In many ways Dr. Al Carder is like some of the gnarly, ancient giants that he loves to visit and write about. Nearly a century old himself, this elfish, award-winning plant scientist, and international big-tree expert, can truly say he has been there. Having personally witnessed, in his youth, the height of the timber apocalypse in the Greater Vancouver area, years later, he decided to dedicate himself to learning more about the legendary giant trees – past and present.
Clearly not impressed with the historic greed of the world’s lumber barons, who moved from one cellulose oilfield or “big-timber Saudi Arabia” to another, Carder repeatedly decries the tragic loss of many of the Earth’s biggest and oldest living entities.
Giant Trees of Western America and the World is the author’s second book on the subject, and it is jam-packed with fascinating stories and information. It is so dense in places that it could make a tree nerd cry; I recommend tackling one or two trees at a time. This riveting book talks of the spiritual, as well as the mysterious and the strange, and includes a number of tables listing the biggest, tallest, and oldest of the world’s tree species.
Refreshingly, Carder included both imperial and metric measurements, since both can be relevant in appreciating tree size. His own illustrations, which depict stick people at the base of each tree, provide a much needed sense of scale so humans can grasp the staggering size of these natural wonders. Imagine being on the 30th floor of an apartment building with a 415-foot (126 m) Lynn Valley Douglas fir towering another 10 floors above you.
In the competitive Olympiad of forest giants, the author describes the evolution of these extreme plants from simple, prehistoric cell structures to the extraordinary genetic designs that resulted in the super trees known in recorded history. Carder has tap-rooted an impressive network of big-tree experts, notably Robert Van Pelt, Arthur Lee Jacobson of Seattle, and Thomas Pakenham of Great Britain. Like Robert Van Pelt, he has travelled the world to personally experience the Earth’s great tree legacies, and compare the giant trees he has visited on each continent with the finest examples of our Cascadian North American forest heritage.
Even the tree Ents of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings love this book, with local Ents comparing themselves to their counterparts in Australia, New Zealand, Patagonia, and California. Join our big-tree friends and travel the forests of the world by way of this inTREEging and ENTertaining book.
Harbour Publishing Co. Ltd., 2005

Ralf Kelman is a well-known conceptual artist and lighting activist. He is on the BC government’s Big Tree Registry Committee and is conducting a big-tree inventory for the Greater Vancouver Regional District.