Harley Rustad is a Toronto-based author and journalist who was born on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. He first came to national prominence with Big Lonely Doug: The Story of one of Canada’s Last Great Trees. His second book, Lost in the Valley of Death: A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas, has elevated him to international stardom.
Featured on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, the book is about the unsolved disappearance of an American backpacker in India—one of at least two dozen tourists who have met a similar fate in the remote and storied Parvati Valley. It is “one of the most haunting books of recent times,” according to writer Pico Iyer; “a gripping tale that reads like a detective novel,” according to Explorer’s Journal.
Rustad is a senior editor at The Walrus magazine, a faculty editor at the Banff Centre, and founder of the Port Renfrew Writers’ Retreat.