Canada's Ocean Playground
Yassine Ouhilal

In this crowded age it's still possible to find places where surf discoveries await. The Atlantic coast of Canada is one of those places. Sculpted by glaciers and the Atlantic, the province of Nova Scotia (as the licence plates will tell you) is truly 'Canada's Ocean Playground'. With several thousand kilometres of coastline and countless uncrowded pointbreaks and reefbreaks to choose from, it's a surf explorer's temporary paradise. Temporary, because this coastline is sinking into the ocean at a rate of several metres a year in certain areas due to coastal erosion and the power of winter waves. Surfing in this part of the world requires great dedication due to the variable conditions. Swells don't usually last more than a few days, making proper timing crucial. A handful of dedicated surfers drive to different parts of the coastline which will have ridable waves on almost any wind or swell direction.

History
While this may seem like paradise, it can also be a place of tragedy; most of the hundreds of reefs and points along the coastline were not named by surfers but after wrecked boats or fishermen who disappeared at sea. Even though most people here don't surf they are bound to the sea and for generations fishermen have been navigating these often treacherous waters. Waves in excess of 100ft have been reported at nearby Sable Island which is also referred to as the Graveyard of the Atlantic due to its hundreds of shipwrecks. The Titanic sank not too far off its coast and many of the victims are buried in Halifax.

When you think of Canada, you think of snow, hockey and lobster, not surfing. While it's popularity has been recent, surfing has existed in the area since the 1950's and 60's when a handful of pioneers like Joe Reardon, Stan Halloway, Joe Murphy and Aussie Paul Camilieri started surfing some of the pointbreaks near Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia. Joe Reardon still tells tales of how he once had the entire coast to himself. Most of these living legends still surf. Today the surfing population consists of a few hundred surfers in the summer and a few dozen in the winter. Surfing's popularity is growing - how could it not with all these waves just waiting to be ridden.

Conditions
Conditions in the winter (January to March) can be very extreme, with snowstorms, water temperatures dropping below zero degrees Celsius and air temperatures several degrees below zero. And yes, people still surf. With advanced wetsuit technology it's becoming easier to surf longer and stay warmer despite the cold winters. It can be a thrilling experience to walk in the snow through a pine forest wearing rubber from head to toe and emerge to see an endlessly peeling pointbreak. With the sun out, the waves breaking and no-one else in sight, surfing such perfect waves alone can be a very pleasant experience. In winter it's not the quantity that counts but the quality: one perfect 45 minute session (until your feet start going numb) can be as good as five hours in a tropical spot. Winter surfers in Nova Scotia are as dedicated as they come. Surfing anywhere colder would be impossible: the ocean would freeze.

Ideal conditions for Atlantic Canada are in the autumn during the hurricane season from August to late October, when hurricane swells combined with the warmth of the Gulf Stream current brush Nova Scotia's coast. Water temperature can be as warm as 22°C in September and the air between 20-30°C, making it ideal to surf in a 3/2 or shorty or even without a wetsuit. Waves can often become world class, peeling for several hundred metres and reaching heights of over six metres, sometimes even 10.

Tow-in surfing and island perfection
"Yes, I would." - Garrett McNamara's email response to my enquiry as to whether he'd like to come to Canada.

With Hurricane Fabian developing in the Atlantic ocean, big wave legend Garrett McNamara will go wherever the internet models show red - the biggest waves. From Tahiti to California and now to Canada. On less than a day's notice, Garrett hopped on a plane from California while attending the ASR show and Surfer Poll Awards to Halifax along with tow partner Scott Chandler from Carlsbad, California.

Garrett McNamara does not get excited easily. Why would you when you are regularly riding 60 foot waves, taking 45 foot waves on the head, diving 40 feet deep and carrying a 50kg rock underwater for three a half minutes for the pure enjoyment of it? If Aquaman ever existed, Garrett would be it.

"The tow boards didn't make it" - Garrett's first words at the airport.

Thanks to Continental airlines, the tow-boards were lost and would not get there in time for the next morning's surf. Swell was expected to last a day, so there was no time to wait. We headed out and decided to use a regular surfboard without straps for towing in.

We packed up a 4x4 and headed up the coast to an island surrounded by very deep water which has a few dozen different surf spots all within close distance to each other and facing different directions.

Garrett and Scott were excited about the possibility of surfing never-before surfed, uncrowded waves. They both admitted it would be difficult to do this at home in Hawaii and California as most surf spots are usually very crowded and therefore make it impossible to tow in.

The waves on this island are different to the rest of the eastern seaboard because the water is very deep, resulting in powerful waves similar to ones found in Hawaii or Indonesia when the right swell is there. Very tubular and hollow in some spots. There were also several outer reefs off the island that we were hoping to capture. When we arrived in the middle of the night on the mystical island, all we could hear from outside our 18th century Arcadian wooden dwelling was the distant roar of the surf.

The island is also home to many friendly locals, mostly fishermen of Arcadian (French) origin. They told the visiting surfers many tales of huge waves, in particular of one day so big it flooded the entire village. First light revealed clear skies and clean conditions with massive swell marching in from the hurricane. As we got into the 4x4 with the gear, we could tell there were waves to be had today.

It's big
As we pulled up on the dirt-road leading to a cape with a split left and right rocky pointbreak, Scott's first words were, "It's big". We could see lines, double overhead or more, and waves breaking in all directions. From outer reefs to protected points and headlands, swell was wrapping around the entire island and the majority of the breaks were firing. Arriving on the top of this steep bluff both Garrett and Scott said, "That's where we're surfing", pointing at the split peak just in front of the cape. Waves were extremely wedgy and steep and peaked up into an A-frame and compressed with so much energy that many of them would spit.

Scott and Garrett both agreed to dub the place "Nova Chopu" for it's hollowness. Garrett was calling it 12 foot dry barrels, Tahitian style.

Unfortunately, the surfers could only watch as they had no tow-boards…until Norwegian surfer Bjorn Henricksen came to the rescue. He loaned them his brand new 6'4 J-Bay pintail knowing it would come to good use. The SeaDoos were ready to go and we launched from a sheltered deep water harbour. The water was a balmy 20°C and Garrett decided to wear his shorty…in Canada!

I'd never been on a SeaDoo before let alone shot photos from one, and I didn't know much about tow-in surfing until that day. It was a perfect day of schooling for me as I realised the advantages of personal water craft and tow-in surfing. Accessing and checking surf spots was a breeze as we could drive around the island at 100km/hr and look at several breaks within minutes.

One ride per minute
Finally we pulled up at the split peak and waves were on, though they weren't as big as earlier. Garrett started towing Scott into wave after wave, with Scott managing to get tubed on almost every ride. They were catching waves so quickly (one per minute on average) that I barely had time to change rolls of film. I shot about a dozen rolls in 20 minutes. Despite the fact towing in wasn't necessary that day it seemed to make it more fun as Scott caught around 50 waves that day in about an hour and a half.

Garrett then got towed into a few as the swell kept dropping. Garrett exclaimed with a big smile on his face, "I'm not used to such small barrels", referring to his Jaws monster barrel and the perfect Indo-style four to six foot barrels. Garrett and Scott then decided to whip a couple of local surfers into a few. Nova Scotian surfers Fred Hamilton and Stephen Foley got a taste of tow-in surfing and precious tips from these experienced watermen; an unforgettable experience.

Nova Scotia is not one of those places where it's all about surfing. It's all about the quality of the experience. This is a place where brief moments of glory are often experienced if one is dedicated enough to travel up and down this pristine coastline and find the right place at the right time. The possibilities are endless and that makes it part of the fun of surfing here.

Garrett McNamara and Scott Chandler both got to experience the joys of such dedication and left with the satisfaction of having ridden new waves. Both hope to return next hurricane season. I know the next time there is red on the internet models, Garrett will be there.

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