Lodestar Backcountry Provisions
Field Release 001 - Ishpatina
A place can become something you keep.
Lodestar started with a question: how can a place become something you can take home without reducing it to a souvenir?
Ishpatina is one answer. In August 2025, wild yeasts were collected during fieldwork in the boreal forests near Ishpatina Ridge, Ontario’s highest point. They became part of the sourdough culture in this release. Now the next part happens in your kitchen.
The way in begins at the water.
On the morning of August 24, 2025, Sturgeon River Crossing marked the start of the approach toward Ishpatina Ridge. Dark water, wet rock, conifer forest and low mist were the first record of the day.
The fieldwork that became Release 001 happened in this landscape: not as a wilderness backdrop, but as the origin of the project.
24 AUG 2025
Wild yeast samples were collected from the boreal forests in the nearby region during the Ishpatina Ridge fieldwork and were brought back for evaluation.
The collection was one step in a longer process. Field samples became laboratory isolates; selected isolates became an ingredient in starter development; the living culture was propagated, tested and eventually dehydrated for release.
Read the collection field note →The object is the end of a process.
Release 001 moved through six stages: collection, identification, development, propagation, dehydration and reactivation. The pouch is only the point where that process reaches you.
Field samples
Wild yeast samples were collected in the forests near Ishpatina Ridge during the August 2025 fieldwork.
Laboratory identification
Two wild yeasts isolated from the field samples were identified in an Ontario-based yeast lab:
Hanseniaspora uvarumMetschnikowia pulcherrimaBuild the culture
The isolates were grown and incorporated into sourdough starter made with Ontario-grown flour. Multiple cultures and feeding approaches were tested and tried during development.
Make it travel
The active culture is spread thin and dehydrated at low temperature, turning a maintained starter into a shelf-stable release that can be reactivated with flour and water.
Your kitchen
Once fed again, the starter becomes a living culture in a new environment. Like any maintained sourdough, it continues to change with flour, water, temperature and care. The exact yeast compositions will change and vary - some will survive and thrive, others will be out-competed by new yeasts from your kitchen, your flour, even your hands. No two starters will be the same after a few cycles of feeding.
Wake it up.
Your culture arrived dormant. Flour + water start the next part of the experiment.
Activate Field Release 001 →Bake the first loaf →The place continues here.
Once reactivated, the starter becomes part of your kitchen. Feed it. Bake with it. Share it. Keep it going.
Its documented story begins near Ishpatina Ridge. What happens next depends on your flour, your water, your kitchen and the way you care for it.
Forest → sample → lab → Lodestar culture → your kitchen → your culture.
Logging roads
Sturgeon River
Bike
Hike
Summit
The long way in.
Field Release 001 began with a day moving through the landscape around Ishpatina Ridge. The complete trip report documents the southern approach, Sturgeon River crossing, bike access, trail, summit and practical notes for anyone considering the route.
Read the Ishpatina field note →A trail of work behind the object.
The archive is still growing.
Ishpatina is the first field release in a larger Lodestar system: real places documented through fieldwork, then translated into cultures, recordings, stories and tangible goods.
The point is not a single product. It is the growing record of places.
A living archive of Canada’s wild places.
Read the field notes, follow the experiments and see what becomes a release next.
Explore Field Notes →The Lodestar Project →