Ben Weissenbach’s journey to Alaska takes the Banff Mountain Book grand prize
Published by Grand Central Publishing, North to the Future asks what changes when a young writer leaves his connected life behind.
On 6 November, the Banff Centre announced the grand prize winner of its book competition: Ben Weissenbach’s North to the Future: An Offline Adventure through the Changing Wilds of Alaska, published in 2025 by Grand Central Publishing. The announcement came during the Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival in Banff, Alberta, Canada.
Weissenbach heads to Arctic Alaska at twenty. Raised in Los Angeles, he describes learning to live in an environment where the terrain, rather than a screen, sets the pace. The people he meets, including researchers, help him understand how the landscape is changing. The book had already won the Adventure Travel category; the grand prize is a separate award.