A storm rages on a December afternoon. Most sensible people in this part of the Great Lakes are hunkered down at home. But not Mike Calabro. He, along with a few other hardy souls, is riding out the storm on a surfboard. “If you want to live here and surf, you can’t let a little cold stop you,” he says, as he wiggles into a wetsuit on the southwest shore of Lake Michigan.
Surfing the Great Lakes in the dead of winter might sound like the pastime of a few masochists, but the sport is flourishing in the region thanks to epic conditions fans can find only in the winter. These days, though, climate change and pollution are threatening the future of this increasingly popular activity.
Surfing on a lake
For many people, surfing evokes images of sun-kissed Southern California or Hawaii. But the Midwest claims deep roots in the sport, too. One of the world’s most influential surfers, the late Tom Blake (who revolutionized the design of surfboards by making them lighter and faster) hailed from the shores of Lake Superior. And a few pioneers were riding waves here as far back as the late 1940s.
The first time Mitch McNeil, president of Surfrider Foundation Chicago, saw a surfboard was in 1967 at Chicago’s Abercrombie & Fitch, when the store was a high-end outfitter of specialty items such as fly-fishing and safari gear.
Today you can buy a board in one of dozens of surf shops across the region, including destination surf towns such as St. Joseph and Grand Haven, Michigan, and Sheboygan, Wisconsin, aka the “Malibu of the Midwest.”
“The number of surfers has probably doubled since I opened the shop in 2003,” says Ryan Gerard, owner of Third Coast Surf Shop, in New Buffalo, Michigan. “There’s now a healthy local scene. And it’s become a novelty for travelers, like, ‘I finally surfed the Great Lakes.’”
But the die-hard know the best time to surf the lakes is from November through March, when high winds and storms push big, consistent waves topping 20-30 feet with overheads (high crests), barrels (tunnels that surfers glide through), and rides lasting a minute and longer.
“These aren’t just good waves for the Midwest. These are good waves for anywhere,” says McNeil, who has surfed from Hawaii to Portugal since he began chasing waves on Lake Michigan in 1968.
Risks—natural and man-made
While the region’s cold-weather waves are some of surfing’s best, the challenging conditions aren’t for everyone. The surf can flow thick and slushy like a Slurpee or load up with ice the size of golf balls and even bowling balls. Surfers have to be vigilant for sheets of ice as big as parking spaces, as well as changing shore conditions, where fast-forming ice shelves can make escape impossible.
Even the frequency of lake waves—every four to five seconds versus 15 to 30 seconds in the ocean—poses a challenge, as the rapid-fire barrage of freezing water has been known to pin down fallen surfers.
Rising water temperatures in the Great Lakes (which some experts link to climate change) can erode shorelines, limiting access for surfers.
Photograph by Ryan Carter
Some local surfers worry about the effect climate change has on rising water temperatures in the Great Lakes. Ice cover on the water has dropped by as much as 75 percent over the past 40 years, according to a report by the Environmental Law & Policy Center.
Less ice can increase lake effect winds and create good waves, but it also increases shoreline exposure, making beaches more vulnerable to erosion. “The beach is disappearing because the water is so high, which makes access in some places almost impossible,” says Gerard.
More pressing is rampant pollution. Surfrider Chicago, along with the city of Chicago as a co-litigant, sued U.S. Steel in 2018 for dumping hexavalent chromium into Lake Michigan. The chemical is the same carcinogenic manufacturing byproduct made infamous in the 2000 film Erin Brockovich.
“Surfers were getting sick, and after a yearlong study and diving into the data, we found the cause and realized we had to do something about it,” says McNeil. In 2018, U.S. Steel agreed to pay $601,242 in civil penalties in accordance with a proposed settlement under an EPA consent decree. Lawyers for Surfriders argued the punishment was too low, pointing out that the maximum statutory penalty can be as high as $10.7 million.
Since the settlement, U.S. Steel has admitted to more violations. As of press time, Surfrider Chicago, the city of Chicago, and other environmental organizations were pressing the courts for a more severe penalty and ongoing oversight.
Finding silver linings
As McNeil and others continue their work to clean up Lake Michigan, they continue to surf. “It’s Russian Roulette,” admits McNeil, “but the reward is the hugely invigorating interaction with nature.”
Calabro sees the bright side. “There are no sharks and no saltwater to eat away at your gear,” he says, half joking, before turning serious. “Winters in the Midwest can be dark, gray, and pretty tough. Seasonal affective disorder is real,” he adds. “Surfing here is tough, but it gets me outside, and it makes me smile.”
With that, Calabro drags his board into the 33-degree surf, which the storm is now pushing into overhead waves. He bobs and rises, then disappears into the maelstrom. In a few hours, he’ll clamber up from the frigid shoreline with eyes partially frozen shut and a beard of ice.
After firing up his van’s heater to melt the ice from his wetsuit’s zipper, he’ll change into dry clothes. Only then, through skin rubbery with cold, does a slightly maniacal and exuberant smile surface. While everyone else was locked up inside, he was out riding waves of a lifetime.
Aaron Gulley is a Sante Fe, New Mexico-based journalist who has written for two decades on traveling, cycling, and sports and fitness. Find Aaron on Instagram.Vietnam surfing documentary 'Back to China Beach' headlines Pensacola Film Festival
The 2020 Pensacola Film Festival has a unique entry this year. “Back to China Beach,” a locally-made documentary about surfing during the Vietnam War, will be screened within an Oscar-filled lineup.
“We got into these guys’ lives and they told these stories,” said Mike Cotton, who produced and directed the project with Dave Barnes. “Many of them had never told them before, even to their families, not even to their wives.”
'Back to China Beach': Pensacola documentary chronicles Vietnam War surfing club
Now in its 15th year, the Pensacola Film Festival will be presented by Pensacola Cinema Art with Innisfree Hotels and the Studer Family of Companies. PCA was founded by Jim Norton in 2005 as a venue for presenting foreign and independent films that are usually overlooked by local cineplexes. The festival’s screenings will be Feb. 28-Mar.1 at the Studer Community Institute at 220 W. Garden St.
“Back to China Beach” is Cotton’s third documentary project. He surfed while growing up on Florida’s east coast in the 1960s and moved to Pensacola in 1994. During his surfing days, a friend who had just returned from combat in Vietnam told him about GIs who surfed for R & R.
Cotton also heard about Larry Martin, a Navy Vietnam veteran who had organized a surfing scene. During his tour, Martin discovered a loose band of surfers at My Khe Beach, a.k.a., China Beach, on Vietnam’s central coast. A seasoned surfer, he befriended the lifeguards and began issuing cards to those who could ride the waves of the South China Sea. His efforts provided a therapeutic respite from war, unlike the infamous surfing sequence in “Apocalypse Now.”
“He’s the only guy I know who signed up for a second tour in Vietnam so he could surf the storm surge that was coming the next season,” Cotton said.
“Back to China Beach” is a composite rewind of surfer stories, an “Endless Summer” in jungle fatigues. Culled from more than 100 candid admissions from veterans, the documentary is also about returning to a place of pain and misery that has blossomed into something much better, thanks to a sometimes-unappreciated sacrifice.
“We didn’t want to take on any investors for this project because we didn’t want anything to mess with our creative process,” Cotton explained. “The main demographic we had to please is Vietnam veterans because they know the whole deal.”
Dodging the film festival circuit, Cotton and Barnes, envision a slow roll-out that could eventually get picked up by a streaming service for wide release. They’ve showed it to various veterans’ organizations and have booked additional screenings all the way to the west coast. Its actual debut was at Pensacola Little Theatre last November.
“When that final frame was over and that theater went dark, we just kind of sat there and then it erupted,” said Cotton. “People let us know they loved this film.”
The festival is screening other documentaries as well. “The Cave” explores the toils of a female doctor at a makeshift hospital during the Syrian Civil War. “Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins,” profiles a journalist whose bracing humor challenged Texas politics.
The festival’s feature-length headliner has to be “Parasite,” which dominated the Oscars with four wins, including Best Picture. Directed by South Korean director, Bong Joon-Ho, the story follows a struggling family’s cunning infiltration of a wealthy couple’s household. The result is an obvious portrait of social inequity whose message is outweighed by its originality. Also showing is Joon-Ho’s 2013 release “Snowpiercer,” a dystopian iteration of class warfare set on a train.
“We are offering “Snowpiercer” because of the Pensacon theme,” said Norton. “This is the first time we have offered two films from the same director. His films will attract a wider audience in the future because of the Oscars.”
There’s also “The Wild Pear Tree,” a Turkish drama about a college graduate who returns to confront his hometown and “Colewell,” a well-received story of a postal worker who has to decide what to do after her small-town post office is closed.
For fans of short films, the festival will deliver 15 Oscar-nominated works in three categories. “Hair Love,” which won Best Animated Short, is a father-daughter haircut sketch. The winner for Best Documentary Short, “Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl),” is about the improbable education of young women in Afghanistan. The live action winner, “The Neighbors’ Window,” follows a family who is stirred by a young couple who moves in across the street.
“There is a small but loyal audience for the Oscar short films,” said Norton. “People from Mobile and Destin come here to see them because they are not offered in the surrounding areas.”
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