Boken The Great Polar Journey – In the Footsteps of Nansen (I Nansens spor) kom helt til topps i kåringen på Banff Mountain Book Festival!

Det ble sendt inn over 100 bøker til årets konkurranse, og Børge Ouslands bok ble kåret til beste bok i Eventyrsjangeren (Best book – Adventure Travel. Konkurransen holdes for 16 år på rad i Canada. Det deles også ut priser for bøker i kategoriene best Mountain Literature, best Mountain Image, best Mountain Exposition og best Mountaineering History. Under følger juryens begrunnelse for valget av Ouslands bok:

In this compelling narrative of his 2007 expedition recreating the original route pioneered by Nansen and Johansen in 1895 through Franz Joseph Land in their attempt to reach the North Pole, Børge Ousland does a terrific job at an inherently complex task. Interweaving accounts of Nansen’s journey, general polar history, and his personal expedition, Ousland is a crisp writer with the added benefit of being arguably the contemporary authority on polar exploration. The result is alternately fascinating, delightful, insightful, inspiring, and frank and the stunning photography is another plus. Ousland doesn’t shy from providing graphic details into the physical challenges of a polar expedition (an explorer on an early American expedition slept next to the body of his dead comrade for three months until the ground softened for burial) or probing uncomfortable personal truths about the pull of expeditions versus personal lives back home, and what we gain versus what we give up in modern lives. The result is a tome that soars for the reader on many levels.

—Susan Schwartz (www.banffcentre.ca)