Outside Magazine Names Tofino, BC as The Best Surf Town in North America

Outside Magazine is a mixed bag of outdoorsiness and yuppiness, all packaged in a publication aimed for middle-aged men trying to hold on to whatever remnants of youth they still encompass. I don’t want to completely bag on them – their writers do produce quality content from time to time, and fans of Jon Krakauer will forever owe their gratitude for exposing the talent behind the writer. Unfortunately, they miss the mark nine times out of ten, and that one time when they do come up with something worthwhile, it never involves surfing. Case in point: Their selection of Tofino, British Columbia as “The best surf town in North America.”

The statement by the editors of Outside Magazine is bold; North America is a vast continent, with coastlines of pristine surf and accompanying cities and towns stretching for approximately 6,000 miles just on the Pacific side.

Don’t get me wrong; I really dig Tofino. This past summer, I spent two months living just south of the picturesque town on Vancouver Island. If you missed it, I wrote a comprehensive guide detailing nearly all of Vancouver Island’s different surf locations. It’s a great place to surf – for maybe four months out of the year.

The remaining eight? Stormy weather, closeouts, and never-ending sets mixed in with one-second intervals. Think San Francisco’s Ocean Beach on steroids. Does that sound like the best surf town in North America to you?

Here are some more reasons why Tofino shouldn’t have been selected by the editors of Outside Magazine:

- It rains. A lot. And surfing in the rain blows.

- When it’s good, it’s really good. When it’s bad, it’s really bad. This is typically the case at most surf breaks around the world. This is not the case at the really good surf breaks around the world. It rarely gets bad in Santa Cruz, CA. Nor does it get bad very often at various breaks near San Diego, CA, where the warm water and pleasant weather can make up for a lack of good swell.

- Tofino is a very small town. During the summer months, when the weather’s nice enough to go surf, the town becomes extremely congested with stereotypically-annoying tourists. They can often-times reduce the feel of isolation or connection one should experience with Vancouver Island’s wilderness.

- Tofino is also a very expensive town, in addition to its affluent nature. Bill Gates, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and John Travolta (among many opulent individuals) own vacation homes here. The cost of living is sky-high.

- None of the surf breaks near Tofino are within walking distance to anything except a few high-end resorts. Without a car, you can’t walk or ride a bike to the nearest break. Not convenient.

You're probably asking yourself, "OK then, what city should be named 'The Best Surf Town in North America?'" In this humble writer's opinion, Santa Cruz, CA wins hands-down. I'll quote myself from a passage I wrote about Santa Cruz in the recently published book, The Great Book of San Francisco Bay Area Sports Lists:

"During the summer the weather is outstanding. And after the morning marine layers burn away, even the winter can provide sunshine and warmth for everyone. Yet the weather isn’t the reason why Santa Cruz (is the best surf town in North America). It’s the world-class surf. In fact, the city of Santa Cruz is embattled to this day with Huntington Beach, CA over the label “Surf City” because of the quality of surf, and the numerous different breaks surfers can choose from. If you want some of the most ridiculously perfect waves, you can go to the west side and surf Steamer’s Lane, or head east and ride the appropriately-named Pleasure Point. The local temperament isn’t what one should be worried about when you’re in the water: It’s trying to actually catch waves. The locals are just that good, so much so that the challenge is simply paddling hard enough to get proper positioning. And if you’re a beginner, Cowell’s is one of the premier beginner spots, with long, gentle waves anyone can catch."

I would even select Encinitas, CA or San Diego, CA ahead of Tofino as the best surf town in North America. Not only do Santa Cruz, Encinitas and San Diego (not to mention countless Central American towns) have better surf and warmer weather, but you can get a delicious breakfast burrito in any of these three towns for half the price one would pay in Tofino. As a surfer, the breakfast burrito factor is extremely important when choosing a favorite surf town.

Keep in mind that this is the same Outside Magazine that named a certain east coast lawyer as one of their “Adventure Entrepreneurs.” The same east coast lawyer who kicked out the Godfather of Mavericks, Jeff Clark, as the Contest Director of the Mavericks Surf Contest. Outside Magazine even drew an artist’s rendering of the east coast lawyer, bordering worship status. So while it isn’t surprising that Outside Magazine botched yet another surf story, it is disappointing that a publication with 600,000 subscribers continues to provide extremely poor surf coverage to their readers.

Shaun White Could be First Olympian in 84 Years to Win Winter and Summer Gold

Famed sports writer Rick Reilly decided to do a lot research about Shaun White’s career accomplishments, comparing him to current and former great athletes like Rod Laver, Joe Namath, Tiger Woods, Wayne Gretzky and Tom Brady. Reilly even went so far as to say that White, “…might be the most exciting American Winter Olympics athlete we'll ever see.” Within all the fascinating statistical and historical comparisons was an interesting point brought up only by Reilly: That Shaun White could theoretically be the first Olympian since American Eddie Eagan in 1932 to win Olympic Gold Medals in both the winter and summer games.

White cemented his status during the recent Olympic Games in Vancouver as the greatest competitive snowboarder in the short yet exciting history of the sport. I withhold calling White the greatest snowboarder of all-time because outside of filming the movie First Descent, White hasn’t displayed the kind of backcountry skills one needs to truly claim the throne from snowboarding legends like Craig Kelly and Terje Håkonsen.

Yet while White has captured the world’s attention for his snowboarding heroics, his skateboarding achievements don’t always garner the attention it deserves. White remains the only athlete in X Games history to win Gold in both their summer and winter editions, and is the only skateboarder in history to attempt a 1080 in the halfpipe (he has yet to achieve this extremely challenging trick). White is also the first skateboarder to land the Cab 7 Melon Grab.

Given his incredible skills on both a snowboard and skateboard, White seems to be the only athlete with any chance of achieving what American Eddie Eagan did in 1932: Win both Summer and Winter Olympic Gold (Eason won Summer Gold in boxing and Winter Gold in the bobsled event). The only problem is, while the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has shown great interest in adding skateboarding to the Summer Olympics (the committee initially gave the green light to add skateboarding as an event for the 2012 Olympics in London), a lack of an international federation, which is a requirement for all Olympic events, prevented skateboarding’s entrance into the Olympics from becoming a reality.

There remains an extreme interest by the IOC to have skateboarding added as an event (mostly to increase Olympic interest from a younger demographic), so in all likelihood skateboarding will be part of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. At which time Shaun White will be just shy of 30 years-old. A lot of skateboarders, especially in vert (halfpipe), stay at the top of their game well into their 30’s. Tony Hawk landed his infamous 900 when he was 31 years old, and Bob Burnquist, at 33 years of age, remains one of the top vert skaters in the world. So the possibility of Shaun White earning a Gold medal in the Summer Olympics 84 years after Eagan’s amazing accomplishment remains a real, albeit distant, possibility.

It’s worth mentioning that Rick Reilly, formerly of Sports Illustrated and currently of Disney’s ESPN.com fame, entered a time machine of sorts to rehash and remember how to write an interesting and pertinent column. Besides ESPN.com’s poor choice of placing Reilly’s columns right next to the greatest sports writer currently alive, Bill Simmons, thus making his act nearly impossible to follow, Reilly as of late seems to have lost his touch. I can’t recall the last time one of Reilly’s columns incited genuine conversation among sports fans. Who knew that a story on board sports would bring Rick Reilly back into the stream of relevant discussion?

Stab Magazine Publishes Article Ladened with Racist Overtones

Icah Wilmot, image courtesy of Stab Magazine.

Stab Magazine, the Australian surf publication who has built a rather large readership over the years due to their immensely popular website, usually hits the mark with their witty commentary on professional surfing and the surf industry. However, their recent story on Jamaican pro surfer Icah Wilmot may have crossed the line of racism.

The story, titled “Super breed descends” is clearly an attempt at humor, designed to warn Caucasian surfers, in satirical fashion, that their reign as the Kings of Surfing is coming quickly to an end. The writer, Jed Smith, refers to Wilmot as a “Negro” among many racist remarks scattered within the three paragraphs, and Stab Magazine's commentary leading into the story on their front page states, "The Negro super breed that’s throttled every sport in the lower socioeconomic bracket with their cantaloupe sized palms, has developed an appetite for surfing." Jed Smith and Stab Magazine clearly lack an understanding in subtlety.

Here is the article verbatim:

Icah Wilmot is bad news for the white devil. Last week this multi-talented Negro became the first Jamiacan winner of the Pan American championships, held in Cuba, signalling, amongst other things, an uncertain future for the Aryan domination of surfing.

Kelly, Dane and Andy are very aware of the racial homogenisation that has occurred in every athletic pursuit the genetically superior black man has turned his canetloupe-sized palm to. But it gets worse. Icah not only surfs very well (a four-time National Junior Champ and five time National Open Champ, no less), Icah’s family are not only Jamaican surfing royalty, Icah is not only an accredited ISA judge, surf instructor and holder of a bachelor degree in Information Technology (majoring in enterprise computing), Icah is in a band.

They are called “From the Deep” and not only is he in them, he plays bass. He stands to the side and t’umps out riffs no one hears though everyone needs. The same ones that make petite white women to go wide-eyed and silent as they watch. He is a rare combination of the genetic pooling that’s doomed basketball, seen our first Negro president and brought Lou Suluola Samuel into the world (the daughter of Seal and Heidi Klum).

Did Jed Smith and Stab Magazine cross the line of racism? Or is condemning this attempt at humor too conservative and politically correct of an approach? More than likely, it’s a combination of the two. It clearly sends a very poor racial message in a time when race relations across the globe remain tense and prejudice abounds. Stab Magazine shouldn’t condone the publication of racist articles. They have proven that it’s unnecessary given their great surf commentary, insights and coverage in the past, and their credibility could suffer drastically if they continue to send out an ignorant message.

Update #1: Stab Magazine has removed the story from their website.

Update #2: Jed Smith offers an apology to the Wilmot family.


"Icah Wilmot, a possible vanquisher of surfing's white supremacy." - words and image courtesy of Stab Magazine.