The Lasclay blog
Northern Stories
Stories of deep cold, from the Yukon to Everest and up to 817 kilometres from the North Pole, told by the people who were there. Skiers, biologists, photographers and customers bring back images, and what milkweed silk went through up there.
Head down into the cold ↓Images: Jean-Simon Bégin, Sylvain Lamothe and the Alert wildlife research team (UQAR).
“From an icy time when the wind was the only melody in the whole world.”Jean-Simon Bégin, on the muskoxen of Nunavik
Some people know the cold. Not the way you read a forecast. The way you know a language, from speaking it every day. They know what time the wind picks up on a frozen lake, what tundra wind does to a face, and how long hands hold out once you stop moving.
We make a milkweed mitten. That's the excuse. What we really wanted was to hear what these people came back and told us.
Milkweed silk is hollow. It traps air, and still air is all that stands between a hand and the cold. A ditch plant that Quebec spent a century pulling out, and it has travelled a good deal farther than we have.
Five stories, ranked the way you climb toward the Pole. The higher you read, the quieter the air.
54°48′ → 58°06′ N
32 days, about 500 km and −40.4°C, an April record for Quebec. Sylvain Lamothe followed by snowmobile and took the photos.
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82°30′ N
The northernmost inhabited place in the world, a record low of −50°C and Arctic hares that migrate. A UQAR team has worked there since 2018.
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58° N
Canadian Photographer of the Year in 2021, he follows a caribou herd in Nunavik that has gone from about 650,000 to 155,000 animals.
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64°04′ N
Dawson City at −30°C, Alaska at −36°C. A customer wore his mittens there in February and March 2023, and wrote to us twice.
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7,000 m
Four years before Lasclay, a Quebec climber took milkweed silk up to 7,000 m on Everest. It was too warm.
Read the story →“They huddle together to protect their young. They warm each other as a single being.”Jean-Simon Bégin, muskoxen of Nunavik
What they brought back from up there. Each image leads to its story.
Our mittens are an excuse. The real subject is these people, and the work they do when no one is watching.
He lives in Schefferville eight to ten months a year and freelances for the Innu community. His subject, for years now, has been Nitassinan and its Innu, Naskapi and non-Indigenous inhabitants. His exhibition “Tshikauinu assi, Mother Earth” tells of the bond between the Innu of Matimekush-Lac John, their land and life today.
A retired nurse, she came to the Matimekush-Lac John nursing station in 2020 and chose to stay. In spring 2026, she skied from Schefferville to Kuujjuaq: five hundred kilometres in thirty-two days. With Sylvain, she founded Mamu Pemuteitau, “let's walk together” in Innu-aimun, a walking club whose board includes five Innu members.
He has been going back to Nunavik since 2015 to follow the Leaf River caribou herd, and he guides photo trips there for an Indigenous outfitter during the fall migration. It took him years to photograph a polar bear, and he drew a lesson from it: accept coming back without the image you came for.
Eight biologists, nine years of work at the northernmost wildlife lab in the world, 817 kilometres from the Pole. Their project: the first biodiversity management plan for the High Arctic, taking stock of what is there while it is still there.
In February 2023, he sets out on an excursion to the Yukon and Alaska. His mittens catch up with him deep into the trip. He notes the temperature before giving his opinion: minus thirty in Dawson City, minus thirty-six in Alaska. He also sent us his photos.
Before Everest, he had climbed Aconcagua and Cho Oyu. In 2015, he took the first prototype insulated with milkweed silk up Mount Lafayette, then wore it on Everest in 2016, up to seven thousand metres. He is the one who noticed that the fibre keeps its warmth even when crushed.
The Far North makes for good stories. Most of our mittens spend the winter walking a dog, shovelling a driveway, holding a ski pole. Here is what people write about them, publicly, on our store, translated from French. There are hundreds more.
★★★★★
“I tested them in temperatures down to −24°C and, to my great delight, my hands stayed warm.”
Richard Mathieu, walking and cross-country skiing★★★★★
“Cross-country skiing at −25 Celsius, they kept me warm through an hour of exercise, and even my thumb warmed up after a few minutes.”
Mario Guertin, cross-country skiing★★★★★
“Antique snowmobile ride this weekend. −20 and very impressed. They're very stiff at first but soften up after a while.”
Gaby, snowmobiling★★★★★
“I'm always cold (Raynaud's syndrome), and these are the warmest, most comfortable mittens I've ever owned. As soon as I'm active, they keep me warm. My hands were even warm at a wind chill of −28°.”
Stéphanie, Raynaud's syndrome★★★★★
“My Lasclay mittens keep me warm every day as I get around the city by bike in winter!”
Caroline Frenette, winter cycling★★★★
“I bought your first-generation mittens, and they keep me nice and warm. The material holds up well and I hope to keep them for a long time.”
Anne-Marie Gagné, first generationPieces insulated with milkweed silk, a hollow fibre that holds still air.
The images in these stories come from the people who were there: Sylvain Lamothe, Jean-Simon Bégin, the Alert team, Bernard Desgagné and Jean-François Tardif, or the journalists who followed them. None of them were generated.
