SUDBURY - If Matt Akerman and friends have a say, the Beach Boys might just break out a new tune when the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers perform in Sudbury on April 5.
Who knew that “Surfing Providence Bay” was a thing?
Truth be told, even Akerman, a 44 year-old pretty-much lifelong Sudburian who grew up with a fascination for almost anything board sport-related had to do some digging to unearth this particular gem.
“I started skateboarding when I was five years old, later transferred from skiing to snowboarding, tried wake boarding, wake surfing,” said Akerman recently. “Anything with regards to boards has always been big on my ‘to do’ list.”
That said, it really wasn’t until he and his wife took a trip to Cocoa Beach, Florida, some eight years ago, that dreams of riding the waves took action.
“I had always thought that it would be so cool to learn how to surf, but it’s so hard to do that living in the middle of Canada,” Akerman said.
A honeymoon in Hawaii would give way to greater experience on the water and increased interest and fascination with the pastime, which prompted more queries.
“I had heard through the grapevine that there were people who were surfing the Great Lakes,” he said.
His formal introduction to this new and very different setting would come courtesy of Brian Joblin in and around 2018.
Akerman might have enjoyed some comfort in terms of feeling at home on a board, but surfing on a lake in Northern Ontario is not the same as surfing on the ocean in Hawaii or Florida. And this is certainly not surfing as the Beach Boys would have known it in the mid-1960s.
“From what I have seen, the season usually starts in September and some people will go right through the winter,” said Akerman. “I only go until the end of December when the ice really starts to come in on the bay.”
Wetsuits, obviously, are a must, as are conditions on the lake that make surfing even possible.
While one can certainly imagine huge waves sweeping across the likes of Lake Superior when the winds of November come early (with deference to the late, great Gordon Lightfoot), that is not even close to what these adventurous folks would consider ideal surfing conditions.
“We’re looking for four- to five-foot waves on a perfect day, and lower winds,” Akerman said. “It gives us cleaner waves. There’s kind of a fine line when it comes to what is called a ‘big wave’ or ‘big swell’. There could be 10-foot waves coming in, but if they are driven by 60-km gale force winds, that’s really not surfable for us.”
In fact, it’s far less about the rolling whitecaps and far more about what is referred to as a “green wave”, that flow of water that is created when a distant storm kicks into motion a swell (group of rolling waves that can travel quite a distance), ideally coming from the south in the direction of Providence Bay, Dominion Bay and the like.
“With a clean wave or green wave, it gives you enough time to paddle into it, jump up and surf it for a little bit,” said Akerman. “You can still surf on a wave that breaks and you see whitewash, but you really can’t do turns on those.”
For as much as his snowboarding background might have given him a starting point when it came to learning to surf, the transiency of the skill set could only carry Akerman so far.
“You have the same stance, but with snowboarding, you’re strapped in whereas on a surfboard, you have no support,” he noted. “It definitely requires a bit more balance. When you are riding an unpredictable wave, it takes a little more time to get used to the balance aspect, for sure.”
Akerman suggested that his particular group of surfers that will make the three-and-a-half-hour drive from Sudbury to the south end of Manitoulin Island might number eight to ten or so, though they will also cross paths with others from the island outposts of Gore Bay, Mindemoya and Little Current.
“On a really good day, you might have people driving up from Toronto,” said Akerman. “For really good waves, people will drive really far to get to them.”
They also seldom do so on the spur of the moment.
“You almost have to become a meteorologist to become a surfer on the Greats,” Akerman added with a laugh. “We use websites like Windfinder.com and Surfline.com and these give us all the information on the swells coming in. We can usually see it about a week out, but we’ll confirm one or two days before.”
And where the sandy beaches of California might offer miles and miles of attractive surfing venues, choices in the middle of Ontario are much more modest.
“The only place that we have found that is public is Providence Bay,” Akerman said. “And then we have a few friends that have allowed us to use their property as well.”
After all, who can resist going surfing …. surfing Providence Bay.
Randy Pascal is a sportswriter in Greater Sudbury. Pursuit is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.