Kate Harris (born in 1982) is a Canadian author.

Early life

Harris was born in

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

and grew up dreaming of exploring

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

. She viewed the Earth as having been thoroughly explored and charted before her lifetime, so she set her eyes on another planet. This life-long inspiration to explore led her to bike across the Silk Road, which she documented in her first book ''Lands of Lost Borders''. A graduate of the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the Public university, public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referre ...

, she studied at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

as a

Rhodes Scholar The Rhodes Scholarship is an international Postgraduate education, postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world. Esta ...

and then at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

Lands of Lost Borders

Her first book, ''Lands of Lost Borders'', a nonfiction book describing her experiences bicycling of Asia's historic

Silk Road The Silk Road was a network of Asian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over , it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the ...

over a 14 month period in 2011, won the 2019

RBC Taylor Prize The RBC Taylor Prize (2000–2020), formerly known as the Charles Taylor Prize, was a Canadian literary award, presented by the Charles Taylor Foundation to the best Canadian work of literary non-fiction. It was named for Charles P. B. Taylo ...

, the 2019 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, the 2019

Edna Staebler Award The Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction is an annual literary award recognizing the previous year's best creative nonfiction book with a "Canadian locale and/or significance" that is a Canadian writer's "first or second published book ...

, and 2019

Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature The Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature is an annual prize of £3,000 awarded by the Boardman Tasker Charitable Trust to an author or authors for "an original work which has made an outstanding contribution to mountain literature". The p ...

. The RBC Taylor prize comes with a cash award. The Kobo Emerging Writers Prize and Edna Staebler Award each come with a cash award. The book was a Canadian bestseller. She undertook the trip documented in her book with a friend.

Current works

Harris currently lives

off-grid Off-the-grid or off-grid is a characteristic of buildings and a lifestyle designed in an independent manner without reliance on one or more public utilities. The term "off-the-grid" traditionally refers to not being connected to the electrical gr ...

in northern

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

, near the

Yukon Yukon () is a Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada, bordering British Columbia to the south, the Northwest Territories to the east, the Beaufort Sea to the north, and the U.S. state of Alaska to the west. It is Canada’s we ...

border. In an interview with

Anna Maria Tremonti Anna Maria Tremonti (born July 2, 1957) is a Canadian radio and television journalist who has been featured on a variety of radio and television programs on the CBC. She has served as a senior reporter for '' The National'', where she won two Ge ...

of '' The Current'', Harris described falling in love with the land around

Atlin, British Columbia Atlin ( Tlingit: ''Wéinaa'') is a community in northwestern British Columbia, Canada, located on the eastern shore of Atlin Lake. In addition to continued gold-mining activity, Atlin is a tourist destination for fishing, hiking and heliskiing. ...

, when she skied across the nearby

Juneau Icefield The Juneau Icefield is an ice field located just north of Juneau, Alaska, Juneau, Alaska, continuing north through the border with British Columbia, extending through an area of in the Coast Mountains, Coast Range ranging north to south and east ...

as part of an undergraduate field course in

glaciology Glaciology (; ) is the scientific study of glaciers, or, more generally, ice and natural phenomena that involve ice. Glaciology is an interdisciplinary Earth science that integrates geophysics, geology, physical geography, geomorphology, clim ...

. She currently shares a small cabin there with her partner. Harris is working on a second book.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Kate 21st-century Canadian women writers 21st-century Canadian non-fiction writers Boardman Tasker Prize winners Canadian women non-fiction writers Living people 1982 births