The author Charlotte Gill discusses her memoir, Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe (Greystone, and the David Suzuki Foundation, 2011), with Joseph Planta.

Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe by Charlotte Gill. (Greystone, and the David Suzuki Foundation, 2011) Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Eating Dirt

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver at TheCommentary.ca.

A new book, just published is Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe. It’s just been nominated for the richest nonfiction prize here in Canada, the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize. The book’s author Charlotte Gill joins me now. I’ve just started reading the book, and it’s a fascinating look at tree planters, their work, their sense of accomplishments not only after a season of driving seedlings into the ground—in Ms. Gill’s case nearly 20 years, but also years from now as this is the slowest growing of our renewable resources. We get a sense of logging’s impact on this part of the world, the majesty of the environment and the forestry business. The planter is a vital part of the ecological process, as well in the forest industry. Charlotte Gill is the author of a fiction collection called Ladykiller which was nominated for a number of prizes including the Governor General’s Award, and the BC Book Prize for Fiction. She’s planted more than a million trees. The book is published by Greystone and the David Suzuki Foundation. The website for more is at www.charlottegill.com. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Charlotte Gill; Good morning, Ms. Gill.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (20.3MB)

Subscribe: RSS