The Besiders

Conversations with nature-empowered people who think, create and live differently.

The Besiders

Finding Home in Gaspésie

Two portraits of people who travelled to the Gaspé Peninsula and decided they never wanted to leave. See, through their eyes, the land of the northern gannet and the endless sea.
The Besiders / Through the lens

Through the Lens of Guillaume Beaudoin

Travelling the world to find beauty in difference and strength in change
The Besiders

The Salt Maker’s Quest

Ben Jacobsen tested sea water up and down the Pacific Northwest coast in order to find the perfect salt. He discovered it in the waters of Netarts Bay.

The Besiders

Creating a Game with Des Enfantillages

Geneviève Lugaz and Christian Laforge share a company, a duplex, and the happy title of parents. Des Enfantillages is the result of their professional and personal journey: an inspiring studio with a fun and poetic approach to making toys. In collaboration with BESIDE, they’ve created “Guess Who Inspires Me?”

The Besiders

Forging a Fireplace Tool Set with Thomas Lefebvre

In a smithy in Québec City’s Lower Town, blacksmith Thomas Lefebvre uses traditional craftsmanship and his creativity to make objects that defy planned obsolescence. In collaboration with BESIDE, he gives us durable fireplace tools with a minimalist design.

The Besiders

Designing a Log Carrier with Noujica

Jinny Lévesque, a glass artist, and Catherine Cournoyer, a textile print designer, first met in a visual arts class in college. They became fast friends and soon joined forces to design their first ethical textile products. A decade later, they’re now collaborating with BESIDE to make a unique log carrier.
The Besiders

Crafting Natural Soap with Énamour

To dive into the world of Énamour products is to fall in love. Designed for the whole family, Marie Custeau's soaps are 100 per cent natural and plant-based. Her next mission? Create the perfect mosquito repellent, so we can better enjoy our time in the woods.

The Besiders / Through the lens

Gaëlle Elma

Rooted in the Intimacy of Bodies
In partnership with The North Face

Climbing Together

A meeting at the summit with the Chèvres de montagne.
The Besiders

A Farm in Central Park

Following her mother’s murder, Amber Tamm Canty found healing and purpose through farming. Now, with thousands flocking to her cause, she’s aiming to change the landscape of food security in New York, starting with Central Park.

The Besiders

Environmentalism Won’t Work Without Everyone

The environmental movement has an inclusion problem. Leah Thomas is a leading voice to make sure that caring for the planet is inseparable from caring for the people who live on it. All of them.

The Besiders / Through the lens

Naima Green

Brooklyn photographer Naima Green creates portraits of people of colour—artists, activists, community builders—in urban oases of greenery of cities which bear significant histories of Black migration to the United States.
The Besiders

Natural Heat

With the pandemic threatening to bankrupt their restaurant, Ralph Alerte Desamours and Lee-Anne Millaire Lafleur needed to adapt, quickly. So they revolutionized takeout with a DIY barbecue picnic on a compostable grill.

The Besiders

Inked by a Legend

Whang-od Oggay is the last traditional tattoo artist from the old generation in the Kalinga region in the northern Philippines. This internationally acclaimed tattooist has single-handedly ensured the survival of this traditional art for the next generation.

The Besiders

Making Waves

When Jane-Anne Cormier returned to Le Havre to start Les Vagues after 10 years in the city, she had a goal—to combine her two great passions: the river and SUP.

The Besiders

Food For Thought

This is a story of Polarhagen, a regenerative market garden, and two first generation farmers sowing seeds in Norway’s Lofoten Islands.

The Besiders

An architect of community

A surfer, a mother and an entrepreneur, Sarah Zed lives near the waves in rural Nova Scotia, where she’s built a small community around Rose & Rooster, her bakery-café.
Habitats / The Besiders

Self-sufficient Solidarity

When he’s not in the operating room of the ER at Santa Paula Hospital, Californian Ross Monroe is converting his backyard into a community space for friends who, like him, want to live independently.

The Besiders / Through the lens

Chiara Zonca

Seeking connections and feelings in isolated spaces
The Besiders

Wine, Deconfined

Vignoble Les Pervenches on winemaking in Quebec and rediscovering centre in uncertain times.
Habitats / The Besiders

Home in the Trees

German architect Andreas Wenning makes treehouses, but these aren’t the rickety, makeshift constructions you remember from childhood. With his sleek, contemporary dwellings, Wenning has invented a whole new dream for life amongst the treetops.

The Besiders / Through the lens

Sam Raetz

Breathtaking images inspired by nature’s great works of art.

The Besiders

Like Honey in the Comb

At Candide, Chef John Winter Russell is concocting a blueprint for a hyperlocal, hypersocial gastronomy.
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From Neon to Lilac

After 12 years of hard work and sacrifice, Josiane Lanthier is just starting to make a living off her paintings. We offer a portrait of a sparkling artist who’s more and more at ease.
The Besiders

Christina Holmes

Breathtaking images inspired by nature’s great works of art.

The Besiders

Kalaallisuut

Weaving Greenlandic identity.
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UN CERCLE

Breathtaking images inspired by nature’s great works of art.

The Besiders

Depth of Field

Hidden away on an Oregon farm, Sophia Weiss is raising a herd of Tibetan yak on her own. Influenced by her Buddhist upbringing, she’s developed a special bond with her animals, who are a source of both love and sustenance.
The Besiders / Through the lens

Nicolas Gouin

De contrastes, de franchise et d’espoir.
The Besiders / Through the lens

Angela Gzowski

Pour celui qui voulait devenir photographe de guerre, la photo est une porte d'entrée privilégiée vers des histoires, des gens, des lieux.
The Besiders / Through the lens

Ana Paula Alvarez

On family, emotional landscapes, and the art of photography

The Besiders / Through the lens

Yan Kaczynski

On the realness and raw beauty of nature.
The Besiders

City Fisher

Most people associate salmon fishing with expensive trips to remote rivers. But in Toronto, the salmon are just a subway ride away.
The Besiders

In Bloom

Portrait of the woman who inspired an entirely new generation of floral designers.
The Besiders / Through the lens

Graeme Owsianski

Outdoor lifestyle photographer based in Ucluelet, British Columbia.

In partnership with Menaud

Charlevoix in a Bottle

The Menaud distillery pays tribute to Charlevoix’s rich natural resources and talented artisans. Portrait of a daring company reinventing traditional vodka in Québec.
The Besiders / Through the lens

Camrin Dengel

On self-sufficiency, heritage and returning to our roots.
The Besiders

Back to the Future

For the Incas time had a circular structure: The past, present, and future influenced each other continuously. This idea became the foundation for Mater Iniciativa, the agricultural and culinary laboratory headed by Malena Martinez and her brother Virgilio, the internationally renowned Peruvian chef.
In partnership with Duvetnor

A Rare Bird

Jean Bédard, founder of Duvetnor, turned an age-old tradition—the harvesting of eiderdown—into the driving force behind the conservation of a natural habitat. Portrait of a man with his eyes out to sea.
The Besiders / Through the lens

Tom Hegen

Looking at the Anthropocene from above.
The Besiders

The Shearer’s Dance

How a Montana rancher is giving life to a lost art.

The Besiders / Through the lens

Jo Savage

Her photography focuses on uncovering the layers of untold stories within surf, skate, and mountain communities around the world.
The Besiders / Through the lens

Pat Kane

Capturing the people and relationships at the heart northern Canada.
The Besiders

Inner Landscapes

Architect Pierre Thibault makes nature his laboratory, and beauty his philosophy.

The Besiders

A Horse’s Worth

Mustangs are deeply woven into America’s historical fabric, but the ongoing debates over public land are putting them at risk. Mustangs to the Rescue strives to elevate the public’s view of wild horses to protect the iconic breed.

The Besiders

Rich Waters

The Sockeye salmon fishery in Bristol Bay, Alaska is the largest in the world. It has supported generations of fishers, like Greg Fransen and his son Cody. But a proposed mine now threatens this natural treasure.

The Besiders

Consuming less and doing more

Yvon Chouinard has been wearing the same flannel shirt for 20 years. The 81-year-old conservationist, outside-the-box thinker, athlete and craftsman is also an outspoken anti-consumerist and always pushing Patagonia, the company he founded, to find solutions to the global environmental crisis.
The Besiders

The Miracle of the Tiny Home Vacation

Getaway provides unalloyed connection with nature, our travel companions, and ourselves.

The Besiders

Ascent to the Top

With her all-women climbing festival and community of climbers, Shelma Jun is reaching territory—on and off the rocks—that has never been reached before.

The Besiders / Through the lens

Alex Strohl

Alex Strohl is one of today’s most inspiring, talented, and authentic outdoor photographers.

The Besiders

Hooked on Fishing

Fred Campbell reels in new followers by sharing his love for fishing with Hooké.
The Besiders

The great animal choir

His recordings capture powerful expressions of change and what it portends in localized wild habitats. When change happens in a landscape that resident animals have evolved to understand from an auditory perspective, they may never be able to readapt.
The Besiders

The future of food is in the sea

At his shellfish and seaweed ocean farm, and his non-profit, Greenwave, Bren Smith is creating a simple, replicable system of water-based farming that is regenerative, rehabilitates the oceans, creates jobs, and, likely, is the answer to growing food in the face of climate change.
The Besiders

Tim and Hannah’s ark

“When I wasn’t snowboarding, I’d go back to the condo and feel confused. Being out in the mountains as often as we are, we have that connection to the environment. The way we were living wasn’t correlating with our values,” Eddy says.
The Besiders

Monsieur Pageau

The instant you step outside, the smell of conifers, prickly as their needles, sweet as their sap, is, if you pay close attention, always with you. Your first encounter with this expansive northern territory is through your nose. The Abitibi-Témiscamingue region of Québec is half the size of Alabama and twice as big as Belgium.