Kate Harris
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| Born | 1982 (age 41–42)[1] |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Known for | Award-winning author |
| Website | kateharris |
Kate Harris (born in 1982) is a Canadian author.[2]
Harris was born in Ontario and grew up dreaming of exploring Mars.[2] 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 in the U.S, she studied at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and then at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Her first book, Lands of Lost Borders, a nonfiction book describing her experiences bicycling 10,000 kilometres (6,200 mi) of Asia's historic Silk Road over a 14 month period in 2011, won the 2019 RBC Taylor Prize, the 2019 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, the 2019 Edna Staebler Award.[3] and the 2019 Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature. The RBC Taylor prize comes with a $30,000 cash award. The Kobo Emerging Writer's Prize and Edna Staebler Award each come with a $10,000 cash award. The book was a Canadian bestseller.[4]
She undertook the trip documented in her book with a friend.
Harris currently[when?] lives off-grid in northern British Columbia, near the Yukon border.[3][1]
In an interview with Anna Maria Tremonti, of The Current, Harris described falling in love with the land around Atlin, British Columbia when she skied across the nearby Juneau Icefield as part of an undergraduate field course in glaciology.[5] She currently shares a small cabin there with her partner.
Harris is working on a second book.
At first, the trek just seemed like a way to pass the time before Harris launched into orbit. But as the Rhodes scholar returned to her studies at Oxford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it dawned on her that there was plenty to discover on her home planet, so she decided to ditch the classroom for the wide-open road.
In Lands of Lost Borders, Harris recounts her 10,000 kilometre cycling trip along the Silk Road, crossing into 10 countries — including Turkey, Kyrgyzstan and Tibet — with her friend Mel Yule. Along the 10-month journey, Harris explores the political, cultural and environmental history of the places and people she encounters.
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