THE NORTHERN EMBASSY

@Polejams made an impact on the social media BMX world almost instantly. There are some pleasures that come from riding a BMX which are hard to explain how truly great and simple they are, Pole jams are one of those things. The submission this account received is proof many riders share that opinion. We hit up Mason Gray, the man behind the account with a quick Q&A and he chose his personal favorite Canadian submissions in the gallery below.

When did you start the insta account and where did the idea/motivation come from to start it?

Uhhhh instagram say 87 weeks ago hahah, so almost two years now. I’ve always sorta just liked spots and me & my brother Owen thought it would be funny haha. No serious intentions behind it at the time

On average how many submissions of pictures was @polejams receiving daily or weekly?

Not sure if I could give an accurate number for that one, I have almost 4,000 saved to computer cause I got into the habit of saving every single submission that came through. There was a point where it was quite a few

How much time did you spend updating the insta account?

Not too much time, having to download photos & videos was about the most I did.

Without giving anything away, what are some rough ideas or projects you’ll be spending your time on moving forward?

If you follow my personal instagram, its not really any secret that photography & zines are a large interest of mine. I’ve always wanted to make my own zines and it’s been on my mind more & more over the past couple years. It’s not something 100% based around BMX because thats definitely not where all my interests are but I think some people within the community will hopefully still be able to appreciate it. There’s only so many jokes a guy can make about poles man, hahaha it was time to pull the plug and do something else. You can hit @badv3ntures on instagram if you’re interested.

What are your 5 or 10 favorite Canadian submissions from over the years (maybe we could post the full res and some descriptions/ write ups of why for each).

Gonna work on this one for you.

Is the polejam your favourite stunt?

Nah, def the cash-roll cause it has the coolest name. abubaca is funny too, who thought of that one??

How do feel about this web/ virtual content vs physical version

Well there’s always something to be said about making some tangible, definitely has a greater impact I think. Definitely true for print/art/videos. A physical copy of something will forever be more memorable than it’s digital counterpart in my eyes, when’s the last time you looked at a magazine online? or went back 10 weeks to find somebodies instagram photo? It all just get’s forgotten

Any words of wisdom for dudes, crews or anyone trying to make it on insta rather than the real world?

A: hahahah, uhhhhhh buy a dad hat & become a vegan?? I don’t know