Let’s analyze this video:

Lone man sits on his board a few yards out from the beach, staring toward the sea in a catatonic pose as if looking past the horizon. Notice that his posture is immutable and transcendent of time and space, the way his arms are rigidly held at his side, the way he continuously looks ahead.

Who knows how long he has sat here this way. A thousand years?

A perfect A-frame set begins to build directly in front of him. The wave grows, but surfer remains in rigid posture. He finds it unnecessary to move. As wave reaches its breaking point, surfer lays down on board, aims toward shore, takes four complete strokes, drops in.

This absurdity is the Everyday Surfer’s Dream. The surfer only had to make the most fundamentally necessary movements to catch this wave, the ocean did the rest. Perfect wave, perfect position, perfect paddle speed, in-sync and in rhythm. It is so simple it actually appears to be mundane and arbitrary. Most striking, however, is the existential loneliness of it all. To watch this scenario unwind over and over again gives a strange sense of cosmic determinism in the vein of Groundhog Day, where every day repeats itself like the last.

Isn’t this the ultimate goal in surfing, to find a completely isolated A-frame peak that breaks the exact same way all day long?

Continuing with our definitive evaluation of the most desirable arctic surf spots we arrive at location number three. As we get closer to announcing the absolutely best arctic surf, the selection process gets continually more difficult for us. As you read this we are sifting through an overwhelming quantity of information, statistics, charts, graphs, maps, pictograms, and reader feedback surrounding this increasingly popular surf niche. Enough prefacing, let’s go.

The World’s Third Most Desirable Arctic Surf Spot: Arctic Norway. This environmentally pristine and secluded surf sanctuary is a friendly finger in the scandinavian neighborhood, next door to the Nobel Prize awarding Sweden. Closely rivaling wave-rich Chile in geographical skinniness, Norway gets a gold star for cold wave quality. Why the most desirable? Colorful beach cottages and fishing villages, dramatic mountainous scenery, and a unique species of arctic ocean shark make Norway a prime choice to surf in the arctic.

Photo Credit

Today we will reveal the 5th and 4th place most desirable freezing cold waves.

#5: Falling into 5th place is alaskan glacier surfing. Why is this the most desirable? Because the wave is perfect, the scenery is breathtaking, and the water is freezing cold glacier-melt. If it’s so good, why is it in 5th place? The melting water of glaciers deposits enormous amounts of sediment, meaning the water is thick with silt, almost mud-like, making the actual surfing experience a little bit more unpleasant than what one would be used to day-to-day.

#4: Number four on the list of the Absolutely Most Desirable Place To Surf In the Arctic or Antarctic Regions is none other than Elephant Island. Scouted by Steve Hawk and Chris Malloy, this small chunk of rock close to Antarctica had some surfable waves worthy of a news arcticle in the LA Times. Made famous by  Sir Ernest Shackleton’s renown expedition and survival story, these courageous surfers have contributed to arctic-surf history by pulling into a few icy shackletons of their own.

Finally Arctic Surf Blog resumes. Thank you to those of you who have held tight, and are still dedicated to discovering interesting facts about surfing in the arctic and antarctic. In this post I would like to pose a question to you, the reader. Please list the top 5 freezing cold places to surf that you find are the most desirable. I will be compiling a list of my own, utilizing the extensive database of research we have at our disposal here at our station, and will post the definitive 2010 Most Desirable Arctic Surf Spots shortly. Remember to take into consideration the beauty of the natural environment, lack of inaccessibility, harshness of weather, perfection of surf, viciousness of the wildlife, and friendliness of the surf culture as factors in gaining a higher desirability. Looking forward to seeing your votes!

(A true story) About 5 months ago the Courian Brothers made it to Atlas Point. Atlas Point is a bend in the coastline receiving frequent quality waves. It gets the dominant swell direction all year, it breaks for a long distance, and that is why it’s so good. The three Courians and their local friend Paul keep their mouses on weather sites during damp winters, scrutinizing weather charts and looking after their favorite surf setups.

Searching the coast with Paul’s  regional knowledge has let to some outstanding surf days. On this particular one all of the weather factors pointed to nice conditions at Atlas. Some of these weather factors include tide, wind, swell, period, and direction. It can be a tricky decision to surf Atlas Point since it is mostly like an expedition to get there, including a dicey hike in. And being so far in the cold, days are short.

Thanks Courians and Paul, for the photos and for this expedition. Inaccessibility and frosty weather make exploration in this corner of the world slow and uncertain. However, Atlas Point is one of the finest setups along the coast, and the they would agree that there remain many more inaccessible breaks waiting to be found.

To Arctic Surf Blog readers it comes as no surprise that surfing in the coldest regions of the world is fast becoming the most intriguing topic when it comes to surf exploration, even if it is the last episode left in the history of surf travel mystique. But as more and more heinously cold and hostile coastlines get gobbled up by the media spotlight, it is easy to forget the flip-side of the gold coin of surf discovery: the most oppressively hot places to surf.

Surfing on a sweltering hot summer day is nowhere near the journalistic microscope of this blog, you might object. And you would be correct — that is if we didn’t connect both sides of the coin. Once again we leave you with unanswered question: Is the coldest surf spot on earth cold enough to freeze over the warmest surf spot on earth if they were placed next to each other?

Papua New Guinea, hottest surf region on earth?

The invention of the wheel, the Roman arch, the light bulb, the industrial revolution, the personal computer revolution, the pog craze: every era has it’s breakthroughs that we cherish to this day. By opening up a new category in history, the wetsuit is this kind of thing for the surfing realm. But historical analogies are susceptible to grandiosity, so let’s take an incredibly fast and honest look at what the wetsuit really is. We’ll see how the wetsuit relates to surfing in the arctic, and we’ll look at what the future might hold for surfing’s flexible friend.

The wetsuit is a skin-tight body suit that acts as a temporary layer of blubber, keeping you warm even when the ocean gets cold.  This man thought he was wearing a wetsuit, but don’t let him fool you, he’s actually wearing a wet suit.

On the topic of blubber: ocean mammals living in the polar seas have a hefty layer of blubber to keep warm in icy waters. Wetsuits made for the arctic must do this also. The best wetsuits hold a large amount of water, prevent leaking, and are stretchy. Below you can see some of the customary suits that are worn when temperatures go way down.

What is the future of wetsuits and surfing? As a result of warmer and slicker materials we will see new surf break discoveries in cold places, larger surf towns in the arctic circle, a rise in cold-water wax sales, and cold-water surf charters. Eventually most surfers will move to the polar ice caps because of the limitless availability of perfectly uncrowded waves.

In the distant future don’t be surprised to see a wetsuit that is in liquid form. It creates a mutational bond to your nervous system and actually surfs for you. Imagine the potential progression of the sport.

So much has been said and written about territorial surfers. Discovery, legitimacy, absurdity, and secrets are all words that come to mind when talking about this aspect surf culture. Though localism is assumed to live in comfortable climates, have you ever considered what localism might look like in the arctic? An interesting thought, indeed. Although there are a few implications and scenarios the words ‘arctic localism’ might conjure in your mind, this question is only worth a few minutes before we must move on to the  infinitely more confounding ‘what does arctic localism look like online?’

Here are some postings that I found on a forum about surfing in the arctic:

“Not to sound like a pissed local Iceman, but you should keep your comments about visiting surfers to your spot (…). The real locals in [...], would appreciate it if you traveled with a smaller group instead inudating the surf spots with a ton a people.”

- anonymous

Another commenter mocks a beginning surfer’s ability:

“go move back down to [...] california wherever you came from i’ve seen you surf the b-yard, i’d hardly call that surfing. i hope you get caught inside on a big set there and crack your thick head open on the rocks you longboard kook. i’d laugh so hard.”

-Hey ‘boneyard assasin’

This one is the best:

“sure there’s surf there but more than five guys and it’s zooed.It’s a fifty minute drive there is only one peak throws top to bottom then mushes quickly to shoulder. Seems like a long way to go for 38-44 deg water plus most kodiak surfers lack common courtesy and have a habbit of droppin in on their longboards no matter how dangerous the situation. I speak from experience most can’t even make the drop so it leaves you slotted with a log and rider being pitched in front of you (sound familiar boneyard crew).”

-pasagshak or bust

With the arctic line-ups getting so crowded these days, its easy to see that all the pent up animosity must be released somewhere, and where better than the world wide information super-highway.

Life isn’t always leisure and fun, especially when your duty is shoveling snow and you live in Antarctica, or cooking a pot of gruel for dinner. The Arctic Traveler’s work ethic is firm as ice. I would even suggest his work ethic is chiseled from an icicle, compressed with the forward pressure of one thousand glaciers, and determined like a glacier.

One such traveler that comes to mind is Sir Ernest Shackleton. Shackleton’s ship ‘Endurance’ literally was compressed by ice, until it gave out and the ice flows forced the crew into small rescue boats. Only by divine providence did they survive. Through Shackleton’s resolute leadership these men escaped via granite Elephant Island and the interminable South Georgia Island. Today these dangerous voyages are made much safer through computers and graphs.

The Coldwater Contest is on right now in Canada. Click in this link to see a neat video of the cold surfers surfing cold waves: http://www.coldwaterclassic.net/