Even the small days are special when they’re few and far between. Photo: Greg Jones
Growing up on the prairies, people regularly asked why I would dedicate my spare time and money to something I couldn’t do often enough to be good at. I didn’t really have an answer, I just really loved surfing. I resigned to the possibility that I would always be a kook, but it still seemed worthwhile. Something about my time in the water just seemed to make my life better away from it.
Now, after nearly a decade of surf trips and a subsequent move to the coast, I get it. I believe that not only is it possible and worthwhile to be a landlocked, sporadic, sometimes surfer – there are even some advantages.
“There’s someone out.”
It was enough to get my attention, but I was skeptical. After coming up empty handed on every surf check over the past week and listening to the local fishermen’s consensus regarding the swell forecasts, I had finally accepted that we would not be surfing in Alaska on this trip. There he was though, a lone longboarder bobbing patiently on a beautifully grey afternoon. But what the hell was he surfing?
We hadn’t seen a single person out all week, and for good reason: there was no surf. The break still looked lake-flat, and I was torn. We had driven over 1,500 kilometers and then spent another 33 hours on a ferry to get here, facts that were urging me to suit up, but if there were still no waves the prospect of shimmying into 5 millimeters of cold rubber and then finding a way to dry out a wetsuit on the ferry didn’t seem worth it. Sure, there was a single person out, but I wasn’t yet convinced that that was enough reason to join him.
Then he caught a wave.
The set wave in a sporadic baby set made my decision easy. Within minutes I was suited up and had my fins keyed in. Three hours before we were due to leave, I got to surf in Alaska.
Sitka, a small town on Alaska’s Baranoff Island, was my first destination in the fall of 2012 on a trip surfing the west coast from Alaska to Mexico. I had driven up with Jordain, a good friend I’d met a year earlier when we were roommates as recruit prospects during a month-long tryout for a specialized government firefighting program. Jordain was to stay on as far as Vancouver, at which point he’d head home and I’d be joined by my lovely girlfriend Stephanie for the remainder of the trip. We were living out of my vehicle, taking cues from a trip I did two years prior. In November 2010 I picked up my then-roommate Brad Gadd at the airport in Victoria, British Columbia. We were living in Lethbridge at the time – a city of 80,000 people straddling the Oldman River in southern Alberta – but I had already been on the island for a week wrapping up a Wilderness First Aid course. Our plan was to catch a ride up the coast, hike in, and then camp and surf for a few days at a break Brad had visited previously.
The weather had other plans. With a winter storm warning in effect that was called for a foot of snow and minus-15 degrees Celsius temperatures, it became clear that we should adjust our strategy. Rain and isolation was one thing, but going to freeze our asses off with inadequate equipment, no vehicle and no way to call for help should something go wrong seemed like a bad idea – even with newly acquired fancy wilderness first aid skills.
Tofino was the obvious answer, but this created other issues. I was in the middle of a university semester (I had convinced my professors that they should excuse me for two weeks), and we had budgeted for free backcountry camping, not tourist town accommodation rates. We also needed to rent a vehicle to get there and our stoke was waning. We were looking for a shoestring adventure off the beaten path, and that was looking less and less likely.
Our problems were solved after a visit to the rental car agency. When we realized they had only one car left but seven white panel vans, it became very easy to negotiate a significant discount on one of the vans, killing two birds with one stone. After signing the papers we loaded our boards and our bags into the back of our wheels/accommodations and headed to Tofino to see what the November storms were bringing.
Along with the fact that Brad and I have since owned three vans between the two of us, that trip was a turning point. Up until that point I harbored the idea that I would eventually move to the coast, and that my real development in surfing would remain on hold in the meantime. And it was on that trip I accepted that it’s possible to be a committed landlocked surfer, and there are even some surf-related advantages to living on the prairies, 1200 kilometers from the nearest ocean break.
When your surfing is confined to defined trips, the window of opportunity so small and your time in the water so limited, it simplifies things. You surf as much as you can, when you can, even if you don’t feel like it at the moment. You put on that cold wetsuit or shake out your shot shoulders in situations you likely wouldn’t while living close to the waves. And in doing so you learn to enjoy every session, no matter how choppy, flat, cold, or blown out. It’s about just getting in the water, and the rest is a bonus.
In Tofino, Brad and I woke up to six inches of snow one morning, under wetsuits frozen to their makeshift clothesline. The opportunity to surf in the snow is rare, so we agreed to suck it up and get out there for a wave each. After thawing the wetsuits enough to get into them and freezing our feet on the kilometer long walk to the break, we found the water was significantly warmer than the air and we were treated to an empty line-up under snow-capped hills. We surfed for three hours in a surreal haze created by the sun shining through steam coming off of the ocean.
“My friends who live in mountain towns end up not climbing anymore. It gets too familiar. Whereas if you visit the mountains, then you’re all excited.”
Yvon Chouinard, Mountain Magazine Interview Early Summer 2014
The memory of that surf is still one of my favorite, but if Brad and I lived in Tofino we may not have even been in the water that day. The waves were average, it was freezing, and if that was home it would have been too easy to justify it as a day to catch up on errands, hit the climbing gym instead, or just sleep in. It’s easy to let things get in the way at home, but a surf trip makes things simple. You’re there to surf, and even though you may not feel like getting in the water, you never regret it when you do. I wonder what I’ve missed out on on those days I’ve passed up opportunities to snowboard, climb, ride my bike or even go for a run, just because those opportunities are frequent enough that I take them for granted.
I thought about this after the Alaska session as we waited to board the ferry, in a waterfront pub downing fish, chips and Alaskan microbrews while enjoying some NFL Sunday. I was on a high, my hair still wet and salt dried to my skin. I was kicking myself for even questioning whether I should have gotten in the water. After committing, I was treated to the first real waves I’d had since a trip through Central America almost a year earlier. If I hadn’t suited up I wouldn’t have seen what Mt. Kruzoff looked like from the water. I wouldn’t have been able to confirm close-up that the sea lions were indeed several feet longer than my board, and I would have had to wait for Haida Gwaii to knock the rust out of my paddling shoulders. I wouldn’t know about that rock that can be used as a launch pad if the tide is right, and instead of feeling wide awake, satisfied, and alive I would likely be feeling lazy, disappointed and tired. Refreshed and content is much better any day.
The after session high isn’t strictly unique to surfing; the Norwegians even have a word for this elevating effect. Though they were describing skiing, it suits other pursuits just as well: Idraet, as described by the explorer Fridtjof Nansen, “gives vigour and elevation to the mind and body alike.” Canadian Pro Nico Manos described surfing as “a medium to living simply, balanced and in the moment”, and that’s just it. Surfing, snowboarding, dancing, running, climbing, biking and skating, even hunting, just to name a few – they’re all the same art expressed through different mediums. Progression and an increased understanding and interaction with one’s environment, which imparts a greater appreciation, a renewed spirit, and a stronger body.
“We need surf – or dance or yoga – because it reconnects us with our animal bodies. For a little while we practice moving through the world with rhythm, with an intention of efficiency and power. Without it, we become just a bunch of walking heads.”
Peter Heller, Kook
A surfer works and sacrifices to be in the right place at the right time in order to catch a wave, from the saving and trip planning to the paddling once he or she hits the water. As skill develops a surfer injects his or her style into the way the wave is surfed, but there are still limitations based on what the wave gives. A surfer both shapes circumstances and is shaped by circumstances. The tactics and the tools change depending on the conditions, but the spirit of surfing – the ability to milk joy and meaning out of the world – isn’t wave dependent. The benefits of the mindset that surfing cultivates carries over beyond the waves. If the swell sucks, play with a different board. If there are no waves grab a SUP or a canoe or swim. If you’re not even near the water maybe there’s a mountain to climb, or snow to play in, or concrete to skate. I wrote this in part from a temporary stay at an isolated fire base 150 kilometers south of Fort McMurray, Alberta. There are no hills or mountains and I don’t have a bike here, but I do have my running shoes and there are lakes. While I often don’t feel like it when I set out for a run, to the gym, or to go swimming, by the time I’m done I wonder why I didn’t. Once I get past that initial hurdle, whether putting on a frozen wetsuit or getting out of bed for a bike ride, I always wonder how it was even a question to begin with. Though I know this, it’s still not always enough to get me moving. But I’m working on it and surfing helps.
Idraet.
I put so much effort into surfing despite the realization that I’m not in the water enough to ever truly be good because of how it shapes my outlook and enhances my life away from the water. Surfing is about trying to put yourself in the right place at the right time and then adapting to factors outside your control once you’re there, making the most of a situation regardless of circumstance. Jordain and I travelled a long way to surf in Alaska. The fact that the swell had dropped and there were no waves created other opportunities and made the trip even better than we could have imagined. It reminded us that life and travel isn’t about perceived expectations. It’s about embracing the reality of your experiences.
Though I made my peace with being a landlocked prairie surfer, this story came full circle with a move to Victoria, British Columbia, where I now find myself about an hour away from good surf. With a few months off each fall between fire and ice road seasons, I’m able to get in the water any time a swell comes through. Sometimes I surf as much as four or five days a week now. This view from the other side of the fence has allowed me to look back and confirm that not only is it worthwhile pursuing the benefits of surfing sporadically and from afar, it isn’t even necessarily a lesser experience. There are some benefits to being a landlocked surfer, as one is far removed from the scene, trends and competition and more focused on the meditation, exercise and time in nature. It’s easier to remain grateful, to not take it for granted when your opportunities are less frequent. Many surfers aren’t in the water more often even if they do live closer, and they have that guilt to contend with as they fulfill the duties and obligations of everyday living.
Being inland there’s more time spent in preparation, dreaming and hoping. The anticipation and looking forward to a surf is half the fun anyway. When I was a kid on my way to the hill each new day held the possibility of being a powder day. But as I got older and knew better, this wonder and excitement was often replaced by bitterness with the conditions. Instead of just appreciating the magic of sliding down the mountains I found myself fixated on how much better it could be with more snow and less crowds. I wasted time thinking that these beginners, these kooks side slipping runs somehow deserved it less. Sometimes I even found myself irritated with how happy they were. What are you smiling about? Don’t you even know how shitty and icy it is?
Becoming that kook when I first started traveling to surf a decade ago, it all made sense.
“If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few”
Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind
Committing to surfing but experiencing it only occasionally prolongs that beginner’s wonder and childlike feeling; it allows it to stay that particular kind of special just a bit longer. In the meantime there’s always something else to do and more sessions to pursue. Some run, some climb, some bike, some hit the skate park and some do yoga. Prioritize and stick to your sessions whatever form they come in for you. Once you embrace it, riding a wave is just a medium. It’s all surfing and the benefits to your health and spirit aren’t defined or limited by your proximity to the water. The benefits of previous sessions are worn every day, shown through how you move and how you view the world, whether you’re one mile from the coast or one thousand.
On the way home from a surf last fall I stopped by the Cold Shoulder Cafe, one of the best and quite possibly most appropriately named coffee shops you’ll find anywhere, given the frigid water and the notoriously local waves out front. The man behind the espresso bar had become a familiar face and as he drew shots for my Americano we discussed my morning session. I asked if he lived nearby and if he’d been out lately. “I’m about 10 minutes away but not as much as I’d like man. I haven’t been out for a while. I swear it seems the closer I move to the waves, the less I surf”.
