Tracking Giants — Amanda Lewis in Conversation with Arno Kopecky

Tracking Giants by Amanda Lewis

On Thursday, June 8th at 6pm PST, join Massy Arts Society and Greystone Books for a reading and celebration of Tracking Giants, by debut author Amanda Lewis. Dig deep into the roots of this story tracking some of the world’s biggest trees.

Lewis will be joined by acclaimed environmental journalist and fellow author Arno Kopecky. Tracking Giants reminds us how much we can learn from the humble interconnectedness of tree life and forests. Join us for a humble dialogue about how the interconnectedness of nature can frame, change and beautify our way of being.

This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été rendu possible grâce au gouvernement du Canada.

Venue & Accessibility

The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.

Registration is free, open to all and required for entrance. The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site. Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.

For more on accessibility including parking, seating, venue measurements and floor plan, and how to request ASL interpretation please visit: massyarts.com/accessibility

Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.

About The Book

Tracking Giants by Amanda Lewis (Greystone Books)

A funny, deeply relatable book about one woman’s quest to track some of the world’s biggest trees.

When she first moved back west after nearly a decade away, Amanda Lewis was an overachieving, burned-out book editor most familiar with trees as dead blocks of paper. Tracking Giants traces her quest to visit every Champion tree (the largest tree of each species) on British Columbia’s Big Tree registry. But tree-tracking turns out to be more complicated than she initially thought: burned out again—and realizing that her "checklist" approach to life might be the problem—she reframed her search for trees to something humbler and more meaningful: getting to know forests in an interconnected way.

Weaving in insights from writers and artists, Lewis uncovers what we’re really after when we pursue the big things―revealing that sometimes it’s the smaller joys, the mindsets we have, and the companions we’re with that make us feel more connected to the natural world.

With Authors

Amanda Lewis is a big-tree tracker and an award-winning book editor. Born in Dublin, Ireland, she now divides her time between the internet and a small island in British Columbia, Canada. Tracking Giants is her first book. Visit her at amandalewis.org.

Arno Kopecky is an environmental journalist and author who contributes to The Globe And Mail, The Tyee, The Walrus, Canada's National Observer, The Narwhal, and other publications. His latest book is The Environmentalist's Dilemma, a collection of reported essays exploring how cultures respond to ecological crisis. He's a big fan of tall trees, but he loves the little ones too.