Our boat plowed through glassy water. Three waves peeled along a sand-bottom point. The beach was empty. The waves were groomed. The sky was low and cold. A nice breeze was blowing onto the face of the waves, but the break was bogged down by a steeply climbing tide. We were on the Alaskan coast, near the community of Yakutat.

In the afternoon we checked the outer beaches. The breaks here worked better on a high tide. The surf was larger. We followed a gravel road around the rim of a lagoon and into a forest. The trees were tall, thin, and they looked very old. They formed a tunnel around the road. Our van emerged into a clearing.

Below, large boulders sat in the sand. The beach terminated at the water line. The sea floor was blanketed by boulders. Hollow and peaky waves were breaking close to shore. The surface of the water was dead calm.

We opted to look at another wave further down the road. It was a lefthand head-high-on-the-sets bolder-bottom pointbreak. The boulders were slick, and they were clumsy to crawl over. I paddled out with a local. We sat on the peak and took turns catching roping lefts.

As I sat outside waiting for the next set I looked at the massive white mountain range across the bay. One of the prominent peaks in the range, Mt. Saint Elias, is one of the tallest peaks in the United States.

No roads lead here. The Yakutat community is only accessible by boat or plane. The population reaches a little over 4,000, but by area it’s the largest city in the United States.

Fall and spring swells arrive from turbulent Aleutian storms. The weather in Yakutat is unpredictable and tide swings are dramatic. While it can be difficult to find good conditions that stick around for awhile, bad weather can just as suddenly turn to sunny skies and calm wind. If the swell is too large on the outer beaches and the wind is wrong, there’s a chance that waves are wrapping around the cape into an offshore breeze and peeling for over 200 yards.

In the distant reaches of the north an obscure and prehistoric bay hides two pointbreaks. They break opposite of each other, at the narrow mouth of the harbor. The island sitting at the center of the bay is only inhabited by bald eagles and grizzly bears. At times, the bay reaches depths of 720 feet, deep enough to allow whales to take residence.

[ The deeper parts of the bay cut steeply into the mountain range, resembling a fjord. ]

“There is a maximum tidal range of fifteen feet. With such a tremendous volume of water pouring in and out twice during a twenty-four-hour period, currents at the constricted entrance reach speeds of nearly fifteen miles per hour. Treacherous waves can form instantaneously on an ebb (outgoing) tide, particularly when an opposing wind blows…Inland from the coast the dark-green interior is virtually inaccessible.” – Fradkin

[ Access is less treacherous by float helicopter than by boat. ]

At slack tides the currents calm down and the entrance to the bay turns glassy calm. The region’s cobbled coast is known for punchy, peaky waves. Wildlife thrives here, but it is a difficult place for man to survive. The bay is surrounded on all sides by hundreds of miles of remote wilderness. Frequent gales, massive bears, and rogue currents make boat access a life-threatening prospect.

A gravel spit stretches 100 meters across the bay, never reaching higher than 12 feet above sea level. Across the mouth of the bay a more seasoned headland wraps stormy waves into a sheltered cove.

On the wave cam: A small winter swell is found wrapping a remote point break this morning. Racy peak take-off, workable middle section, looks like a thicker, wider board would be best to make it through some of the flat sections on the inside.

Alaska, the final frontier. Throughout history it has taunted the hearts of the hardy with dreams of wealth: fishing, oil, and gold. In recent times the northernmost state has reached into the world of surfing like Jack Frost nipping at your toes, enticing a frigid fringe of surfers to mine it’s wealth of waves. With scarce coastal access and a juicy swell window, murmurs of cold-water boat trip businesses have been circulating in Yakutat pubs. Scott Dickerson is at the forefront of Alaska’s surf community and has spent some time contemplating a surf charter endeavor.

Scott: The most striking things about surfing the cold frontiers are the spirit of discovery and the incredible scenery. I can’t think of a more stoke inducing thing than discovering a new surf break that in all likelihood has never been ridden before and pioneering it with a handful of friends. And all this surrounded by untouched wilderness and wildlife. To me, that’s what surfing in Alaska is all about. It was nicknamed the Last Frontier when the US purchased it in 1959 and for us surfers that name still rings true.

Arctic Surf Blog: A boat trip in Indo sounds pretty neat, so what kind of person would prefer to go on a cold water charter?

Scott: A surfer who desires a sense of discovery and exploration and wants to surf uncrowded waves. Personally when I see a crowded surf break my stoke fizzles. Growing up in Alaska and surfing with just a few friends my whole life has clearly been a unique experience. But I think that any surfer could appreciate the special experience of pioneering a new surf break with just a few friends.  This is what a surf charter in Alaska can offer. With more coastline than the entire US combined and less people than most large cities in the US it’s easy to understand how Alaska remains as a paradise for surfers looking for adventure.

Arctic Surf Blog: Thanks for taking the time to do this interview. Scott is also an accomplished surf photographer. Checkout his work at SurfAlaska.net.

A few charters have already sprung up. The screen grab below is a glimpse into the birth of arctic surf boat tripping. Like the Mentawais in the early 80’s, the potential for Alaskan breaks is just beginning to be realized. Get your waves before it blows up.

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.