BANFF, AB, October 10, 2018 – Banff Mountain Book Competition unveils category award winners set to compete for the Book Competition’s Grand Prize on November 1 at this year’s Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival.
The award winners are chosen by our jury from a longlist of 27 finalists, taken from 145 book submissions, with authors in 14 different countries, offering the best writing in mountain literature, adventure travel, mountain fiction, mountain image, mountaineering articles, mountain environment and natural history, mountaineering history, and guidebooks.
"These 27 stories offer thought provoking, personal, and sometimes philosophical views of life in the mountains. If writing at its best gives us new windows on to life and what it can be, it is safe to say these category winners do this and more. Inspiration is the common thread and picking a winner for the Festival is choosing from an embarrassment of riches."
– Ian Welsted, 2018 Book Competition Jury
The decision to award the 2018 Grand Prize – The Phyllis and Don Munday Award worth $4000 – belongs to jury members Ian Welsted (CAN, climber, Piolet d’Or winner, writer), Paula Wright (USA, writer, Associate Editor at Alpinist Magazine, doctoral candidate at University of Oregon), and Larry Stanier (CAN, mountain guide and voracious mountain literature reader).
Category Award Winners
Adventure Travel
$2000 - Sponsored by Fjällräven
Lands of Lost Borders: Out of Bounds on the Silk Road
Kate Harris, Penguin Random House Canada (Canada, 2018)
Mountain Fiction & Poetry
$2000 – Sponsored by Grimms Fine Foods
The Eight Mountains
Paolo Cognetti, Penguin Random House – Vintage (UK, 2018)
Mountain Literature (non-fiction) – The Jon Whyte Award
$2000 - Sponsored by the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies
Tides: a climber’s voyage
Nick Bullock, Vertebrate Publishing (UK, 2018)
Mountain Environment and Natural History
$2000 – Sponsored by Town of Banff
The Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West
Nate Blakeslee, Penguin Random House Canada (Canada, 2017)
Mountain Image
$2000 – Sponsored by Lake O’Hara Lodge
The Canadian Rockies: Rediscovered
Paul Zizka, Rocky Mountain Books (Canada, 2017)
Guidebooks
$2000 – Sponsored by the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides
Squamish Rockclimbs
Kevin McLane and Andrew Boyd, High Col Press (Canada, 2018)
Mountaineering Article
$2000 – Sponsored by the University of Alberta and the Alpine Club of Canada
Contraindications
Alison Criscitiello, Alpinist Magazine (USA, August 2017)
Mountaineering History
$2000 – Sponsored by Rab
Honouring High Places: The Mountain Life of Junko Tabei
Junko Tabei and Helen Rolfe, Rocky Mountain Books (Canada, 2017)
Special Jury Mentions:
Atlas of a Lost World
Craig Childs, Pantheon Books (USA, 2018)
Bert Riggall’s Greater Waterton: A Conservation Legacy
Beth Russell-Towe, Fifth House Publishers (Canada, 2018)
Grand Prize – The Phyllis and Don Munday Award
$4000 – Sponsored by the Alpine Club of Canada
All category award winners are eligible for the Grand Prize (The Phyllis and Don Munday Award) which will be announced Thursday, November 1, 2018 at Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival.
For more information on the 2018 Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival, please visit www.banffmountainfestival.ca.
About Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival: Created 43 years ago, Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival has become the premier event of its kind in the world. The nine-day Festival hosted by Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Banff, Canada, showcases the world’s best films, books and photographs on mountain subjects – climbing, culture, environment and natural history, exploration and adventure, wildlife, and sport – and attracts the biggest names in mountaineering, adventure filmmaking, and explorers as presenters and speakers. An international jury will also award over $40,000 in prizes for films and books submitted to this year’s Festival competitions.
About Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity: Founded in 1933, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity is a learning organization built upon an extraordinary legacy of excellence in artistic and creative development. What started as a single course in drama has grown to become the global organization leading in arts, culture, and creativity across dozens of disciplines. From our home on Treaty 7 territory in the stunning Canadian Rocky Mountains, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity aims to inspire everyone who attends our campus – artists, leaders, and thinkers – to unleash their creative potential and realize their unique contribution to society through cross-disciplinary learning opportunities, world-class performances, and public outreach. In 2018, Banff Centre celebrates 85 years of creative practice. banffcentre.ca