Winter, 1998       Coenosium Newsletter        Vol I, # 1

Gordon and the Haida

by Robert L. Fincham

In the spring of 1980 I had just returned home from a full day of teaching Space Science to ninth graders. As I pulled into the driveway of our Lehighton, Pennsylvania home, I saw a large box sitting at the garage door. I was expecting some plants from Jean Iseli so I thought they must have arrived. Parking the car in the driveway, I whipped out my pocket knife and made a beeline for the box. Anyone watching might have been puzzled about such behavior. But what can I say? I had become a conifer collector, and new plant shipments were exciting.

As I prepared to open the box, I noticed it was from a person named Gordon Bentham, a complete stranger to me. What a way to introduce one’s self! A few days later a letter arrived from Gordon introducing himself as a conifer collector from Victoria, British Columbia who would like to do some trading.

Through the years Gordon and I became very good friends. I always admired his generosity with plants. Gordon was a person who shared conifers up and down the West Coast making them available to everyone. He passed away Christmas Day a few years ago and I do miss him, but I still have a few of the plants that he sent in that box.

One has a very interesting story. One of the gallons was labeled Picea sitchensis ‘Aurea’, a beautiful golden spruce. To this day I have yet to find a spruce that is a brighter gold. Gordon knew that I liked to get plants out for everybody to enjoy, and I didn’t waste any time on this particular plant. In 1982 I offered it to my Coenosium Gardens customers. Gordon told me how a few scions were collected in the woods of British Columbia during the winter of 1977. He explained that no more cuttings would be available so we had to make sure it wasn’t lost. He had also given a plant to Mitsch Nursery, but it was never distributed by them.

The only drawback to this particular plant was its requirement for almost full shade to prevent burning as a young specimen. However, since it was bright gold even in the shade, it made the darker parts of the garden brighten up.

In 1986 I moved to Oregon and brought Picea sitchensis ‘Aurea’ with me. While living on the West Coast, I was contracted to do some work for Timber Press. Part of that work involved a trip to Australia and New Zealand in the summer of 1993. While in Australia, I saw a number of old specimens of Picea sitchensis ‘Aurea’ that must have been in excess of 80 feet tall. They were nothing like the plant I was given by Gordon. Obviously the ‘Aurea’ on Gordon’s plant was a misnomer. Since Gordon was gone and I had no information on the plant and I did not see it in anyone’s list other than my own, I put a new name into my catalog: Picea sitchensis ‘Bentham’s Sunlight’. I intended to honor Gordon for his making this plant available to all who desired it.

In the July 1, 1997 issue of American Nurseryman Magazine I came across a short article- "Canadian Institutions Attempt to Replace Destroyed Spruce." The caption under the picture accompanying the article referred to a Picea sitchensis var. aurea. The article is interesting and, when added to my little story, it becomes even more so.

Approximately 400 miles to the north of Vancouver, British Columbia, and 60 miles off the coast lie a group of mist shrouded islands, the Queen Charlottes. They are covered with old growth forest and are the traditional home of the Haida Indians, a small tribe of about 5,000 individuals, 2,000 of which actually live on the islands. The rest are scattered over western Canada and into Alaska.

On the banks of the Yakoun River grew a golden Sitka spruce. It was 164 feet tall and was called kiidk’yaas, or ancient tree, by the Haida, who also revered this tree as one of the most sacred parts of their traditional life.

According to legend, the ancient people mistreated each other and the creator was angered. He buried their village in snow. Two survivors, an old man and a young boy, had hidden under a plank and were able to flee the village. As they left, the old man told the boy not to look back. The boy did and was turned into a golden tree. It was said that this tree would be admired until the last generation of the Haida.

The golden Sitka spruce lived for 300 years on the bank of the Yakoun River. Then in January, 1997, a drifter felled the tree with a chain saw to make a confused political statement. He has been arrested but the damage has been done.

When the Haida elders called their people together, they were extremely upset and felt that they had failed to care for this sacred tree. They also feared that the prophesy would come true, and they would be the last generation of Haida.

They removed the top of the felled tree and sent it to the Cowichan Lake Research Station, Mesachie Lake, British Columbia, where Don Carson has been overseeing the propagation of approximately 100 pieces of the tree by grafting.

Meanwhile, Bruce Macdonald, the director of the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden in Vancouver, read about the crime in a local paper. He recalled two scrawny golden Sitka spruces that were growing in their collection at the arboretum. Checking the acquisition records, he made an important discovery. In 1977, Roy Taylor, Macdonald’s predecessor, went to the Queen Charlottes with a group of foresters to obtain cuttings from a golden Sitka spruce on land belonging to MacMillan Bloedel, Canada’s largest forestry company.

A number of cuttings were taken from this golden spruce on the Yakoun River. The cuttings were taken to a specialty nursery and propagated by grafting. Two of the trees produced in this manner were planted in a forested part of the botanical gardens in 1982 and then transplanted to a garden path area in 1995, when they were 5 feet tall.

Macdonald offered both trees to the Haida to replace the one they had lost. At first the Haida were upset that kiidk’yaas had been multiplied without their knowledge. They soon realized that the cuttings were taken when the tree was on ground leased to a forestry company, and that everything was done openly and properly. Then their only concern became one of whether or not the propagations were actually the same tree.

The Haida tribal council debated Macdonald’s offer and have decided to accept one tree, which they will replant along the banks of the Yakoun River.

My friend, Gordon Bentham, was a friend of the nurseryman who propagated the cuttings taken in 1977. Extra plants were propagated and Gordon was able to obtain at least two of them. One found its way into my collection. Anyone who has purchased Picea sitchensis ‘Aurea’ or ‘Bentham’s Sunlight’ from Coenosium Gardens owns a little piece of history.

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