Harley Rustad is an award-winning and bestselling author, journalist, and magazine editor.

He is the author of Lost in the Valley of Death: A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas, the true story of the mysterious disappearance in 2016 of Justin Alexander Shetler in the Parvati Valley, India. It was named a best Canadian non-fiction book of the year by the CBC, was nominated for and won several awards, and was featured on the cover of the the New York Times Book Review.

His first book was Big Lonely Doug: The Story of One of Canada’s Last Great Trees, about the second-largest Douglas-fir in Canada that was saved by a logger and turned into an environmental icon. It was named a best book of 2018 by the Globe and Mail and was nominated for several awards including the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.

His writing has appeared in Outside, the Globe and Mail, Geographical, the Guardian, The Walrus, CNN, and elsewhere.

He is a senior editor at The Walrus magazine, a faculty editor at the Banff Centre’s Mountain Writing residency, and the founder of the Port Renfrew Writers Retreat. A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Harley is originally from Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada.


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Harley is represented by Stuart Krichevsky at the Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency | sk@skagency.com

Publicity inquires regarding Lost in the Valley of Death:

US | Leslie Cohen | Leslie.Cohen@harpercollins.com

Canada | Shona Cook | SCook@penguinrandomhouse.com


To contact Harley directly:


Homepage photograph by TJ Watt

Portrait photograph by Michelle Proctor