Eating dirt

Eating Dirt is the biographical non - fiction debut of the English-born Canadian writer Charlotte Gill , published in 2011 by Greystone Books / Douglas & McIntyre.

Based on the author's many years of personal work experience, it describes the everyday life of Canadian tree planters in large-scale reforestation work in the service of Canadian forestry . The book received extremely positive reviews in the national press, was nominated for various literary prizes and finally received the British Columbia's National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction and the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize in 2012 .

content

In Eating Dirt , Charlotte Gill turned to the working life that had dominated her everyday life for almost two decades: the reforestation of the western Canadian cedar stock in the North American rainforest. As a 19-year-old student, she had turned to this work, less tempted by the prospect of good pay ($ 250 to 500 per day), more by the prospect of nature-loving isolation in order to find herself, but also without any Preparation for this physically demanding job. This turn to the topic would only have been inevitable, not only three of her best friends, but also her husband would be former tree planters: “All of my best friends were tree planters, my husband was a tree planter (...). There's just something really incredible that happens in the backwoods when you get away from technology. It's like going back 100 years. ”In this book, she described the everyday life of hardship in the remote areas of British Columbia , the personal relationships between the individual actors in anecdotes and detailed descriptions of nature, the magic of the western Canadian jungle, the biology of trees and the History of the West Coast Forests. Gill felt the work as a process of self-discovery.

The jury praised the style of the prose used in Eating Dirt : "an insider's perspective on the gruelling, remote and largely ignored world of that uniquely modern-day 'tribe,' the tree planter." [Her description] (...) brings it vividly to life in all its mystic grandeur with striking details and evocative analogies, using intelligence, verve and humor to illuminate the dangers that live within, and threaten from without. "

The $ 40,000 Canadian award was officially awarded to Charlotte Gill on February 15, 2012 by Prime Minister Christy Clark and Keith Marschall, directors of the British Columbia Achievement Foundation. Eating Dirt was also nominated for the $ 25,000 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction and the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Non-fiction and the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize . She received the latter award in May 2012. Before the award ceremony, Gill said with amusement that this Monday is usually what is perceived as the “tree planter new year” on which she will give her new ones on the first day of the season Would instruct teams.

The nature-loving activity in the rainforests, which she gave up in 2008 due to constant knee problems, she misses every day despite the privations. In terms of nature conservation , she saw the work itself as part of a contradicting machinery: “There aren't many planters who don't feel what they are doing is a giant contradiction. We're paid indirectly by the logging companies that harvest the trees. Like loggers, we are all part of the machine. "

output

• Eating dirt. Deep forests, big timber and life with the tree-planting tribe. ( David Suzuki Foundation ) Greystone Books / Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver 2011, ISBN 978-1-55365-977-8 .

review

To eating dirt. Deep forests, big timber and life with the tree-planting tribe , Cherie Thiessen expressed herself enthusiastically in the Canadian literary magazine Quill & Quire : "Gill combines details about her fellow tribe members with her own observations of the land and the job they're tasked with, and blends descriptions of tree planters' daily routines with anecdotes about unusual creatures and situations they encounter during their travails. In the hands of these wordsmith, the mundane becomes magical. (...) With Eating Dirt, Gill has produced a winner. Not all of the million seedlings she planted during her two decades in the wild will have thrived, but this book will. "-" Gill combines details about her accompanying tribe members with their observations of the landscape and with the job they are doing , In doing so, she fades the descriptions of the tree planters' daily routine with anecdotes about unusual creatures and situations with which they are confronted during their work expeditions. In the hands of this word smith, everyday life becomes magical. (...) With Eating Dirt, Gill has produced a winner. Not all of the millions of seedlings she has planted over the past two decades will have rooted out, but this book will do it. "

In her review for The Coastal Spectator, Kimberley Veness from the University of Victoria found the book to be a special insight into the previously hardly documented forest culture, in which Gill had created a unique piece of creative non-fiction based on her personal experiences: “Gill captures silviculture between the pages, and through her own personal experiences truly makes this a unique piece of creative non-fiction. (...) You do not need to be a silviculture laborer to enjoy reading Eating Dirt. The book is appealing in its fresh visual descriptions, and its sneak peek at a largely undocumented subculture ".

Awards and nominations

• 2012: British Columbia's National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction for Eating Dirt
• 2012: Shortlisted Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction for Eating Dirt
• 2012: Shortlist Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Non-fiction for Eating Dirt
• 2012: Shortlisted Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award for Eating Dirt
• 2012: Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize for Eating Dirt

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.cbc.ca/nxnw/featured-guests/2012/02/17/author-charlotte-gill-eating-dirt/
2. ^ Viktoria Ahearn: Tree planting inspired Gill. ( Memento of the original from February 29, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: The Chronicle Herald . February 26, 2012. Retrieved July 20, 2012. 
3. ↑ Tracy Sherlock: Vancouver author Charlotte Gill wins BC's national non-fiction book award. Writer's Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe wins $ 40,000 prize . ( Memento of the original from February 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Vancouver Sun . February 14, 2012. Retrieved July 20, 2012. 
4. ↑ Quoted from: Marsha Lederman: Charlotte Gill's Eating Dirt wins BC book award for non-fiction. In: The Globe and Mail . February 13, 2012. Retrieved July 20, 2012.
5. ↑ www.quillandquire.com ( Memento of the original from March 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ^ The Taylor Prize nominees: Q&A with Charlotte Gill. In: The Globe and Mail . February 27, 2012. Retrieved July 20, 2012.
7. ↑ http://www.bcbookprizes.ca/winners/2012#non-fiction
8. ^ John Burns: Questions & Answers with Charlott Gill. ( Memento of the original from November 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Vancouver Magazine. February 2, 2012. Retrieved July 20, 2012.  
9. ↑ Author Charlotte Gill recounts 17 years spent planting trees. In: The Star . October 1, 2011. Retrieved July 20, 2012.
10. ↑ Cherie Thiessen: Review of Eating Dirt by Charlotte Gill. In: Quill & Quire . September 2011. Retrieved July 9, 2012.
11. ↑ Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe - A Book Review by Kimberly Vaness.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: The Coastal Spectator. Review and Views. March 2012.  
12. ↑ http://www.thecharlestaylorprize.ca/2012/citation_12_cg.asp