[2]Rustad was born on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada, where he spent the first few months of his life in a tent while his parents built their home.
He is a faculty editor at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity’s Mountain and Wilderness Writing Residency.
Rustad's contributions to The Walrus have reinforced its position as one of Canada's leading homes for thoughtful, impactful journalism.
"[5] His first book, Big Lonely Doug: The Story of One of Canada’s Last Great Trees,[2] a nonfiction book published in 2018 is about the second-largest Douglas fir in Canada that was a saved by a logger who wrapped green LEAVE TREE ribbon around its trunk, and the fight to protect old-growth forests in British Columbia.
The tree, Big Lonely Doug, is growing in the middle of a clear cut near Port Renfrew, British Columbia.