 |
| –presented by– |
 |
 |
| –sponsored by– |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| –with assistance from– |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Banff Mountain Book Festival 2005
2005 Book Awards
See the entries and finalists
November 5, 2005 — The Banff Mountain Book Festival thanks the writers, the photographers, their editors and publishers for entering this year’s competition. We are pleased to announce the following awards:
Grand Prize: Being Caribou by Karsten Heuer. Phyllis and Don Munday Award, sponsored by the Alberta Sections of the Alpine Club of Canada: $2000
Best Book — Mountain Literature: On Thin Ice by Mick Fowler. Jon Whyte Award for Mountain Literature, sponsored by the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Banff: $1000
Best Book — Mountain Image: Mountain Ranges of Colorado by John Fielder. Sponsored by Rocky Mountain Books, Calgary: $500
Best Book — Adventure Travel: Learning to Breathe by Andy Cave. Sponsored by Batstar Adventure Tours, Port Alberni, B.C.: $500
Best Book — Mountain Exposition: Longs Peak: The Story of Colorado’s Favourite Fourteener by Dougald MacDonald. Sponsored by Dunham: $500
Best Book — Mountaineering History: The Villain: The Life of Don Whillans by Jim Perrin. James Monroe Thorington Award for the Best Work of Mountaineering History, sponsored by UIAA: $500
Canadian Rockies Award: The 11,000ers of the Canadian Rockies by Bill Corbett. Sponsored by Deuter and selected by a local committee.
| Grand Prize | |
|
Being Caribou The Mountaineers Books (USA, 2005) 1-59485-010-0 “We are so used to amazing wildlife images in TV documentaries. Karsten Heuer offers the verbal equivalent of those magical visual moments and he has something important to say as well. “ —Maggie Body “The only thing that matches the imagination and execution of this trip is the quality of the totally engaging writing.” — Bill Buxton The journey itself makes for a great tale, but Karsten Heuer achieves something greater, something unusual in personal narrative. The story is not about him, or Leanne. He recognizes this, and manages to tell it, in first person, without blocking our view of his primary subject, the caribou. |
| Best Book — Mountain Literature | |
|
On Thin Ice Baton Wicks Publications (UK, 2005) 1-898573-581 “A far cry from the grunt/epic/hero/tragedy school of mountain writing. In many ways, the climbing is simply a backdrop to great story telling, powers of observation, travel writing, and humour that would do Tilman proud.” —Bill Buxton “Mick Fowler is the last of the high-powered amateurs — we should cherish him for his unquenchable enthusiasm, his sheer likeability and his awesome achievements.” — Maggie Body “Mick Fowler writes with the fearlessness of a Lord Nelson. He simply goes at èem, gets in close, and serves up delightful, self-deprecating, authentic prose.” —Jeremy Schmidt |
| Best Book — Mountain Image | |
|
Mountain Ranges of Colorado Westcliffe Publishers Inc (USA, 2004) 1-56579-496-6 “A wonderful testament to the observation that luck favours the prepared and persistant. How else do you get a mountain goat to lie down and sit still for 10 minutes, 15 feet from where you your 4x5 view camera is set up? A great eye coupled with wonderful technique, and then married to a beautifully produced book.” —Bill Buxton |
| Best Book — Adventure Travel | |
|
Learning to Breathe Random House Group Limited UK (UK, 2005) 0-09-180034-X The jury departed from the typical type of book that has won the ’Adventure Travel’ award in the past. Namely, Andy Cave’s Learning to Breathe has a good deal of climbing writing in it, and was actually a finalist in the Mountain Literature category. But the jury felt that the journey from mine to peak is what Cave so skilfully revealed in this, his first book. “It was a mental, cultural, socio-economic, and spiritual journey as much as a physical one. And those are the characteristics that mark the best adventure travel writing of any sort.” —Jeremy Schmidt “Andy Cave interweaves his two worlds with considerable flair and his portrayal of a chunk of English social histoy is as deftly done as his delight in the adrenalin rush of climbing a rock face. An exciting debut book.” |
| Best Book — Mountain Exposition | |
|
Longs Peak: The Story of Colorado’s Favourite Fourteener Westcliffe Publishers Inc (USA, 2004) 1-56579-497-4 “A neat and comprehensive introduction to stuff in your backpack. Modest, accessible, it does its job attractively.” —Maggie Body “This is as much a love letter as a history of Longs Peak.” —Bill Buxton |
| Best Book — Mountaineering History | |
|
The Villain: The Life of Don Whillans Random House Group Limited UK (UK, 2005) 0091794382 “Whillans as history — pow! An invaluable work of reference.” —Maggie Body “This is one of the most meticulously researched and written biographies that I have seen in the mountain literature, or that of any other field. It is, in short, a tour de force.” —Bill Buxton |
| Canadian Rockies Award | |
|
The 11,000ers of the Canadian Rockies Rocky Mountain Books (Canada, 2004) 1-894765-43-5 |