Enter the landscape
Each project starts with time on the ground: hiking, observing, listening, collecting, recording, and documenting a specific place.
An ongoing Canadian field project
Goods rooted in Canada’s wild places
Lodestar explores how a place can be experienced and remembered through living cultures, sound, stories, and tangible goods.
Field Release 001Current release
Ishpatina Wild Yeast Sourdough Starter
A dehydrated sourdough starter developed using wild yeasts collected in the boreal forest near Ishpatina Ridge, Ontario’s highest point.
The culture connects a documented field collection, laboratory identification, and practical home baking in one place-based release.
$20.00
The central question
How can a wild place stay with you after you leave?
Lodestar began with the recognition that photographs and trip reports can document a destination, but rarely convey the sensory reality of being somewhere wild.
This is a founder-led field project that translates real landscapes into forms another person can experience.
Explore the Lodestar Project →Method
From fieldwork to release
Collect and document
Materials and recordings are handled with a clear record of where they came from, what happened next, and what can honestly be claimed.
Translate the place
The fieldwork becomes a useful, experiential release: a living culture, soundscape, story, photograph, or other place-based good.
Field Notes
Dispatches from the field
April 26, 2026
Fundy Park - Matthew’s Head to Point Wolfe & Third Vault Falls
Date: July 26, 2025Location: Fundy National Park, New BrunswickTrails: Matthew’s Head to Point Wolfe Beach, Third Vault Falls (both done as out-and...
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April 26, 2026
Mount Carleton, New Brunswick Hiking Trip Report
Trip report from a hot and foggy July hike to the summit of Mount Carleton, the highest peak in the Maritimes. Spent a few hours at the summit drin...
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March 29, 2026
Ishpatina Ridge - Ontario's Highest Point Trip Report
Trip Report, Planning, and Logistics: How to Reach Ishpatina Ridge from the South (Hike and Bike) Ishpatina Ridge is Ontario’s highest point, and...
Read field note →Working map
Places in progress
Not every place becomes a product. The project remains open to experiments, failed attempts, field records, and different forms of release.
Forests near Ishpatina Ridge
Collection area for the Ishpatina Wild Yeast Sourdough Starter in Northern Ontario’s boreal forest.
Mount Carleton
Fieldwork connected to the highest point in the Maritimes.
Ottawa
Exploring wild yeast in urban parks and overlooked natural spaces.
Canadian soundscapes
Immersive recordings built from long listening sessions in backcountry locations.
Meet the founder
Jason Nickerson
I created Lodestar after years of travelling to remote and difficult places through humanitarian work and through my own hiking, trail running, cycling, and exploring.
The project brings together fieldwork, practical experimentation, scientific curiosity, and storytelling.