International Surfing Day is the official unofficial holiday when all beach lovers and surfers are supposed to head down to their beach, catch a couple waves, share the stoke of surfing with all and sundry, then clean the beach and do their part to preserve this amazing natural resource, the ocean.
On June 20th, 120 official groups in 20 different countries did exactly this; they headed down to their local spots, and spend the day/ the afternoon/an hour surfing and cleaning up their beaches. Created as a partnership between the Surfrider Foundation and Surfing Magazine, ISD has turned into a global effort to educate all about the polluted state of our beaches and share the joy of surfing. This year, I was in Montreal, Canada.
Montreal is not on the coast, nor is it even close to the ocean. The closest thing Montrealers can claim to being a surf town is a couple of river waves in the heart of the city. And claim them they do… with vigor.
Determined to do something for International Surfing Day despite my location, I contacted the good boys at Livity International to ask about contact in Montreal. They, in turn, put me in contact with the local Sitka rep, Hugo Lavictoire; who in turn put me in contact with Pat and Oliver who were going to be down on the river that day. So after an hour on the bus, 10 metro stops and a twenty minute walk, I arrived at Habitat 67 and one of the more popular river surfing locations in the world.
Well, seeing folks in wetsuits, holding 6’0” thrusters and debating the applicability of Kelly Slater’s new boards, all the while being about 500km from the closest ocean and deep in an urban centre was a bit shocking to say the least. After tracking down the correct guys in my reasonable (read: nonexistent) French, they lend me a board and a simple explanation of what to do.
This is the step by step version:
1) Walk down the muddy path to the rivers’ edge and join the line. Line ? Yes, this is an extremely regulated method of surfing with each person waiting in line, just like at the bank, until their turn arrives.
2) When your turn comes, just jump in the water, drift upstream (in an eddy) until you see the rusty metal pipe entering the water. Then turn left and paddle hard into the middle of the river, all the while trying to look over your shoulder at where you think the wave should be.
3 ) Wait until just in front of the wave, then paddle hard and catch the wave… stand up, and do your thing.
4) When you fall, wait till you enter the eddy behind the wave and paddle back to the shore. No worries…
Well, it really is that easy. While I cannot even claim to have been as good as the lowliest beginner, I did manage to catch a couple waves and ride for as long as I wanted, all the while flapping my arms around much more akin to a monkey than a surfer. I would love to say the ride is just like an ocean wave, but I would be lying. You feel more like a water-skier than a surfer but it still is a pretty incredible feeling to be riding a wave, in the middle of a river, in the middle of a continent, and still feel like hooting and hollering from the joy of it all.
ISD Goal 1: Ride a wave. Check, Done
ISD Goal 2: Clean up some of this river/beach/surf spot.
So freshly toweled off from my river surfing experience I trotted down to the river’s edge to pick up garbage. Well, I couldn’t find any. Being in the middle of a huge city centre, I thought large patches of plastic garbage was inevitable, but all I could find was one person’s water bottle (and seeing as he was out surfing at the time, I didn’t think I would be too popular if I dumped out his water and collected it as trash). Perhaps the strength of the river washes all the trash down to another location, or the high water levels had washed it all away, or someone had cleaned it up before me, but there was none to be found.
Despite my inability to clean up the beach and complete my ISD goals, it was a very unique fe eling to be walking back into the downtown core of Montreal, and feeling like I had just finished a surf session… almost.