If you’ve ever wondered about Arctic Surf Blog using idealistic utopian mythification to paint the polar coasts as an unaccessible earthly paradise isolated from the outside world, you might be correct. That’s why this article is about Vancouver Island. The following is an honest dialogue about the place from local wave surfer Alex Haro. Alex is an adventurist who took a break from oil rigging and forest fire fighting to spend a few summer months warming in the lower latitudes of Southern California.

How would you compare/contrast Vancouver Island surf culture with Southern California surf culture?

There’s way more of a scene in SoCal.  Tight pants and flannel jackets are everywhere. Cousteau-style beanies grace the top of the hottest heads, and everyone seems to be making sure they’re talking to the right person.  People’s pockets are filled with names, and they drop them all over the place. I keep tripping over them.  But, that being said, it is pretty much the centre of the surfing universe, and this is where to come if you want to be involved in the industry. Vancouver Island definitely has its share of name droppers, but they’re all dropping two names: Devries or Bruhwiler.  Localism can get kind of bad there, too, but none of it is too serious.  There have been a few broken windows here and there, but mostly it’s just grumpy old dudes that hate the fact that the Island is slowly getting discovered.

What are some ways you’ve seen surfers handle cold temperatures on Vancouver Island?

As long as you have a decent 5/4/3 suit, you’ll be fine.  Boots and gloves help a lot if you plan on staying out more than 5 minutes.  I’ve never seen anyone with Vaseline on their face like the stories you hear from the east coast, but maybe it’s colder there.  Or maybe we have thicker skin.  Another good one is carrying a flask in your suit.  A bit of whiskey never hurt anyone, and it’s hilarious when you see someone tipping one while they’re sitting outside.

What is it like to surf there?

Lots of waves don’t have any noticeable trail into them; you need to know where they are. You sort of have to bushwack a little to get down to them.  I’ve got a couple of friends who found a wave last year and cut a trail down to it with chainsaws.  At the end of it is a 60 foot cliff to the water. Gnarly. We still haven’t surfed it, but we’re waiting for the right swell. If you go to the right place, you can find lots of perfect, shallow points, long paddles, huge trees, bears… it’s rugged and beautiful.  It’s rewarding.

Do you prefer surfing in remote cold water places?

Honestly, I can’t stand cold water.  It’s nice to do it for a couple of days, but if we have a swell filled winter, I’m pretty over it by the spring.  It does add an element of excitement, though.  Hiking in, crazy weather, it’s all part of the experience.  I love it when I’m not there, and I hate it when I am. I miss it until I go back. I’m in a constant conundrum where I’m trying to decide between cold and empty and warm and crowded.  I love warm water, but it always seems to be full of people.  Crowds suck.  So does cold water.  I want my own tropical island with a perfect right point right out front.  Is that so much to ask for?

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?

Found journal entry from 1899:

This arctic town, located on a narrow piece of sand bordering the ocean, filed a lawsuit against about two dozen energy companies. They wanted to regain $400 million dollars in losses for the global warming caused by the emission of greenhouse gases, which in turn caused the sea to rise and threaten the existence of the village. The lawsuit was turned down by the judge, but it appears that all the sand dispersal has created a nice sand bar for waves to break on.

Usually waves approach the coastline from a variety of angles. As a wave begins to approach shallow sea floors, it bends inward to face the shore head on. This is called wave refraction. Below you can see the stormy swell hitting the coast on the right. As it bends inward, moving left, the waves reach into the bay and are protected from the predominant winds. With a little bit more swell energy this headland might prove to be a nice point break.

The tundra is a remote and treeless landscape, a place where only small shrubs, sedges, grasses, mosses, and lichens are able to find a way to survive. It is not easy to weather a winter in these parts, but with some experience even the newest residents can appreciate the natural beauty of this unique biome.