Safe Return Doubtful

American non-fiction – Published 2005

The book begins with a mystery, a beachcombing scientist discovers a washed up kayak on the shore of an uninhabited Queen Charlotte island and begins to collect a few of its parts, then to further discover scattered camping gear and other equipment that lend him to assume either foul play or a terrible accident. But the mystery is left to one side, while Vaillant discusses the science and history of the Pacific Northwest’s rainforests.

Specifically he writes about the magnificent, rugged and weathered Queen Charlotte Islands, and how, in a region of particularly huge trees, one, a Sitka spruce, nicknamed the ‘golden spruce’, dating from 1700, stood taller than the others. Vaillant explains the connection to the landscape of logging and wild weather is linked to the lifestyle and culture of the native people, the Haida.

The story now concentrates on the life of Grant Hadwin, an ‘upper-middle-class prep school refugee’ who after a troubled period in his life, found sanctuary in the remote woods, becoming a skilled logger, then in turn, an anti-logging activist.

This is a very well written piece of non-fiction which, in the one hand provides a wealth of information about a rugged coastal temperate rain forest, while on the other, relates the life of an extraordinary man. Throughout, there is the commanding presence of the incredible landscape.

My GoodReads score 5 / 5