Giants: The Colossal Trees of Pacific North America

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, and the author of Kurlek, Margaret Laurence: The
Long Journey Home, and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

In a book that is clearly a labor of love, Audrey Grescoe considers the
great trees of North America’s Pacific coast—redwoods, Douglas fir,
Sitka spruce, western red cedar, big-leaf maple, giant sequoia, grand
fir, black cottonwood, western hemlock, Garry oak, the arbutus, and many
others—in terms of the people who have used, abused, discovered,
studied, and protected them. Stradivarius, for example, used spruce for
his violins.

Grescoe’s engaging text is complemented by Bob Herger’s superb
photographs. His ability to make a scene vibrate with emotional
undercurrents is exemplified by a shot of an ancient Garry oak (the
largest and longest-living broad-leaved deciduous tree in western
Canada) in which the tree is shown “reigning over” a meadow of blue
camas lilies.