Jacob Belanger - Freeski

Lac-Beauport, Québec / Whistler, British Columbia | Active: 2018-present public archive | Known for: Working Title, Sixth Sense, Water The Plants, The Harvest, IF3 awards, SuperUnknown 2025 | Current: film-first street and backcountry projects

Le Relais Snow Under Quebec Lights

The rail line at Centre De Ski Le Relais ran cold and fast, twenty minutes outside Quebec City, with night snow packed tight around the takeoff. Jacob Belanger grew into skiing on that kind of hill: short laps, familiar park crews, icy landings, and enough local history to make every rail feel like part of a larger inheritance. Before Whistler backcountry, Nelson street clips, iF3 awards, and Level 1 SuperUnknown, Belanger’s skiing came from Quebec repetition. The hill was not huge. The scene was. That difference shaped his career more than any start list could.

Racing At Eleven, Park After Midnight

Belanger’s early route started in racing, then turned toward the park when he was still young. Newschoolers’ 2019 profile describes him growing up around Le Relais and leaving racing at age eleven to focus on park skiing. That detail matters because his skiing still carries both sides: race-built balance and a street skier’s willingness to make awkward features work.

Phil Belanger, the Quebec freeski figure, became an important local mentor. The two share a last name but are not related. According to Newschoolers, Phil gave Jacob a copy of Skimatic by Plehouse Films and helped introduce him to the Quebec lineage that includes JP Auclair, JF Houle, Phil Casabon, Alex Beaulieu-Marchand, and other riders who made the province central to urban skiing.

Working Title Across Quebec, Big Boulder, Utah, And Mount Snow

Working Title brought Belanger into a wider web-series frame in 2019. The project was produced by Good Company, 4BI9 Media, and Cam Willis, following him through a season built around Quebec street skiing, travel, park sessions, and the attempt to define his place beyond a local scene.

The first episode focused on Quebec, where Belanger skied home terrain with the same street energy that shaped his early clips. Later episodes moved through Big Boulder, Utah, and Carinthia Parks at Mount Snow. That travel path gave the series contrast: tight Quebec street spots, Pennsylvania park lines, western terrain, and Vermont’s rail-heavy Carinthia setup.

Sixth Sense Turned The Season Into A Part

Jacob Bélanger Sixth Sense, released in November 2019, condensed the Working Title season into a sharper solo piece. The Newschoolers listing describes it as a recap of his year with unreleased footage added, edited by Cam Willis and filmed by Willis, Thom Arnell, Paul Bergeron, Emile Bergeron, Antoine Caron, and JF Houle.

The location list gives the part its scale: Quebec, Utah, Carinthia Parks, and Mammoth Mountain. Belanger thanked D-Structure, K2 Skis, Planks Clothing, Good Company, 4BI9, Les Khroniques du Québec, and the friends who helped make the project possible. That support network is the correct way to frame his early career: shop culture, filmer trust, crew logistics, and Quebec’s habit of turning local riders into film skiers.

Le Relais With Ski The East And The Quebec Crew

Belanger’s Quebec park identity also appears in STE-TV - Lappin Le Relais II, published by Ski The East in 2018. The edit brought Zach Masi and Andrew Bock north to Le Relais to ski with Belanger, Emile Bergeron, Justin DL, Fred Lavoie, and Etienne Brucho. Cam Willis filmed and edited, with extra footage from JF Houle, Paul Bergeron, and Marco-Olivier Gilbert.

That clip matters because it shows Belanger before the award cycle. Le Relais was already functioning as a laboratory: rails, short approaches, fast laps, and visiting East Coast riders linking with the Quebec crew. The skiing was not isolated. It was part of a cross-border park and street circuit where Vermont, Quebec, Pennsylvania, and New England fed the same video culture.

Water The Plants And The Whistler Jump

Water The Plants, Joey Kraft’s 2023 film, changed Belanger’s public level. RMU described the film as moving from urban skiing in Calgary to the Whistler and Pemberton backcountry, with skiers Cat Agnew, Shondra Charbonneau, Luca Natale, Kyle Coxworth, Will Fossum, and Jacob Belanger. The film won Amateur Film of the Year at iF3 2023.

Belanger won Amateur Skier of the Year for his segment. That award is a clean marker because it came from a film part, not a contest run. It shows the direction his career had taken: street and backcountry footage, filmed through a crew project, judged by the ski-film community, and strong enough to make him the athlete attached to the film’s biggest individual recognition.

The Harvest From Whistler Backcountry To Nelson Streets

The Harvest, released in 2024, pushed the same partnership further. The iF3 listing describes Joey Kraft’s film as following the season of Belanger, Jonathan Rollins, Shonny Charbonneau, Luca Natale, William Fossum, Jake Sandstrom, Tristan Underhill, and others, moving from Whistler backcountry to the streets of Nelson, British Columbia.

That combination fits Belanger’s current identity better than any single label. He is not only a Quebec street skier anymore, and he is not only a backcountry rider. His best film value comes from switching between both: frozen urban rails, heavy landings, powder takeoffs, natural drops, and mountain terrain where a trick has to fit the line rather than interrupt it.

Breakout Year Without A Bib

The Harvest gave Belanger a second major awards marker. Newschoolers’ report from the 2024 iF3 Awards lists him as the winner of Breakout Skier of the Year for his role in Joey Kraft’s film. The next winter, Newschoolers named him Breakthrough Skier of the Year in its 2025 awards, citing his ender in The Harvest as the piece that moved him into a higher industry tier.

Those two awards are useful because they describe a film-first rise. Belanger did not need an Olympic final, an X Games medal, or a World Cup podium to break through. His credibility came from video parts that skiers watched closely: the feature choice, the trick quality, the backcountry control, the city spots, and the confidence to close a film.

How Belanger Makes Street And Backcountry Connect

Belanger’s skiing is built on readable mechanics. On rails, he keeps a centered stance, quiet shoulders, clean lock-ins, and exits that keep speed alive. His Quebec background shows in the way he handles short approaches, hard snow, and features that need precision before style can appear.

In backcountry footage, the same control changes shape. Instead of a perfect rail line, he has to manage snow depth, takeoff angle, landing transition, and light. The technical vocabulary around his skiing includes rail slides, switch entries, pretzel exits, grabs, corked rotations, powder landings, natural takeoffs, urban gaps, and speed checks. The best clips work because the trick looks planned but not stiff.

Palisades SuperUnknown And The Current Marker

Belanger’s recent public archive includes a 2025 SLVSH game against Mat Dufresne at Level 1 SuperUnknown 22, filmed at Palisades Tahoe. The format placed two Quebec skiers trick-for-trick in a park battle, tying Belanger back to technical park skiing after two major film seasons.

For skipowd.tv, the strongest viewing path is Lappin Le Relais II, Working Title, Sixth Sense, Water The Plants, The Harvest, and the SuperUnknown SLVSH battle at Palisades. That sequence shows the real arc: Lac-Beauport and Le Relais, Quebec street culture, Good Company web edits, Whistler and Pemberton backcountry, Nelson street missions, iF3 recognition, and a current place among film-first skiers shaping North American freeskiing.