Kiidk'yaas

Kiidk'yaas or Kiid K'iyaas ( " old tree " ), also called the Golden Spruce, was a Sitka spruce, Picea sitchensis 'Aurea ', that about six kilometers south of the settlement of Port Clements on the banks of the River Yakoun on the island Haida Gwaii in the archipelago of Haida Gwaii grew. The islands lie off the Canadian Pacific coast and part of the province of British Columbia. The tree had a rare genetic mutation that caused the needles were golden.

The spruce was revered by the Haida First Nation, who lives on the island. In the world of myths had the Creator, as the ancestors abused each other, buried their village under snow. An old man and a boy hid under a pile of red cedar, and then fled the Yakoun River up. The old man warned the boy not to look back, but not obeyed, and was transformed into the golden spruce. It was said that the tree would be honored to the last generation.

On January 22, 1997, a 48 -year-old unemployed lumber worker named Grant Hadwin precipitated the Kiidk'yaas as a political statement against the wood-processing company. He was later arrested, but mysteriously disappeared before he could be brought to justice.

The act shocked the community of Haida; the elders felt that they had failed to protect the tree properly and some worried that the prophecy that the tree would be revered until the last generation, means that the current generation of Haida is the last.

But 1977 had visited to take cuttings from the Kiidk'yaas a group of botanists from the University of British Columbia ( UBC) Haida Gwaii. These offshoots were grafted onto an ordinary sitka spruce and there were golden young sapling. These trees were grown in the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research.

When it heard about the destruction of the tree, the Arboretum offered one of the young trees to the Haida as a substitute for the Kiidk'yaas. The Haida to took and planted it near the place where the Kiidk'yaas had stood. In addition, attempts have been made to increase 80 parts of the felled tree.