Sweet.....

Just love this section by JP Auclair from ALL.I.CAN......


JP Auclair Street Segment (from All.I.Can.) from Sherpas Cinema on Vimeo.

Traditional Harvesting

 I am in Hartley Bay right now with Nicolas Teichrob, a talented photographer and filmmaker from the Sunshine Coast whose pictures you are now looking at. We are here doing some work for an upcoming coastal film project and I am carrying on my work with the SEAS program. We flew from Vancouver to Prince Rupert on Sunday and were fortunate to catch the daily scheduled float plane heading down to Hartley Bay. The chance's are usually 50/50 that the planes will fly during the winter months due to the severity of the coastal weather. By floatplane and helicopter i have made my way around most of the area but this flight took us west from Prince Rupert to the outer islands of Porcher and Banks, a first for me. I was excited as I have been looking at the outside beaches of Porcher for years. It's a place i have wanted to surf and paddle, drawn by it's remoteness and pristine, beautiful beaches perched on the edge of Hecate Straight. From the plane i could also see across to Haida Gwaii and to the southwest, Bonilla Island, the location of one of the highest recorded winds speeds in Canada at 143km/hr. The coast is so amazing that everytime i fly over it i seem to add more and more adventures and explorations to my tick list. I have come to the realization that i would need 10 lifetimes to explore out coastline. Below me, I was also looking at the northern route of the proposed oil tankers where they would make their way up between Banks and Pitt Island on their way across the malevolent Hecate Straight past the northern beaches of Haida Gwaii on their way to China. I still can't and don't want to picture it. From Porcher our flight path took us past the snow covered peaks of Banks, Pitt and Campania Island where we verred east past Fin Island and into Hartley Bay. 

West coast of Porcher Island

Standup4Greatbear Film Screening

Connections

This film really resonates with me and makes me think of the work that i do with the First Nations kids on our coastline. It's an inspiring film with a great message. Another important reason to keep our coastlines fresh, wild and pristine for generations to come.



Seeking for a new port-ALASKA from GotSurf.ca on Vimeo.

Paddle Canada Standup Surf Course

I just got back from a great weekend in Tofino, for the first Paddle Canada Standup Paddleboard Surf course. We had really good weather and some pretty good swell to do the course in. Most of the group including myself showed up to the beach house on South Chestermans's under a warm, fall sun. The small fishing village of Tofino and epicenter for west coast canadian surf was the ideal location to hold the course with great beginner beach breaks and good waves to be found. I made my first trip out here in 1999 to surf and it is still at the top of my list for favorite places to be. I was excited to be working with three other Paddle Canada Instructors, organizer and Deep Cove charger Mike Darbyshire, Canadian surf legend and Tofino local, Catherine Bruhwiler and Paddlesurfit brand manager Bodie Shandro. We had 10 people registered for the course from all over BC and it ended up being a really great group of people to work with and to share our experiences with.

Just prior to the course I managed to get out to surf South Chesterman's as there was a nice little south swell pushing in while Cox Bay was concentrating a 10 foot swell that grew as it hit the outer sandbanks. We would not be doing anything this weekend at Cox Bay. I brought a couple of RogueSUP boards including the 10'6" Tesaro and the 9'8" Katana, while Mike and Bodie filled out the quiver with Starboard's and Surftech's. I surfed in my 5/4/3 Xcel wetsuit with booties and no gloves.

Our evening session consisted of introductions, goals and expectations for the course. Afterwards we introduced an ocean decision making model including swell forecast, tides, weather, self assessment and a great map of the local beaches drawn from memory by Catherine indicating which beaches were best based on the surf and wind forecast. Catherine and her two brothers Sepp and Raph are canadian surfing legends and have really been one of the pioneering surf families responsible for showing Canadians the true potential of our west coast surf scene. Every Canadian surfer should have Jeremy Koreski's Numb and Shrink in their DVD quiver to watch the talent this family has. All three are sponsored surfers, surf school business owners and coastal adventurers. It was great having Catherine at the course and bringing a local surfers perspective to help the correct transition of paddle surfers into the waves. If your in Tofino and looking for a SUP lesson check out Catherine's Tofino Paddle Surf. After an informative evening session we outlined the following day and got the excited group ready for a fun two days.

Warm up before prone surf session,