page_title: Kiidk'yaas
section_title: Post-felling
hierarchical_section_title: Kiidk'yaas / Post-felling
caption_attribution_description: Young golden Picea sitchensis grafted from the Kiidk'yaas tree.
context_page_description: Kiidk'yaas, also known as the Golden Spruce, was a Sitka spruce tree that grew on the banks of the Yakoun River on the Haida Gwaii archipelago in British Columbia, Canada. It had a rare genetic mutation that caused its needles to be golden in colour. Kiidk'yaas was considered sacred by the Haida people.
  Kiidk'yaas was felled in January 1997 by Grant Hadwin as an act of protest against the logging industry.
  Kiidk'yaas and its felling are the subject of John Vaillant's 2005 book The Golden Spruce.
context_section_description: In 1977 a group of botanists from the University of British Columbia (UBC) visited Haida Gwaii to take cuttings of Kiidk'yaas. These cuttings were grafted onto ordinary Sitka spruce, resulting in two golden saplings. The trees were grown in the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research.  Upon hearing of the tree's destruction in 1997, the arboretum offered one of the two young trees to replace Kiidk'yaas. However, the sapling died in storage before it could be transported to Haida Gwaii.  The second sapling survives at UBC.
  After Kiidk'yaas' felling, attempts were made to propagate a further 80 cuttings (with the permission of the Haida people) in order to increase the chances of a successful offspring surviving.
  The only wood harvested from the tree was used by Nova Scotia luthier George Rizsanyi and broadcaster Jowi Taylor as part of Six String Nation, a guitar dedicated to Canadian history.  Other pieces of the guitar include wood from Pierre Trudeau's canoe paddle and Paul Henderson's hockey stick.
caption: A sapling from Kiidk'yaas
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