Every Island Has a Name is a new film that captures everything we love about snowboarding and its unique community: the fun, the camaraderie, and the pure joy of following wherever the mountains take us.
Join Elena Hight, Severin van der Meer, Jared Elston and friends as they guide you through an imaginary white cube—a visual and emotional journey that explores the connections between snowboarding, craft and art. The film is a creative invitation to let your imagination soar, blurring the lines between movement, expression and the magic of savouring the moment.
At its core, this project is about the simple, yet profound, pleasures of exploring untouched terrain, riding with your crew and sharing quality time with people who are just as passionate about the mountains as you are. Every Island Has a Name reminds us why we fell in love with snowboarding in the first place—and invites us to see it in a whole new light.
Athlete Bios:
Jared Elston
Based in Bend, Oregon, Jared is one of few riders his age focusing on progressing freestyle backcountry snowboarding. He is a former contest rider who traded a
traditionally structured career for one of creativity and freedom. Jared has been featured in several feature-length snowboard films and took home second place at the 2022 Jackson Hole stop of the Natural Selection Tour, a competition showcasing the world’s most elite snowboarders. He has many years of trailblazing ahead.
Elena Hight
From landing her first sponsorship at age 8, the trajectory of Elena Hight’s career has been a steady upward curve—taking her to the US Snowboard team into the maelstrom of half-pipe competition. Her talent took her all around the world, to two Olympic games, and the top spot of the X Games and the US Open. Through it, she developed self-care practices including meditation and breathwork, that helped her find moments of peace in a hectic schedule. These practices, as well as the attributes that made Hight such a progressive athlete, flavoured her post-competition emergence as a big mountain rider, a journey she documented in the 2020 Teton Gravity Research film Blank Canvas.
Severin van der Meer
Growing up in Switzerland surrounded by giant mountains gave backcountry snowboarder Severin van der Meer the privilege to connect with nature from a very young age. So much so that he never left. You can now find him in Zurich seeking the perfect balance between nature, culture and inspiration.
More about the film and athletes here. Athlete bio text supplied by Arc’teryx.
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