Ottawa
Detailed Forecast Ottawa Citizen



River surfers take ride on 'Champlain wave'

Weather suitable for sport only one month out of year, enthusiasts pine
Laura Stone, Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, April 17, 2008
Ottawa . The first time Chris Mosher tried to surf on the Ottawa River, he had to quit early.

Not because of fear or inability - he has six years of experience surfing the Pacific Ocean off Vancouver Island - but because of that pesky, seemingly endless thing called Canadian winter.

"I was just about to get in the water, and I guess a big sheet of ice had broken upstream, and chunks of ice starting flowing through the wave," says Mr. Mosher, who was nevertheless back at Bate Island Thursday for another try.


It's the Catch-22 of surfing in Ottawa: although land-lubbers enjoyed 20-degree weather on Thursday, the water temperature hovered dangerously close to freezing. And ice chunks lined the river at the Champlain Bridge, where three standing waves are the raison d'être for avid surfers in Ottawa.

Mr. Mosher, 30, caught on to the phenomenon of "river surfing" after hearing about it from a friend. About five or six dedicated surfers have been riding waves for the past three or four springs, gaining little attention until now.

And some of them are none too pleased about being noticed this month.

One, who didn't want to be identified, said he fears would-be surfers will want to imitate them.

"My concern is that although it's surfing, it's not what you normally think of as surfing," he explained. "There's a lot more variables involved, it's a totally different animal than ocean surfing.

"You can get stuck in the white water and the different currents."

The surfer is part of a crew who pump dance tunes from a small stereo and surf the river pretty much every day for the early part of spring. Despite his apprehensions, he says Bate Island, below the Champlain Bridge, is "a great place to come. It's right in the heart of the city."

For Mr. Mosher, the appeal of the river, aside from it being the only place where one can do anything that even remotely resembles surfing (and the Kanata Wave Pool doesn't count), is the fact that the waves don't actually move the way ocean ones do.

"Once you get into the wave, you could stay there technically all day, if you wanted to. That way it never, ever ends," he says.

The standing waves, as opposed to the more traditional dynamic waves that crest and fall in oceans, are held in place by the river's rocky floor. This means surfing in Ottawa works best with a smaller board, a wet suit (also known as a steamer), gloves, and of course, a helmet.

Lieut. Tim Taylor, who works at the Ottawa Fire Department's water rescue station on Preston Street, says that the rocks are the most potentially dangerous part of river surfing.

"If you slipped off your surfboard there's a pretty good chance you're going to crack your head on the rocks because most of that's pretty shallow in the summertime," he says.

Many of those familiar with river surfing say April is pretty much the only month one can surf here, because the water levels are only high enough for a short period of time.

"It's mainly to do with the snow melting and the wind is better right now as well," says Kyle Robertson, the skateboard manager at the Surf Side store on Carling Avenue.

Mr. Robertson says a standing wave in Montreal is open year-round.

Another member of the original Ottawa river surfing crew, David Crichton, says that he would like to see a year-round standing wave in Ottawa.

"I think it would be good in a way if more people knew, because then you could get the surfers and kayakers together into more of a community that could push to get a year-round facility put in," he says.

Although Bate Island is property of the National Capital Commission, spokeswoman Kathryn Keyes says the NCC knows "absolutely nothing about surfing on Bate Island," including whether it is legal. But she did say the commission supports kayaking on the river.

The only code of ethics on the river lies between the surfers and the surf kayakers, who have maintained a visible presence there for many years.

Kayaker J.F. Tremblay, a firefighter from Gatineau, says that unlike Montreal, there is no "electricity" between the surfers and the kayakers.

"It's a good community here, paddling community, it's really good, it's really friendly," he says. Mr. Tremblay says there is a "60-second rule" between the surfers and the kayakers to share the small space of what he calls the "Champlain wave."

For his part, Mr. Mosher says he'll do his best to take advantage of the short surfing season in Ottawa.

It's his way of maintaining his west coast ritual now that he's back in his hometown.

"Some people go running a couple of kilometers in the morning," he says. "I'll just go surfing."

Distributed without profit to ESA Great Lakes District members for education purposes.

Nice. THE original was John Newgard (http://www.coastalbc.com/surf/standingwaves.htm). This website was where I first learned about river surfing the Champlain wave despite having lived near it my whole life. I will take credit as being one of the contemporary originals, maybe even the first back on the wave since Newgard last surfed it, but I wouldn't say our group is the original. And we certainly weren't the ones pumping dance tunes; that was a group of kayakers.