Discover our first BESIDE destination in Lanaudière
Back to nature
Conversations with nature-empowered people who think, create and live differently.
After a rogue wave nearly killed him off the coast of South Africa, Beau Miles began seeking a different sort of adventure: the kind he could find outside his front door.
“I am my own ancestor,” says Myia Antone, a Skwxwú7mesh language teacher, in this interview about land-based education and intergenerational love.
Down the winding roads of Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia’s fertile Annapolis Valley, you can find classic Italian cheeses as authentic as any from the old country. Ciro Comencini is a lifelong casaro (cheese maker) who has dedicated his life to handcrafting traditional cheeses from his small farm near the Atlantic coast.
Stacey L’Écuyer and Philippe Choinière founded Oneka personal care products over a decade ago. Patience and learning remain at the heart of their journey.
Through the Lens of Alma Kismic
At the foot of the mountain in Bromont, Noah Forand runs fast but grows up slowly and a little differently than others. Without knowing it, he’s teaching his family and friends l’art de vivre.
The entrepreneur behind Montréal’s Montloup wants to reinvent the textile industry.
Tariq Ahmed built Revel Cider from a rare passion for fermentation and a commitment to authentic flavours. Fans of his natural ciders are only getting thirstier.
At the Reford Gardens, the coastal plant nursery has found an ecological solution to shoreline erosion: lyme grass.
Capturing humanity, one image at a time.
In the heart of the Québec Appalachians, Maggie Lamothe-Boudreau raises queen bees and sells them to beekeepers across the province. Her little-known work is crucial to our food sovereignty.
For the Grassroots Grandmothers, protecting the Sipekne’katik River in Nova Scotia is a seven-generation calling.
When Francesca Hong's livelihood was threatened by the COVID-19 crisis, she found an opportunity to build community through food.
Five years of doubts and joyous bonfires. Five years of passionate humans and projects that were a little (very) crazy. Five years of imperfect paths, which we wouldn't trade for the world.
To combat declining ocean health in the Gulf of California, Brandon Rus is creating a sustainable industry out of invasive algae.
Amid the pandemic, the social fabric remains strong in one of the U.S. capital’s most vital public spaces.
Seeing connection beyond distance.
On a small farm in Ontario, two old friends reimagine farm work as a sacred art form.
Turning reality into a dream.
Floral designer Sophia Moreno-Bunge’s wild-foraged arrangements celebrate the magnificent strangeness of plants.
By embracing the imperfections in her work, potter Janaki Larsen taps into a more resonant beauty.
Meet three Yukoners forging their own paths in a land of ice and snow.
Shelma Jun answered our questionnaire from her 1980 Automate travel trailer outside Bishop, CA.
Sisters Emma Teal Laukitis and Claire Neaton live with the seasons in Alaska. They shift from sea to land, fishing northern seas and running their business, Salmon Sisters, from shore or—network permitting—their boat.
Marc Séguin responded to our Questionnaire one late afternoon last summer, with the sound of waves coming in through the open windows.
Her main material: the unexpected.
Colleen Cooley is part of a growing number of Indigenous river guides who bring a vital understanding of the importance of water to their work in the outdoor recreation industry.
For 30 years, Christian Barthomeuf has been refining the art of making ice cider with neither additives nor overtime.
Finding depth and complexity in the Alaskan landscape and its people.
The mountaineering community is rallying around a citizen-science initiative to track the growing phenomenon of “pink snow.”
Taming the trails of Medicine Bow National Forest, the work of the snow groomers often goes unnoticed. We shed light on the nocturnal labours of Tim Bishop.
For the past three years, Marilyn B. Armand has devoted herself to the art of making sustainable quilts that will last a lifetime.
Travelling the world to find beauty in difference and strength in change
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.
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.
Common Roots Urban Farm in Halifax provides a place for immigrants and refugees to plant cultural seeds and cultivate community.
Rooted in the Intimacy of Bodies
A meeting at the summit with the Chèvres de montagne.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Parc national du Mont-Tremblant is celebrating its 125th birthday. Behind the lush scenery, people are passionately working to preserve the land.
Seeking connections and feelings in isolated spaces
Vignoble Les Pervenches on winemaking in Quebec and rediscovering centre in uncertain times.
Richard Misrach finds the sublime in the desert’s harshness.
The wild origins of land art.
Breathtaking images inspired by nature’s great works of art.
At Candide, Chef John Winter Russell is concocting a blueprint for a hyperlocal, hypersocial gastronomy.
From November to March, volunteers run a daily shuttle to save northern red-legged frogs.
In a time of social distancing, Toronto’s Winter Stations exhibit provides an opportunity to reflect on how we gather around art and nature.
We all wish for blue skies. They love cloudy days.
From Milano to Montréal, Italian chef Massimo Bottura is creating social tables that combine art, food, design, and charity.
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.
A modern-day explorer travels to the frontiers of human endurance to raise awareness about plastics in our oceans.
Weaving Greenlandic identity.
The best community in Yellowknife, NWT, doesn’t come with running water.
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.
De contrastes, de franchise et d’espoir.
Pour celui qui voulait devenir photographe de guerre, la photo est une porte d'entrée privilégiée vers des histoires, des gens, des lieux.
Crows and ravens don’t deserve our dread. In Murder, photographer Guillaume Simoneau offers a surprising new vision of black birds.
On family, emotional landscapes, and the art of photography
On the realness and raw beauty of nature.
Most people associate salmon fishing with expensive trips to remote rivers. But in Toronto, the salmon are just a subway ride away.
What nature has to teach us, in the workplace and beyond.
Portrait of the woman who inspired an entirely new generation of floral designers.
Outdoor lifestyle photographer based in Ucluelet, British Columbia.
On self-sufficiency, heritage and returning to our roots.
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.
Looking at the Anthropocene from above.
How a Montana rancher is giving life to a lost art.
Her photography focuses on uncovering the layers of untold stories within surf, skate, and mountain communities around the world.
Capturing the people and relationships at the heart northern Canada.
Architect Pierre Thibault makes nature his laboratory, and beauty his philosophy.
French polar explorer Vincent Colliard on his quest to cross the 20 largest ice caps on the planet to help document melting ice fields.
Canadian skier and photographer Kari Medig travels the globe in search of an alternate and unsung view of the ski world — and the force that binds it all together.
For this pair of Canadian snowboarders, their love of the sport reached new heights once they left the chairlifts, the competitions, and the rules behind.
More and more runners prefer braving wilderness trails rather than roads. A mere whim? No. It’s an impulse written into our DNA, according to scientists.
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.
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.
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.
Alex Strohl is one of today’s most inspiring, talented, and authentic outdoor photographers.
Fred Campbell reels in new followers by sharing his love for fishing with Hooké.
Chas Christiansen is a charismatic artist, entrepreneur, and bike racer with an instinctive style and outlook on the world—all this from his years working as a bike messenger in San Francisco. From street racing to jungle excursions, he’s become a true ambassador of fixed gear cycling as a simple yet empowering way of life. And to this day, he still embraces every moment with wits, authenticity, and pure adrenaline.
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.
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 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.