About Lodestar
A founder-led project built in the field
Lodestar documents specific Canadian landscapes through fieldwork, living cultures, sound, photography, writing, and useful objects.
Founder
Jason Nickerson
I am a hiker, trail runner, cyclist, and explorer. I have also spent much of my professional life working in humanitarian emergencies in some of the world’s most difficult and remote places.
Lodestar grew from a practical problem: field experience is difficult to carry home. A dawn above Mount Carleton, the sound of the boreal forest near Ishpatina Ridge, and sunset in Beni, Democratic Republic of Congo, resist summary.
I created Lodestar to record those places through field notes, cultures, sound, photography, and releases with a documented origin.
What Lodestar is
A project first. A brand because the work needs a home.
Lodestar operates as a creative project and business, but the product is not the starting point. The starting point is a place, a question, or a field experiment worth pursuing.
The business provides the discipline required to make the work reliable, useful, and available. The project protects the curiosity and honesty that make it distinctive.
A note on evidence
The story should never outrun the facts
For every release, the goal is to state where the fieldwork happened, what was collected or recorded, how it was handled, what was learned, and what the finished release can and cannot represent.
The work can be evocative without becoming vague. Methods, dates, identifications, limitations, and practical instructions should remain visible wherever they help someone understand or repeat the work.