Maybe all meaningful journeys begin with a mistake. Some kind of transgression or false turn or
flawed idea that sets a certain irresistible odyssey in motion. Growing up in small-town
Ontario where the tallest summit was a haystack and the widest horizon a field of corn my
blunder seemed obvious though it wasn't exactly my fault: I was born centuries too late for
the life I was meant to live. As a teenager Kate Harris realized that the career she craved to
be an explorer equal parts swashbuckler and metaphysician had gone extinct. From what she
could tell of the world from small-town Ontario the likes of Marco Polo and Magellan had
mapped the whole earth there was nothing left to be discovered. Looking beyond this planet
she decided to become a scientist and go to Mars.In between studying at Oxford and MIT Harris
set off by bicycle down the fabled Silk Road with her childhood friend Mel. Pedaling mile upon
mile in some of the remotest places on earth she realized that an explorer in any day and age
is the kind of person who refuses to live between the lines. Forget charting maps naming
peaks: what she yearned for was the feeling of soaring completely out of bounds. The farther
she traveled the closer she came to a world as wild as she felt within.Lands of Lost Borders
is the chronicle of Harris's odyssey and an exploration of the importance of breaking the
boundaries we set ourselves an examination of the stories borders tell and the restrictions
they place on nature and humanity and a meditation on the existential need to explore the
essential longing to discover what in the universe we are doing here.Like Rebecca Solnit and
Pico Iyer Kate Harris offers a travel account at once exuberant and reflective wry and
rapturous. Lands of Lost Borders explores the nature of limits and the wildness of the self
that can never fully be mapped. Weaving adventure and philosophy with the history of science
and exploration Lands of Lost Borders celebrates our connection as humans to the natural world
and ultimately to each other a belonging that transcends any fences or stories that may divide
us.
