Growing up as a kid in a small town can be boring with no other kids within miles, no car and an over abundance of seniors, it was hard finding something to keep myself preoccupied. With little interest in the classic Canadian favourites, hockey and baseball, I started growing an interest in skateboarding. I don’t really recall my first exposure to skateboarding; it was most likely in some kid’s movie, the typical skateboarder stereotype of the 90’s, baggy jeans, spiky hair and a lack of respect for authority. I do remember that was supposed to be “cool” and at the young age of 5 or 6 with a mouldable mind you’ll believe anything. My first skateboard was a Digimon branded skateboard from Wal-Mart, thinking back now I should have just got my parents to dish out the money to buy a legit complete skateboard so I would have got a proper introduction to skateboarding, but at the time a Digimon skateboard collaboration was something made in heaven. After the initial novelty wore off, It spent most of its days outside with other cheap, discarded toys, getting water logged. My interest in skateboarding was reignited a few years later and with my Digimon board in pretty rough shape, I convinced my parents to dish out the cash for a board at west 49. Walking into the store I really had no idea what to get or even what to look at. I was in unfamiliar territory and too intimidated to ask questions, I just got what ever looked cool. At the end of the day I walked out with a Baker board, with grind king trucks and black generic wheels, not bad for a kid without a clue.
Living on the farm, my parents were obligated to drive me to the skate park in the old sunflower gardens parking lot. It was just cheaply built wooden ramps on asphalt. I would often sit on the sidelines watching the older kids ride, to intimidated to roll around with them watching, and maintaining the theory that if they never saw me skate they would think I was really good. I remember guys like Jayden Klassen , Ryan Bergen and Dan Neufeld skating the park and how I idolized them. Over time my interest died down, my parents brought me less and less and eventually and my skateboard only got taken out every few months. Then in grade 5 or 6 is when I got totally hooked, I finally upgraded from just rolling around to attempting curb ollies and boardslides on parking blocks. Other kids my age were just starting to get into skating and we would meet up and skate around parking lots and find other little spots we could attempt.
Skateboarding has without a doubt been a huge part of my life. It has given me an outlet for energy, creativity, art and music. I think the general public don’t get to see the real skateboarding culture, it just keeps getting barred away by the huge corporate companies that think, here’s is an easy way to get into kids pockets. They can afford the ad space in the media so they can portray it anyway they think sells, stripping the art aspects so they can sell a product or idea. The real skateboarding “culture” is one where artistry and camaraderie thrives. I think most people are surprised or confused when you associate skateboarding with art. Watch a video like Emerica’s Stay Gold, the film making and artistry is incredible something a lot of people wouldn’t expect. But this kind of talent is in abundance in the “Industry” independent films, from kids with a love for skateboarding and film are coming out and blowing people’s minds not just in the skateboarding world but outside as well. I encourage people who are interested to attend an art show put on by a skate shop or magazine, look at the uniqueness and quality of what is being put out by skateboarders. I`m not trying to say that just because you ride a board with wheels, you suddenly become some great artist, but through skateboarding you defiantly get to experience things and associate yourself with people and places you wouldn’t otherwise and that is almost always related through the artwork. Skateboarding exposes you to things that you wouldn’t necessarily see or consider in your everyday life. Like when I walk in downtown Winnipeg, or take a road trip and I see a stair set, a marble ledge or a quirky bank, I instinctively think, this trick would look perfect on there, filmed from this angle, with this lens and all the people around me who have never gotten into skateboarding are like, Dude it’s just concrete. Even when I hear a song I’m thinking, potential for a video part?
Skateboarding brings in somewhere in the neighbourhood of around 5.7 billion dollars a year, a pretty impressive sum for something that seems to be illegal everywhere you go. I never really got the whole cop/Rent-a -cop bullshit growing up in a small town, when we skated somewhere that people didn’t like, it was usually one of your relatives or family friend that was telling you to go somewhere else. I guess my first experience was when we were skating down by the board walk in Kelowna, BC last summer. There was a small dock just off the boardwalk with a handrail going into the water, Ryan (Bergen) was going to skate it and I was going to snap a sequence of it. We parked the car and started rolling down the sidewalk, when this security guard walks up to us and tells us that we should get off our boards quick because its a $500 fine to skate on the board walk, we thanked him for the heads up and walked to the spot. I couldn’t believe it that was twice as much as a Minor consumption (at the time). Cops would rather you get smashed then wear out their asphalt with your deathtraps. As I started skating more places, I noticed that this was a reoccurring trend, skate here you get kicked out, skate here you get a fine, skate here your getting a ride home in the back of the cruiser. I recently read an article with sculptor Marie Khouri who donated a bench to the city of Vancouver during the Olympics, during the weeks after its debut the bench was heavily skated (even by Winnipeg’s own Tyler Gaucher) and was served quite the beating, CBC even wrote up something about the whole thing. Khouri was shocked with the apparent vandalism of her piece, but after interactions with the skate community, she had this to say, “I’m well aware of the skate culture now and they’re not drug addicts, they’re not gangsters, they’re kids and it’s healthier for a society to have skateboarding than anything.” Cities and towns need to start supporting kids that aren’t jumping on the Hockey and Baseball bandwagon. Skate parks don’t only give people a place to practise skateboarding, it’s a place for people to openly experiment, create, learn. It doesn’t just serve the skateboarder, it serves the film maker, the photographer, the writer, the artist, it serves creativity.
