suicide. So he, this is something that he's grappled with um on and off for years in different, in different forms and
36:37 Cassandra Yahnian? Does he have schizophrenia too?
36:39 Danielle LaRock? He was not diagnosed with schizophrenia, but he definitely had his, his struggles.
36:44 Cassandra Yahnian? Okay.
36:44 Danielle LaRock? For sure. And throughout his life, he struggled, like I said, with similar demons. And he began to experience episodes of paranoia in the early 1990s, right around this same time of this revelation of like, I'm now personally responsible or called to do something to put an end to this.
37:05 Cassandra Yahnian? Gotcha.
37:06 Danielle LaRock? Following this revelation, he began sending angry letters criticizing the logging industry to a variety of different political figures. In a letter to a provincial Supreme Court judge, he wrote in part, quote, "The forest industry in British Columbia appears to be one example of remote controlled terrorism on this planet with professionals leading the way in severe symptoms of denial that there is any problem." And that's just an excerpt of that, but you get the gist.
37:33 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
37:34 Danielle LaRock? Grant may have felt alone in his anger, especially in a family of loggers in a community that made its wealth from the logging industry and with most of his friends, fellow bloggers. But he wasn't alone. Environmental groups like Greenpeace founded in the early 1970s in nearby Vancouver were protesting the logging industry's destructive practices, even going so far as to engage in radical acts of protest like climbing aboard ships, transporting timber and chaining themselves to the logs. And the Haida community itself had also been fighting really hard against logging and were no strangers to the fight to protect their lands, kind of like we talked about before. Where much of the Western worldview, especially then, saw land as a resource, many Indigenous
38:16 Danielle LaRock? communities demonstrated a much more reciprocal relationship with nature. The Haida principle of Yagudang translates to respect for all living things. And they see all life forms as interconnected and interdependent, this sort of web of life rather than a hierarchy. Part of their culture teaches reciprocity that if you take something from a plant or another species, you should give something in return to thank and support the life of that species. So in their worldview, humans are not separate from nature, but inherently and inescapably a part of it. Just this strand in a larger web. Whereas the logging industry functioned in a very anthropocentric way.
38:57 Danielle LaRock? A human centered worldview where humans are considered the most important and valuable beings. Often viewing other beings as a resource for human needs. Like, okay, well, this is benefiting me. So that's the most important. Like what is good for me? What's bad for me? What do I like? What don't I like? And then acting in accordance to that.
39:17 Cassandra Yahnian? I think that that's a really common view. It's hard, I think, because there are so many people in the world. And oh, it just feels like the world kind of revolves around people. I think that that gets lost a lot where it's like, how are we going to benefit people? How are we going to take care of people? And that can be something that is because we genuinely care about our loved ones. Like this is totally off subject, kind of. But when we look at medicine and we're practicing on living animals. You know, at the end of the day, people are like, it's worth it because my loved one has cancer. My loved one has, needs a kidney transplant. And you know, it's such a double edged sword because it's like, yes, that is true.
39:59 Cassandra Yahnian? But at the same time, it's harmful and it's like you kind of weigh the pros and cons. So I feel like that that argument with the lumber industry, there's so much of that throughout the world of, is it more beneficial or is it more harmful? And you kind of have to weigh and decide what is worth it and what's not.
40:15 Danielle LaRock? It's so, it's such a layered conversation and one that is, I think one that's one of the most divisive conversations you can have. But I think also one of the most important ones and.
40:30 Danielle LaRock? People would hate to see me on a dating app. It'd be like, do you live as an anthropocentric? Do you have an anthropocentric worldview or not? And tell me the pros and cons.
40:40 Cassandra Yahnian? Right or left?
40:43 Danielle LaRock? But yeah, no, I mean, I thought about it when I sent you that article the other day about them talking about reintroducing mountain lions into Vermont. And I just thought immediately, I was like, yeah, that's great. That's so cool. And I know there's gonna be a lot. It's the same thing with reintroducing anything. Grizzlies in Washington, wolves in Colorado, mountain lions here in New England. It's the same conversation of like, you know, people are at the center of it. Like, is it gonna be good or bad for us? And what harm will it do to us? And, you know, it's all about how that decision will affect us, even though we're kind of righting
41:24 Danielle LaRock? a wrong that people have done in the past. Like, we caused the local extinction of all of those animals in all of those areas.
41:32 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna lie. When I first read it, my first thought was, oh, will I have to be more careful with my dogs outside? Oh, will I need to be more mindful while I'm hiking if we do that? And then, not in like, a bad way. It was just a question that I first thought of in my head was like, okay, how will this affect me having this here? And I think that that's a really common question to ask.
41:55 Danielle LaRock? It's in human nature. I mean, you know, it's just recognizing that and knowing when it's like, okay, all of my decisions are being made about me and how it could benefit me versus I am just one part of this larger system and I need to take that into account. Because if that, if other things are suffering for my benefit, that's on a huge scale. And for everybody, like, that's the problem.
42:22 Cassandra Yahnian? Right. And my second thought, I love that you said, because my second thought was, we have so much roadkill all over the road. There's so, there's no large predators here, except for, we have bears, we have some bobcats, coyotes, small things like that. But every season from now until I want to say Usually like end of June, our roads are just littered with roadkill because there's nothing predating on them. And you know, mountain lions did, were here and some argue that they're still around and we just don't know it. Um, occasionally we see things that pop up that are like, I think I saw a mountain lion and whether or not it is, is up for debate. But that was my second thought was, wait, does our, does our environment really need it?
43:04 Cassandra Yahnian? And I read the article and it was talking about how much healthier Vermont's forests would be. And it's like, oh, can I be more careful when I'm outside hiking? Can I be more careful with the dogs? Like, yeah, those are small things, but
43:14 Danielle LaRock? Those are small concessions to make for a greater good, you know? But in this like anthropocentric viewpoint, it's kind of like, well, no, I don't want to do that. And they're not here and they haven't been here.
43:28 Cassandra Yahnian? It will affect you and what you need to do to mitigate it or change. And I feel like it's very natural for your first response to be like, wait a minute, how is this going to affect my life?
43:38 Danielle LaRock? Definitely, for sure. Okay. Well, kind of like bring it back here to the other side of the coin. The Haida people, because that's what we were originally talking about, function largely in a kinsentric way, which is this broader perspective that emphasizes interconnectedness and mutual respect between all living beings, viewing the natural world as a network of relatives to be cared for. So to say that they were appalled at this decimation of their land would be an understatement. In the seventies and eighties, they carried out a series of different campaigns against the logging industry, including intercepting timber carrying ships, blockading logging roads, petitioning and taking legal actions.
44:19 Danielle LaRock? Their efforts were incredibly successful and were foundational in establishing the Southern Third of Haida Gwaii as a protected national reserve in 1987. Grant's efforts ramped up as well. He wrote prolifically to anyone and everyone that had any sort of power. So at first it was just like politicians and things like that. And now he's like, okay, if you have a voice and people pay attention to you, I'm writing to you. So we got politicians, everyone from the media, newspapers. Radio, whatever, police officers, doctors, and he even wrote to the Queen. Anyone that he thought would pay attention to his pleas and who in their respective position could enact any sort of conversation or change.
45:02 Danielle LaRock? By 1993, he, so I kind of glazed over his family life. He did get married and he had three children. But by 1993, he had separated from his wife and his wife retained custody of his three children. And his episodes of paranoia increased in occurrence and severity. One of those episodes compelled him to seek refuge on a remote island off the coast of Alaska. He rented a kayak, which was damaged in the water. And he wound up living off the land for 12 days before he was rescued by the Coast Guard. Later that summer, he was stopped at the United States border with 3,000 hypodermic needles in the trunk of his car.
45:41 Danielle LaRock? He somehow smoothed things over with the customs agents and he made his way to Washington DC, where he distributed the needles on the streets along with condoms, presenting himself as an advocate of needle exchange and safe sex. A short time after that, with 2,000 needles still remaining, he caught a plane to Moscow, where he continued eastward, donating needles to children's hospitals as he went. He was arrested by the police in Siberia, but apparently gave quite the shining interview. And he parted on good terms with them and made his way back to Canada.
46:18 Cassandra Yahnian? What year was this again?
46:19 Danielle LaRock? This was 1993 that this was happening. He was sent to a hospital for extensive psychiatric evaluations by several different doctors following this whole chapter of his. And although all of them found evidence of quote unquote paranoid reaction, they all agreed that he was mentally competent and he, that was it. That was kind of the end of that. He continued his letter writing to the media and politicians criticizing the logging industry while simultaneously trying to gain employment in the same profession, which was a problem. He was repeatedly rejected, likely due to a combination of his mental state and his brutal honesty. For example, he was applying for a job and his cover letter said in part,
46:59 Danielle LaRock? Quote, "I do not like clear cutting and my philosophical differences with the forest industry runs deep. If you are prepared to try a gentler approach to forestry with less short-term profit, I may be able to help. I am not familiar with new buzzwords such as forest renewal. All of forestry and most of the forests appear to be in need of renewing in some form or another."
47:22 Cassandra Yahnian? And these were for logging jobs?
47:25 Danielle LaRock? Yes.
47:27 Cassandra Yahnian? He's like, "I don't like logging."
47:29 Danielle LaRock? But I'm good at it.
47:30 Cassandra Yahnian? But I'm good at it. And if you want to do it in a way that's going to make you less money in the short term, I can help you.
47:37 Danielle LaRock? So they're like, pass.
47:39 Cassandra Yahnian? Absolutely not. This is the worst covered letter I've ever read.
47:52 Danielle LaRock? Fast forward to 1996, Grant was living out of a hotel in Whitehorse. He had long lived his life by the beat of his own drum and had a pretty small circle of friends. Like, he was known. People knew who he was and he was pleasant to a lot of people and most people. But as far as like true friendships, he had, he didn't have many. But he made an unlikely friend and an elderly woman named Cora Gray, and they began spending time together. She described him as intense and sporadic while she was measured and calm. And that fall, Cora watched as her friend began to do some increasingly strange things. He had begun swimming in the river, a bold choice, to say the least, for anyone in northern Canada in December. On a day when the air
48:36 Danielle LaRock? temperature was negative 30 degrees Fahrenheit, Cora watched with concern as Grant climbed across the snowy riverbank and descended into the freezing waters. And when he got out, she asked him, "Why are you torturing yourself?" To which he replied, shaking off the icicles that had formed on his eyebrows and in his hair, "I'm training."
48:57 Cassandra Yahnian? The first cold plunge. He knew. He knew all along.
49:02 Danielle LaRock? He was in top physical condition, that's for sure. Cora didn't want to think about what her erratic friend might have meant by this ominous statement and began getting an unsettling feeling about the man that she had let into her life. In January of 1997, Grant traveled to Haida Gwaii. His strange and mysterious actions continued, and this time, it was clear that they were part of a larger plan. He checked into the Golden Spruce Motel and began to give away almost all of his belongings. He told the motel's owner's daughter to take whatever she wanted because he would be burning the rest. He also made comments about his thoughts on the quote, "incestuous breed of insidious manipulators that ran big companies," and made mention that he
49:47 Danielle LaRock? thought terrorism was the most effective way to create change. Red flag.
49:52 Cassandra Yahnian? Bold statement.
49:54 Danielle LaRock? Such a red flag.
49:55 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
49:56 Danielle LaRock? All of this combined.
49:57 Cassandra Yahnian? He's feeling unhinged.
49:58 Danielle LaRock? Yes. It's going from, "I get it," to, "This is bad, and we need to reel it back."
50:04 Cassandra Yahnian? In his defense, it sounds like he's been voicing his concerns for years at this point, and not a single person has agreed or believed him.
50:13 Danielle LaRock? That's valid.
50:14 Cassandra Yahnian? That would also make me very upset and angry, and feel very, I guess, hopeless.
50:20 Danielle LaRock? Yes.
50:20 Cassandra Yahnian? And voiceless.
50:21 Danielle LaRock? Very hopeless. So here he is, getting rid of most of his things, selling things off, plainly giving away. Like, clearly, he's not gonna have plans to be around to need them. But he did buy a select arrangement of new items at this time, specifically, a gas can, falling wedges, and a chainsaw. Most murderers would have to be discreet when buying tools to commit their crime, but Grant was in the business of killing trees. He could buy these things in plain sight. I mean, a chainsaw in logging country is not gonna raise any eyebrows, or ruffle any feathers, at all. So here we are, on the night of January 20th, 1997. Under the cover of darkness, Grant Hadwin made his
51:05 Danielle LaRock? way to the head of the McMillan Bloedel Golden Spruce Trail. He wandered through the dark forest. Carrying his chainsaw, falling wedges, gas and oil in a garbage bag at his side. And when he reached the Yakun River, he took a moment to assess his next move. The river is 60 feet wide and temperatures dipped to 30 degrees that evening. Swimming 60 feet against a strong current in freezing conditions in the dead of night is not for the faint of heart, but this was Grant Hadwin, and he had been training. As if performing choreography that he knew by heart, he slipped into the pitch black river and began to swim, towing his inflated garbage bag of tools behind him. Grant swam through the darkness until he reached the opposite bank of the river,
51:48 Danielle LaRock? where he would end a generation's old life. Drenched in freezing river water, he walked up to the base of the tree. Kid Kias presided over the river in darkness, as it had for almost 300 years. For one more moment, the tree defied the odds, strong and tall in all of the miracles that allowed it to exist. And as Grant tilted his head towards the sky, taking in the sight of the tree's golden needles towering far above his head, he eyed it carefully and thought deeply about it. And it struck him as deeply hypocritical that logging companies were willing to spare this one tree when they ruthlessly killed all of the others. Then he took out his chainsaw. He made a series of calculated cuts into the base of the golden spruce
52:31 Danielle LaRock? so that it remained standing but was completely destabilized. The base of the golden spruce was about seven feet in diameter, and the chainsaw that Grant was using only had a 25-inch bar. In order to take down the golden giant, he had to know its weak spots. And he did, but even still, the job took hours. He used what's called a Humboldt undercut, where a 45-degree wedge is removed from the trunk, as well as a series of smaller cuts called cookies. When he finished his work, the tree was still standing, but it was teetering on the brink of collapse. And this was done with all the intention. Like, he did not want to fell this tree right now. He did not want to cut this tree down. He wanted it to be weakened, and he knew that it was gonna fall and fall soon.
53:16 Danielle LaRock? But he wanted it to stay standing while he was there. He knew exactly what Cuts to make so he can control the direction of the golden spruce's fall. And he engineered the cut so that the tree would fall towards the river, but not at that moment. One last time, his deep knowledge of the forest helped him destroy it. Kid Kias, who had withstood storms and settlers and logging companies, would now be subjected to the next strong wind. Just like when lightning strikes, there's this brief moment between when the bolt strikes the earth and when we hear this thunderous boom that it creates. The destruction that had already been set in motion but can't be stopped or reversed. And for a lingering moment, everything is still.
53:58 Danielle LaRock? As the sun began to rise and Grant made his way back to the mainland, the golden spruce stood on the banks of the river as it always had, golden branches outstretched towards the gray sky. And Grant had checked in to the Moby Dick Inn. And in that still moment, that in-between time, he so perfectly calculated. During that time, he faxed out letters to Greenpeace, Prince Rupert's Daily News and the Vancouver Sun, and to the Haida Nation, explaining why he did what he did. An attempt at justifying his crime. So he was buying himself time in that in-between moment of shit's about to go down. And this letter is lengthy, so I'm just gonna read an excerpt.
54:40 Cassandra Yahnian? Okay.
54:40 Danielle LaRock? But it says, quote, "I didn't enjoy butchering this magnificent old plant, but you apparently need a message and a wake-up call that even a university-trained professional should be able to understand. I meant no disrespect to most of which to the Haida people by my actions or to the natural environment of Haida Gua. I do, however, mean this action to be an expression of my rage and hatred towards university-trained professionals and their extremist supporters whose ideas, ethics, denials, part-truths, attitudes, etc. appear to be responsible for most of the abominations towards amateur life on this planet." The next day, the golden spruce fell onto the banks of the Yakun River.
55:23 Danielle LaRock? And the grief that rippled through the Haida community was profound. Grant was clearly desperate to disrupt one cycle of violence. You know, in his mind, this perpetual decimation of the forests, but and albeit perhaps unintentionally, like he did say, he doesn't mean disrespect or harm to the environment or to the Haida people. But he participated in another cycle of violence. And that was the cycle of violence against the Haida people, whether or not he intended to.
55:55 Cassandra Yahnian? I mean, he can say it wasn't intentional to harm them, but he knew that it would. And also he took the tree that most of them, that meant the most to them. I mean, that tree didn't mean anything to the logging company. It only meant something to these people. And he clearly acknowledged in that letter, I didn't mean any harm. My intention isn't to hurt you, but by saying that he's acknowledging that he knew it would.
56:20 Danielle LaRock? Yes.
56:27 Danielle LaRock? The death of the golden spruce was as visceral and devastating as if a human had died. Some felt guilty that they had not protected the tree better. And the council of the Haida Nation actually issued a press release following Kid Kias' falling. And part of it read, quote, "The Haida people are saddened and angered by the destruction of Kid Kias. The loss of Kid Kias is a deliberate violation of our cultural history. Our oral traditions about Kid Kias predate written history. We declare to the world that the Haida Nation takes full ownership of the remains of Kid Kias and that it is declared off limits to everyone. The Haida expect that justice will prevail and that the person responsible for this act of destruction will be punished."
57:10 Danielle LaRock? And it didn't take long for Grant Hadwin to be arrested, mostly because he wasn't running. And he had, in essence, pointed this like bright neon sign directly to him.
57:19 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, he told everyone it was him immediately.
57:20 Danielle LaRock? He told everybody. He was charged with criminal mischief and the illegal cutting of timber and was ordered to appear in court in Masit, which was a village on the island of Hidaway. Grant did not want to take a ferry or any public means of transportation to get to the island as he feared for his life, believing that he would be attacked by locals who were angry at him for chopping down the golden spruce. Spruce, which was justified based on the response of the community. I mean, people were will were saying, I'm gonna kill him like not just the height of people, but there were so this tree was like, I didn't even mention it, but it was a huge tourist attraction. Like there were buses of visitors um going to see it like there was this interpretive trail to it.
58:03 Cassandra Yahnian? Kind of like General Sherman in Sequoia.
58:05 Danielle LaRock? Yes, it was like this huge like like tourist attraction. Obviously, the logging industry used it as this like, look how good we are for saving.
58:14 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, we care about the forest.
58:16 Danielle LaRock? We care about the planet. And then obviously to the height of people, we already know how important it was to them. So it's like all around this beloved tree. And, you know, so for him to cut it down and then admit to it.
58:30 Cassandra Yahnian? Like watch your back.
58:31 Danielle LaRock? Scared. He was really scared.
58:33 Cassandra Yahnian? As he should be.
58:34 Danielle LaRock? So he comes up with a plan because he wants to go to court. He has every intention of going, but he didn't want to get there just as as normal. So he comes up with this plan that was not less dangerous in any way. He decided to kayak across the Heckett Street, which is a terrifying body of water that separates Heideguy from the mainland of British Columbia. Even the most experienced boatmen shiver at the thought of braving the Heckett Street, and most never even try, and for good reason. This body of water has winds that have been said to lift 400 pound boats out of the water. And during winter storms, the waves can tower 30 to 60 feet tall. And we're in the winter, we're in January. Just as a reminder.
59:18 Cassandra Yahnian? He's just like, I would rather take my chance with this body of water than I would with people.
59:23 Danielle LaRock? Yep. Weather systems are at war there and riptides, waves and winds pose a series of death threats that to anyone who tries to cross, but he wanted to take his chances with them versus with the public who were calling for his head. And once Grant made his mind up to do something, there was no use in arguing with him. So people were just like, as long as you get there, whatever.
59:46 Cassandra Yahnian? We don't care.
59:48 Danielle LaRock? Sure, go for it. On February 11, 1997, he set up. To cross the fourth most dangerous body of water in the world in his kayak.
59:56 Cassandra Yahnian? Perfect.
59:56 Danielle LaRock? And in typical Grant style, dress code, fashion. He paddled into the frostbite inducing conditions, wearing only a raincoat and dishwashing gloves as a protective outer layer.
1:00:08 Cassandra Yahnian? Does he have pants on?
1:00:09 Danielle LaRock? Well, yes, but.
1:00:13 Danielle LaRock? No pants, actually, boxers only. He paddled out onto the strait as a storm raged over the already deadly waters and forced him to turn around. Because it was just way too much. It was way too cold. So the next morning, he showed back up to the store where he had rented the kayak from. And he was searching for some better gear. He purchased warmer clothing, emergency flares and a chart of the strait and even spoke to the store clerk about his plans. And the store clerk actually reviewed the map with him in the moment. And he was like, okay, this is my plan. This is where I'm going. This is how I'm gonna do it. And she was like, no, that's a recipe for disaster. So they actually went over a different course for him to take that was gonna be slightly safer and more sheltered from the winds and things like that.
1:00:57 Danielle LaRock? So they go over that in detail. And then the following day, February 13th, he set out again to cross the Heckett Strait. Five days later, at a courthouse in Massett, a huge crowd gathered and assembled to witness Grant Hadwin's trial. The courthouse was absolutely packed, overflowing to the brim with people crammed in, craning their necks for a chance to see Grant Hadwin's fate determined. People were sardined into the courtroom and those who couldn't get into the small room piled into the hallway, the waiting room, waited outside. Like anywhere there was space, there was somebody, there was a body. The crowd included loggers, fishermen, Haida elders, the media and other members of the local community.
1:01:38 Danielle LaRock? And differing as all these groups were, they were brought together by their anger, their shock and the pure bewilderment. They had towards the man who had chopped down the golden spruce. At nine thirty in the morning, the judge called out Grant's name. Everyone looked around, holding their breath as they waited for this mysterious man to just to appear. But Grant Hadwin did not step forward. At 10 a.m., the judge called his name again, but once more, Grant did not appear. Not then, or ever again. After he kayaked out into the Heckett Strait five days earlier, Grant had disappeared.
1:02:11 Cassandra Yahnian? Stop. I was not expecting this. For some reason, I thought he was going to court. I'm thrown. I'm mind blown.
1:02:20 Danielle LaRock? Okay, well, let's talk about it.
1:02:24 Danielle LaRock? So.
1:02:24 Cassandra Yahnian? What? I wanted to hear his explanation for everything.
1:02:28 Danielle LaRock? So to did everyone, right? That and that's part of the frustration with this. If like, it's just like this big collective like, and then what? That's it? Like, what do you mean?
1:02:37 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, I was not that. That just blew my mind. I had no idea that that's where this story was going.
1:02:44 Danielle LaRock? So at first, when nobody heard from him, his ex-wife and others like that were close to him, were not that worried or concerned. Like, yeah, it's kind of concerning that you didn't show up to your court date. But that aside, like, he goes off and does things all the time. Like, that's just kind of his thing. So they weren't concerned for his well-being, I guess I should say. But as time went on, it became clear that this wasn't like the other times that he had disappeared. He didn't come running out of the woods with a mountain goat, or pull himself out of his truck bed after a bad binge. He didn't emerge from a snowbank, you know, like, he had just vanished. The Canadian Coast Guard began their search for him on March 1st, scanning across the vast stretches of ocean and islands where he could be,
1:03:29 Danielle LaRock? or where his body could be, or some semblance of him, whether it be his belongings or his kayak. And that went on for months, but it was ultimately unsuccessful. It wasn't until June, when a marine biologist named Scott Walker stumbled across something strange on Mary Island, an uninhabited island 70 miles north of where Grant launched his kayak to go to court that day. And while at first he was confused at what he was looking at, it ultimately became pretty clear that what Walker had come across was what remained of Grant's last known possessions. Large pieces of his kayak were found, but a few things were odd about the wreck. And despite the fact that Grant had been missing for months at this point,
1:04:11 Danielle LaRock? his gear that had presumably been exposed to the harsh elements for all that time as well, was in remarkably good condition. His sleeping bag had no tears, his life jacket- It looked crisp and brand new. Even his cook stove looked like it could have been used right then and there. Kind of like it had just been grabbed off the shelf and placed on the ground versus being washed and tumbled in the water and in the elements for however many months now. So for three or four months. In short, it seemed as though the wreck had happened very recently. And most curiously was Hadwin's axe, which was found far above the high tide line.
1:04:53 Danielle LaRock? It was hard to imagine such a heavy object making its way that far up the beach unless it was carried there by a human or a large animal. We got the Haida black bear that we all know and love.
1:05:03 Cassandra Yahnian? Right, right.
1:05:04 Danielle LaRock? So.
1:05:05 Cassandra Yahnian? Something could have.
1:05:06 Danielle LaRock? That could not be ruled out, but it's just curious. That coupled with all the other parts of this wreck just seems odd. And another mysterious fact was that Grant bought $300 worth of groceries before setting out for Massett via kayak, which is a huge amount of food for someone who only intended to be out kayaking for a few days to attend a court date. Investigators pored over the wreck and the possibilities of what unfolded. They thought it was possible that Grant had staged the wreck, but many other options were equally as plausible. He could have capsized, been killed out in the water, or been hit by a bigger boat on his way. Or he could have started over somewhere. Grant Hadwin was as confounding in his absence as he was when he stood in front of everyone.
1:05:51 Danielle LaRock? And searching for him was like chasing a mirage through a desert. Because as it happens with missing persons, there's reports of people seeing them all over the map. People were were claiming to see him in Bella Bella, which is a remote indigenous community, while others thought they spotted him in a tiny community at the US-Canadian border. And others swore that they saw someone who looked just like him boarding a ferry in Alaska. Like all of these sightings of people claiming to have seen him all around the area and beyond were popping up. And none of them came to be anything. They turned up empty. Some cannot accept the fact that he would have run or ended his.
1:06:33 Danielle LaRock? Own life intentionally. The most obvious explanation for his disappearance is that somewhere along the route, Grant died in the incredibly dangerous waters and waves and his kayak and body were just no match for the Heckett Strait and the storm that was raging out there and the elements that that part of the world delves out. But for some authorities, they are really hesitant to accept that, especially given Grant's history as a person, his abilities, his knowledge, and combined with what they found, they're just like, this doesn't add up. And that was nearly thirty years ago now. And even though he's been missing for decades, his case does remain open. Most people would have been declared dead a long time ago,
1:07:18 Danielle LaRock? but authorities and those that knew him and agreed that Grant had one could survive in conditions that would kill most other people, agree that in that way, he was kind of like kid kias. A few years after Grant disappeared, a similar crime to the one he committed unfolded in California. From 1997 to 1999, environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill lived high in the branches of Luna, a 1,500-year-old redwood tree, as an act of environmental protest to protect the tree from being cut down. As we know, if you've listened to Cassie's episode, however long ago, years ago now, Julia did succeed, and the Pacific Lumber Company agreed to spare the tree and a small area around it
1:08:00 Danielle LaRock? from their usual practice of demolition. But the tree that Julia fought so hard to defend almost came tumbling down because of the actions of a singular person. In the year 2000, someone made a nearly deadly cut into the base of the tree. Unlike the golden spruce, the tree was able to be saved from falling down with metal beams now supporting its aged old life. And it is theorized that the person that cut into Luna was someone similar to Grant. A logger pushed to the edge with anger and outrage at the logging industry's ruthless destruction and their willingness to protect a select few trees while they bring the rest to the ground without mercy. The person who cut into the base of Luna was never caught.
1:08:42 Cassandra Yahnian? Are you suggesting it was Grant?
1:08:45 Danielle LaRock? Just saying.
1:08:48 Danielle LaRock? Just putting it out there.
1:08:49 Cassandra Yahnian? How old would Grant be now?
1:08:52 Danielle LaRock? That was in 2000. So that happened in the year 2000 and this whole golden spruce thing happened in 1997. Hmm. Hmm.
1:09:00 Cassandra Yahnian? Hmm.
1:09:02 Danielle LaRock? You're gonna just make some calculated cuts that's gonna bring this tree down, but not immediately? Sounds familiar.
1:09:08 Cassandra Yahnian? Well, with Luna, I remember researching it. It looks like whoever went there was trying to cut the tree down as a whole, just like going through it. And Luna is so big that they couldn't do it. That they couldn't do it. And then they ended up putting these big like iron staples to hold the tree to grow back together. So. But an interesting.
1:09:31 Danielle LaRock? Similar, similar.
1:09:32 Cassandra Yahnian? Similar, similar for sure.
1:09:34 Danielle LaRock? After Grant chopped down the golden spruce, people didn't want to give up on preserving the tree's life. And I know I said that the Haida Nation were like, it's ours. Don't think about it. We have complete ownership. And so I don't know, like the, the processes of like how they came to this decision. But just know that it went through like a bunch of legal things.
1:09:57 Cassandra Yahnian? Okay.
1:09:57 Danielle LaRock? And ultimately 80 pieces of the tree's golden branches were clipped and brought to a forestry research station in hopes of growing a new golden spruce. A couple of clippings taken from the golden spruce have since been replanted, one of which was planted right next to the stump of Kid Kias. Haida elders held a private ceremony as the cutting was placed in the earth on the edge of the Yakun River. But one detail would stand out to anyone looking at the tiny branches that were returned to the riverbank. The needles on the propagated tree didn't have the same golden color as Kid Kias did. And its branches blended right in with the forest around it. The small tree's needles were green. While some of the replanted seedlings do share their parent plant's golden color, they are still in relative infancy.
1:10:42 Danielle LaRock? And the odds of them growing into the towering height and symmetry of Kid Kias are very slim. So it seems like you can't recreate a miracle in that way. The golden spruce was caught in this tug of war, a high level game that ultimately. ended its life. It was sacred to the Haida people, a contentious symbol in the logging industry, and at the heart of many environmental debates. It became a symbol for how we should protect the sacred species that we share the earth with. To the Haida, the golden spruce was family. To the logging industry, it was like a kid that they begrudgingly agreed to babysit. To Grant Hadwin, the golden spruce was a pawn in a game of chess. And despite his intentions, his divisive move didn't win the game,
1:11:25 Danielle LaRock? or even make the point that he was so desperate to get across. Grant Hadwin added a chapter to the story of the golden spruce, one that appears in many stories. The part where a white man comes and destroys what is sacred with the idea that he knows what is best. The golden spruce will forever be a part of the Haida people's history, and its stump on the banks of the Yakun River reminds us of something that Grant, the Haida people, and many loggers would agree upon. Even the oldest and most powerful forms of life here on earth are not invincible. Destruction cannot be reversed, and if we want our forests to stretch on forever, we must care for them today. And that is the story of the golden spruce, Kid Kiyos, and Grant Hadwin.
1:12:09 Cassandra Yahnian? Wow. That story leaves me with so many questions, and it's so frustrating because I know. I, I don't know. To target the golden spruce, I get it was this statement, but the only, that he wasn't harming the industry he was going towards, and it seems like he knew that the only people who really truly cared about this tree were going to be the ones who were the most affected. And, and then to disappear and not even face the music of what happened, and you know, I thought that he died at sea immediately, was my thought. But then, as soon as you said, the amount of groceries he bought, it made me question.
1:12:53 Danielle LaRock? I know.
1:12:54 Cassandra Yahnian? What do you think?
1:12:55 Danielle LaRock? I don't know. I think part of me is like, I think that while he was a little fearful of, oh, okay, let me back up. I think that he knew it was gonna piss a lot of people off, but for him, what he thought his message was going to be was worth that. And the message of like, you know, why this one, why protect this one tree when look at all around you and every, what everybody else, all the other trees that are suffering and, you know, whatever. That point of like the hypocrisy of it, I think he was thinking was really going to be, uh, shine through. And I think that he wasn't prepared
1:13:34 Danielle LaRock? for the backlash that he got. Whether or not that seems unbelievable to us, like looking at it now. Like, I think truly in the moment, he was like, okay, I know people are gonna be pissed, but they're gonna get it. Like this, how can you not?
1:13:47 Cassandra Yahnian? And then no one got it.
1:13:48 Danielle LaRock? And then no one got it. So when he realized that, I think that he was prepared to go to court because I think he wanted that, that opportunity to elaborate on why he did what he did. Like, this is my opportunity in front of everyone. All eyes are on me. I have everyone's attention. And I wanna say what I've been trying to say for the last 20 years of my life. Like, I think he would have used that as an opportunity to, to say something more directly.
1:14:17 Cassandra Yahnian? So you think he didn't disappear on purpose?
1:14:19 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, I don't think he did. And I think that like, okay, preparing $300 worth of groceries, like, he knows things can go wrong. He could have been delayed. He could have got caught somewhere. Like, he wanted supplies, like, but then again, he was selling off all his stuff. He's like, I'm not gonna be here. But maybe he thought he was gonna go to jail. Like, he didn't need this stuff anymore. He's going to prison. Or he's gonna be, I don't know.
1:14:44 Cassandra Yahnian? But if he thought he was putting out a statement, like, I don't know. There are so many things. Yeah, I think it could have gone either way, and I totally see your side of he felt like this was gonna be his moment to explain what he did. But also, I kinda feel like his letter was his moment to explain what he did. And then maybe when he Got this backlash of no one was really understanding the message he was sending. He found a way out where, you know, he was like, yeah, I'm totally coming to court. Don't worry. I'll be there. I'll definitely be there.
1:15:17 Danielle LaRock? You'll see there and nowhere else.
1:15:19 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, it's like, it kind of moves suspicion of him trying to run. It's like, I will be there. I wanna, I wanna talk to you guys. It kind of almost feels like this perfect storm of like, okay, now's my time to run because everyone's expecting me to do this. And everyone's expecting me there and people aren't going to be shocked if I don't make it. And you know, like,
1:15:41 Danielle LaRock? It just seems like out of character to me, especially because like, I mean, I read the book. I watched his documentary. That interviewed pretty much every, like, interviewed a few of his old coworkers, his old friends. People he worked for, like, community members, like, people who had real-life experience with him. Like, it just seems out of character for him to dip out after that. But, I mean, who knows? Like, that's definitely a possibility. And for him to, I mean, it's a pretty big thought that he could still be out there.
1:16:11 Cassandra Yahnian? How old would he be today?
1:16:13 Danielle LaRock? So he was forty-seven when he did that, when he, in nineteen ninety-seven. He was forty-seven.
1:16:22 Danielle LaRock? It seems like really simple math we should be able to do.
1:16:25 Cassandra Yahnian? So, forty-seven. So he'd be seventy-five years old today.
1:16:30 Danielle LaRock? Yeah. And also, I mean, again, I didn't talk about it a lot. But he was separated from his wife, but he had three kids and he was a good dad, like, to his kids by, you know, he wasn't, he did some things and he struggled with his he- mental health, but he, he loved his kids. So like, I don't know if he would just totally abandon all three of them and never.
1:16:54 Cassandra Yahnian? You know, sometimes the most simple explanation is, the explanation, he crossed the fourth dangerous body of water in the world and didn't make it. You know, that's not, not plausible. But, I mean, that sounds,
1:17:06 Danielle LaRock? Or, or maybe he did make it. He made it to some island, one of the smaller islands out there and held up there for a while. Like that would explain the condition of his gear and everything like maybe he was scared and was just buying time and was like just living out there on his own. Or he got stranded and then or he died to some other way. Like I don't think it's either he died on his way to court or he started a new life. Like I think there's an in between there that is definitely something to consider. But I do think he is gone. Like I don't think that he's living in
1:17:43 Cassandra Yahnian? Some second
1:17:43 Danielle LaRock? Saint Pete right now.
1:17:44 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, yeah. It is really heartbreaking that he didn't go to that court date because I would be really interested what other people had to say, what would have come, what his punishment would have been. And I think that you made a really good point at the end of that story, saying, this is just another example of a white man doing something detrimental to an indigenous community and then not having to pay any, any price for that.
1:18:10 Danielle LaRock? So people are still really upset about that, you know, like
1:18:13 Cassandra Yahnian? Of course.
1:18:15 Danielle LaRock? And some people like in, again, in the documentary, some of the people who were interviewed were of the Haida Nation and said, like, you know, I, I, I get it, but like also what the hell? Or just straight up like
1:18:29 Cassandra Yahnian? What you were trying to do, but you didn't do that.
1:18:31 Danielle LaRock? You missed the mark. And yeah, I don't know. It's just such a, I really loved this story because there is no clear like he's a villain or a hero. You know, there's like, there's so many pieces of like, that's messed up. But I also get it. I can see your frustration, but also that's not the way to like his, his comment about terrorism is the best way to enact change, like straight to jail. Like that's not okay.
1:18:56 Cassandra Yahnian? That's not, and I get, I get not the terrorism part, but I get wanting to make a bold statement and to get people's attention on something. And sometimes doing something bold is what helps with change. But to speak about terrorism in that way is not, no, absolutely not. And also what he did was devastating to a lot of people. It wasn't, it was just, it was really reckless and careless. And I don't think it was thought, thought. Out very well. And also your point at the end where there's this other where they have a piece of that tree growing again, but it will never be the same and it will never be that tree.
1:19:37 Cassandra Yahnian? And it it lost like the world lost the magic of something special because of what he did and the world will never get that back.
1:19:45 Danielle LaRock? Yep. One in a billion. And just to wrap it up, I didn't write anything extensively on it because I knew this episode was already going to be kind of long as it is. But again, the documentary, which is called Hadwin's Judgment, does have, I forget his name, but he's awesome. He's a forest ecologist and he is interviewed throughout about like, you know, why Grant was justified in the horrors that he was seeing about the logging practices that were in place at the time and how devastatingly awful they are to the forest and how we've learned over time that you can't just clear cut a swath of area and then be like, oh, but we're planting trees there again. So in 50 years, it's going to regenerate.
1:20:27 Danielle LaRock? Like, that's not now that we have studied the forests for so long now, we understand that it's so much more complex than that. And they're so interconnected in ways that you can't just plop a seed down and call it good. Like, it's never gonna be, it's not going to be the same. So he talks a lot about that. And then he talks about towards the end, how there are responsible forestry practices now that are being put into practice more and more often by more and more companies in more and more places that are a more responsible way of extracting timber. And how he ended it with, you know, he was walking through this part of this area that had been logged. But it is in no way a clear cut. And he says, like, this is something that Grant Hadwin would
1:21:12 Danielle LaRock? have been happy to see because this is responsible forestry and forest and responsible logging. And it's possible. And with our knowledge, we know what can be done and how to do it. And it's now just like, we have to do it.
1:21:26 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
1:21:26 Danielle LaRock? It's not the simplest. It's not the cheapest. It's not quick and dirty, but it's the most responsible.
1:21:33 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
1:21:34 Danielle LaRock? So. Yeah.
1:21:35 Cassandra Yahnian? Wow.
1:21:36 Danielle LaRock? Okay, that's it.
1:21:38 Cassandra Yahnian? Thank you for telling that story. I love a tree episode and it was very thought provoking and I, I had never heard it before, so.
1:21:48 Danielle LaRock? Oh, and I'm wearing my, um, I wore my little National Forest Foundation bandana today.
1:21:52 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh, that's very fitting.
1:21:54 Danielle LaRock? I took it off Chaska.
1:21:57 Cassandra Yahnian? I'm like, I need that. Hair all over it, but I will be wearing it today.
1:22:00 Danielle LaRock? Don't look too closely.
1:22:03 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, so just wanted to show them some love and we did a fundraiser for them and they sent us both some thank you stuff and this was one of it, so.
1:22:13 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, it's very nice.
1:22:15 Danielle LaRock? Cool. All right. Well, thank you everyone for listening. Definitely go check out The Golden Spruce or Hadwin's Judgment if you want to know more and we will see you next week. In the meantime, enjoy the view.
1:22:27 Cassandra Yahnian? But watch your back.
1:22:28 Danielle LaRock? Bye.
1:22:29 Cassandra Yahnian? Bye.
1:22:29 Danielle LaRock? Thank you for joining us again this week. If you love National Park After Dark and want to hear exclusive bonus stories, join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Patreon subscribers have access to our National Park After Dark Book Club, live streams, Discord, and much more. If you prefer to watch our episodes, video episodes are now available on YouTube. If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite listening platform. And to follow along with all our adventures, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X at National Park After Dark.
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