The trees were enormous, towering unlike any trees I had known in India. Those were bushes, bent and bowed by the ocean wind. These Haida Gwaii trees were giants, straight and tall, proud, unmoved by the strength of the sea and wind. They were not plants. They were life forms, species, creatures. We walked at their ankles. 

 

The forest floor was brown with the decay of fallen, rotting wood. This was a rainforest, pure and simple. Ferns were the only green at eye level. You could almost see them growing as you watched. It was like a deep sea floor, another world.

 

And above us was a canopy, the stretching arms of cedar and spruce and Douglas fir. Rusty did not speak as we walked. We knew to follow in silence, watching our steps, heads bowed. We were in a temple.