BY: KAROUN CHAHINIAN North America’s known for its extreme consumer culture. You step outside your front door and are immediately bombarded with thousands of billboards and advertisements. From all you can eat buffets to limitless credit cards, there is…
8 of America’s most extreme cliff jumpers throw down on the country’s highest and most dangerous spots
BY: MIKE BERRITTA I’m sure that by now everybody in the extreme sports industry knows who Mike Wilson is. Either by his career as a professional skier, his influence in the BASE jumping community or his Internet fame from his…
If your life feels grey, this Bukowski poem read by Tom Waits will breathe life back into you
BY: THE PLAID ZEBRA In 1999, Ron Rosenbaum observed that no books were more frequently shoplifted from Barnes & Noble stores than Charles Bukowski’s. His writing was a ballad to the underdog, a light at the other end of the…
Photographer captures the beauty and strength of the female body with incredible nude bodyscapes
BY: THE PLAID ZEBRA When it comes to aesthetics there’s something innately beautiful about the female body in particular. Not to undermine the rough hairy landscape of the male body—perhaps it just doesn’t translate as well behind the camera. Anton…
Meet the guy who visited every single country before turning 40 while still keeping his full time job
BY: KAROUN CHAHINIAN Norwegian New Media consultant Gunnar Garfors has mastered the game of globetrotting by visiting all 198 countries before turning 40. As if this feat isn’t impressive enough, he did it while keeping his full time job. Garfors…
Small towns in Canada are giving away free land to grow populations
BY: THE PLAID ZEBRA I was born in a small Saskatchewan town of less than 5,000 people—a town in which a portion of my family still resides. Even though I grew up in a larger city, and eventually moved to…
These Toronto brothers have designed a tattoo that only lasts two weeks
BY: JESSICA BEUKER If you are an indecisive person like myself, then you likely have a problem picking out pizza toppings, never mind committing to something that will last a lifetime like a tattoo. I think about tattoos often—I remember…
California’s prisoners are fighting wildfires for reduced prison sentences
BY: THE PLAID ZEBRA The tree line recedes behind a scorched hillside; the smell of charred timber hanging above the burned-0ver land. For California’s professional firefighters, the smell might remind them that the state is drying up. But for the…
William Shakespeare was a secret pothead
BY: JESSICA BEUKER Everybody knows who William Shakespeare is. Most of you have probably studied one of his plays in high school, or even earlier if you had a teacher who was hell-bent on making his or her students confused…
Here are 7 of the most colourful natural wonders of the world
BY: THE PLAID ZEBRA From the depths of the Grand Canyon, across the Caribbean Sea to Colombia’s transformative rivers, to the other side of the world in the valleys of China—the Earth is a colourful place. These places are…
Man turns his grandma’s van into an adventure-mobile to capture the ultimate American landscapes
By: ROB HOFFMAN Travis Burke’s van is one beautiful beast. Though it dates backs to 1994 and spent years collecting rust in his grandmother’s yard, today, it’s a bonafide symbol of North American exploration. An adventure-mobile of unparalleled status. Twenty-eight years old…
Japan’s answer to a shortage of graveyard space is literally a stairway to heaven
BY: SHAY ANSARI The Japanese have created a futuristic cemetery where the dead can rest. In Tokyo, the price of graveyard space has soared and can go up to $100,000 USD per plot in central areas. Architect Kiyoshi Takeyama has…
New York City lights up to raise awareness of endangered species
BY: THE PLAID ZEBRA Wildlife can be hard to come by in the concrete jungle—until last weekend, when endangered species were projected onto the Empire State Building. Filmmakers of “Racing Extinction” used New York City’s tallest building as a…
Amy Schumer leads a fight against gun violence after three died in a shooting at her new film
BY: KAROUN CHAHINIAN Comedian Amy Schumer is being recognized for more than her blunt sense of humour after she delivered a powerful speech on America’s gun control problem. On July 23rd, John Russell Houser, a 58-year-old man with a history…
So there’s a bear and a wolf who have become best friends in the wild and it’s unbelievably majestic
BY: ROB HOFFMAN Never before has the wild produced a more unlikely or majestic friendship. Take the most powerful creatures in the woodland and turn them into hunting buddies and what do you get? A photographer’s wet-dream and international sensation…
While documenting the homeless, this photographer found her own father
BY: SHAY ANSARI Photographer, Diana Kim, was working on a project documenting the homeless when she discovered her own estranged father. In 2003, Kim began her project photographing homeless communities in Hawaii where she grew up. As a child, her…
This nomad made $1 million by backpacking over 100 countries around the world
BY: ZOE MELNYK Traveling the world isn’t just for youthful wanderlusters searching for a purpose; it’s a lifestyle, and for some, it even provides a source of income. For Johnny Ward, a 31-year-old Northern Ireland native, it only took three years…
These moving portraits capture people before and directly following death
BY: THE PLAID ZEBRA Photographer Walter Schels refused to see his mother after she died. Like most, he was petrified of death. So he sought to conquer his fear in a way he knew how. Confront death with his lens. Walter Schels…
Kiran Gandhi ran in the London Marathon while on her period without a tampon to fight period-shaming
BY: KAROUN CHAHINIAN After realizing she was going to be on her period the day of her first marathon, Kiran Gandhi had to make a choice: to be “a crazy chick who needs to just calm down and reach for…
This Is What Our Skyline Could Be In a World Without Any Light Pollution
BY: THE PLAID ZEBRA Stargazing has become quite the anomaly in an age of smelly fumes, smoggy cities and slow moving traffic jams. With a stroke of luck, I am surprised by shooting stars a couple nights out of the…