The shortlists for the 2024 Banff Mountain Book Competition have been announced by Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival.

The eight prizes in the competition celebrate mountain literature in all its forms: mountain literature (non-fiction), mountain fiction and poetry, environmental literature, adventure travel, mountain image, guidebooks, mountain article, and climbing literature.

Winners in each category receive a $3,000 prize. Shortlisted titles related to climbing in the first seven categories are also eligible for the Climbing Literature prize. The winners will be announced on Oct. 17.

Category winners in turn are eligible for the Grand Prize worth $5,000, which will be announced on Oct. 31 during the film and book festival, which runs Oct. 26–Nov. 5 at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and associated venues in Banff, Alberta.

Canadian authors and Canadian-published titles shortlisted for the prizes are:

Mountain Fiction & Poetry

• Empty Spaces by Jordan Abel (McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Kink Bands by David Martin (NeWest Press)

Environmental Literature

• Echo Loba, Loba Echo: Of Wisdom, Wolves and Women by Sonja Swift (Rocky Mountain Books)
• Pitfall: The Race to Mine the World’s Most Vulnerable Places by Christopher Pollon (Greystone Books)
• The Wild Horses of the Chilcotin: Their History and Future by Wayne McCrory (Harbour Publishing)

Adventure Travel

• The Two-Headed Whale: Life, Loss, and the Tangled Legacy of Whaling in the Antarctic by Sandy Winterbottom (Greystone Books)
• Where the Falcon Flies: A 3,400 Kilometre Odyssey From My Doorstep to the Arctic by Adam Shoalts (Allen Lane Canada/Penguin Random House Canada)

Guidebooks

• Backpacking on Vancouver Island: The Essential Guide to the Best Multi-Day Trips and Day Hikes by Taryn Eyton (Greystone Books)

Mountain Article 

• “Inseparably Roped: Early Club Culture, Climbing and Books” by Zac Robinson, in Canadian Alpine Journal (2024)

The full category shortlists can be found here.