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Since Spring 2014 this magazine has been publishing adventure stories because of people like you. A lot has happened since we started publishing. Heck, the world flipped upside down like 5 times in 2020 alone. So to make sure Stay Wild still serves our community please let us know what you’d like to see more of and if you’d like to work together to make it happen.
He kept our fires stoked
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The life of Hall Newbegin truly inspired what we did with this magazine. He kept us wild and kept our creative fires stoked.
We first met Hall at the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood. He put us up in a shared bunk room for the night and took us out on a hike to harvest wilderness perfume for his company Juniper Ridge. We thought he was crazy for digging a hole in the dirt, laying belly down, stuffing his face in the hole, and then asking us to do the same. Since we were out there working on a story about him, we did it. With the first deep breath of that hole our outlook changed. There is so much more to being wild than what can be seen. You have to smell the dirt and taste the tree sap to truly know how beautiful being wild feels. Every story we published after meeting Hall came from his face in the dirt approach to storytelling.
We’d hang out with Hall at trade shows. People would be buzzing around in the industry money feeding frenzy, but Hall would be dancing outside his van playing ukulele, tripping on mushrooms, and attracting all the other freaks. He was a magnet that brought Stay Wild together with so many other creative outsiders doing cool things.
Hall has passed away, but we will keep his spirit alive. We are deeply grateful that he stoked our fire.
Thank you Hall,
-Scrappers, and Stay Wild magazine.
A Canadian's Guide To Surfing & Giving Back
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Sri Lanka’s Southern Province
Photos and words by Lilly Woodbury // @lillywoodbury
This country was never quite on my radar until recently stumbling upon photos of glassy idyllic longboarding waves and hearing exotic tales from far out friends. It’s none other than Sri Lanka, known as the teardrop of India, a land famous for its precious gemstones, vibrant buddhist culture, and, increasingly, the surf culture that’s nestled along the tropical coastline. This past winter, I decided on a whim to redirect all of my travel plans and journey to Sri Lanka to immerse myself in all the wonders of this nation: from getting acquainted with some of the countless surf breaks in the Southern Province and seeking out meaningful ways to get involved in give back. If finding unique ways to connect with the environment and having a good time are up your adventure alley, then my experience will serve as a handy guideline for the unfolding of your future Sri Lanka trip!
Well-off in Weligama
I made my base in Weligama at The Spindrift Hostel, a modern oasis situated along a jungle alleyway, perpendicular to the Indian Sea. Each night this accomodation hosts new activities, a facilitated way to meet new travel pals and see some hidden gems of the area, or get to know the community within the hostel’s bright white walls. I chose Weligama as my headquarters for my swell based undertaking as it’s in the heart of all the Southern Province action, and close enough to numerous other cool spots to move around frequently and freely. If you like to be amongst the bustle but have access to easy escapes, then this is the locale you should also lust for!
What’s the sweet low-down on Weligama? The middle zone of the main beach is a beach break, great for longboarding and also great for sharing waves with a hundred and one people. If you do go here, be sure to brush up on your surf etiquette and do your best to navigate the travellers who haven’t. The best time to go is early in the morning, before the wind blows and the population spikes. In Weligama there’s also multiple opportunities to get your hands dirty in making the earth a little cleaner: every Friday, Freedom Surf School hosts a beach clean at 11 am to remove the plastic pollution plaguing the coastline. This issue has become an increasingly severe environmental problem in Sri Lanka, from the lack of waste management infrastructure, the absence of policy for regulating plastics - including equipment used in the fishing industry, and the overreliance on single-use plastics.
It’s important to note that the overdependence on this single-use plastic is connected to the void of environmental education, the fact that multinational corporations heavily market, and target their products to developing nations. In addition to joining this remediation effort, you can also work to avoid all unnecessary plastics on your trip, so check in with your accomodation to make sure their tap water is good to consume. I drank tap water with my reusable bottle during the entire trip and was absolutely fine, so please plan for this! Many businesses are jumping on board with this movement, and do not offer any single-use plastic takeaway packaging, so bring your reusables and get ready to refuse plastics no matter where you go.
The Photogenic Surf Scene: Mirissa
Just 8 km east of Weligama is the town of Mirissa, home to the commonly photographed lookout Coconut Hill, colourful vegan eateries like Ahimsa Vegan Cafe, and, yet again, another beach for you to expand your surf skills! The right-hander reef break on the west side of Mirissa Beach is best for folks with more intermediate experience, so if this is you, grab your board and head out with a camera pal, as this beach contains one of the most aesthetic surf backdrops. One of the most ideal ways to give back to yourself and the local area in Mirissa is to drop into Yoga For Street Dogs at Shady Lane Cafe. This takes place every morning at 7 am, besides Tuesday, and all proceeds go towards WECare, an organization dedicated to helping street dogs in the region. The street dogs in Sri Lanka are as prominent a fixture as the palm trees: they are everywhere, and unfortunately, they aren’t all in the best of health. These dogs don’t have access to veterinary care, neutering or vaccinations, and WeCare has filled this gap, providing this care, education and adoption for dogs in need. So far, this charity has helped and healed 6000 street dogs, and they are on a mission to increase the vitality of these pet-friendly animals across the southern coast. So, shimmy your way down to Shady Lane for this philanthropic class, and then indulge in their cafe with some of the most enticing smoothie bowls you’ll ever encounter.
After all of the surf and yoga, it’s a natural feeling for one to want to get a little loose (at least this is how I always feel), and one of the best spots to hit up from Weligama is The Doctor’s House in Madiha, a village to the east of Mirissa. The Doctor’s House is a 200-year-old former Dutch and Ayurvedic hospital, and has been transfixed by a group of Australian dudes into a restaurant, bar, shop and hotel. They have aimed to create one of the coolest and atmospheric scenes on the entire island, surrounded by intermediate to advanced surf breaks and equipped with a weekly Saturday market, live music nights, as well as regular fundraisers on Saturdays.
If you’re an activist like me, or, you’re inclined towards social and ecological justice in some way shape or form, and you also enjoy indulging in wilder nights, then the Doctor’s House has the perfect prescription: drinking for a cause! While I was in Sri Lanka, I volunteered for SeaSisters fundraiser at the Doctors House, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to create a more inclusive and respectful surf scene in Sri Lanka, and they do this by providing swim and surf lessons, along with gear, to women and girls. Due to gender norms and cultural expectations, many women do not have the opportunity and ability to enjoy the sea. What I especially love is that this organization connects social empowerment to environmental regeneration, as they work to reconnect local communities to the ocean, and raise awareness around environmental issues and solutions, and advocate for sustainable behaviours.
For the Highly Caffeinated: Psychedelic Bus Ride to Rainforest Reef Breaks
In the pouring rain, I decided to escape my cozy enclosure in Weligama and head to Dikwella, yet another beach town 38 km east of Weligama. Travelling this distance with a hired tuk-tuk can become quite pricey, so I suggest doing what I did and hopping on with the locals and experiencing the bus, which was about 50 some odd cents Canadian. The ride took about an hour, but in this time we encountered a wild array of scenic windy roads through the rainforest foliage, which also gave me time to meet locals and practice my Sinhala, the national language. The combination of the blue interior, bright flashing neon lights, friendly residents and the dance music videos playing on the vintage T.V. made it clear that North America needs to step up its transportation scene.
Arriving in Dikwella, I had a clear trajectory. I headed straight for Verse Collective, what I found to be Sri Lanka’s version of Bali’s Deus Temple of Enthusiasm: a trendy and tempting menu, ample caffeine, some naughtier libations, surfboards for sale, skateboards bedecking the walls, and an indoor living space that could be the envy of any contemporary interior decorating magazine. Instead of motorbikes, it adorned a mint green, perfectly polished tuk-tuk. I managed to find shelter here from the relentless downpour that swept up the whole Southern Province, drinking coffee, writing articles, and making my way through the Surf Sri Lanka Magazine: a must-have for surf lovers and all other sea faring folks who want to support the burgeoning recreative culture in this developing nation.
While you’re in Dikwella, be sure to walk the main beach, easily one of the most picturesque in the Southern Province, a wide expanse of white sand, palm fronds bordering the beach, and only a few businesses - making this stretch of coast a whole lot quieter than the rowdier neighbouring zones. I got caught up dancing in the rain there, with my shorts covered by my long Pacific Northwest rain jacket, and getting my driver to take photos of me, a common affair when travelling solo. From Dikwella Beach, it’s a hop, skip and a jump to Hiriketiya Beach, which is home to a beach break that’s great for beginners to learn from, and a point break on the east side of the beach for the more intermediate or advanced surfer. This was one of my most beloved surf breaks as it felt more removed from the roads, trains, people and pollution that can be seen from many other spots. Hirikiteya is a tempestuous paradise dream, and as the azulean skies melted into the sea around me, I knew there was no other place in the world I’d rather be. Now, following this, you’ll have worked up an appetite, so I suggest following in my footsteps and head to Salt, one of the most stunning yoga spots, with its open concept, ceramic white structures, and rotating door of different curious monkey visitors.
For the Sun Soaked and Lazy: Midigama
After partying, surfing, exploring, giving back and drinking enough caffeine to wake the living dead, I suggest heading to Midigama, the chilled-out neighbouring town a few kilometres west of Weligama. This is where I surfed a majority of the time, at a reef break called Lazy Left (perfect for goofy footers like myself), but this village also contains many other scenic breaks, including Coconuts, Plantation Point, Rams, and Lazy Right, all of which are a brief walking distance away from each other, and range from faster paced reef breaks to more laid-back long-board waves. Once you’re exhausted and starving from the surf, Midigama also has some great cafes: smoothie bowls at Secret Alley Cafe, healthy whole food meals at Ajna, and french press coffee at Jamu. In between all of the surfing and snacking, the coastline itself is stunning to traverse, especially the coconut plantation, whose beauty is honestly hard to comprehend.
I continually found myself en route to Midigama, to catch waves at Lazy’s, to share the waters with turtles that I would often mistake for dangerous snakes, with the aim of getting more comfortable dropping into walls of steep water over nearby beds of coral reef. So, it was suitable that I spent my last day here, soaking up all that I could of this lush country that eclipsed my expectations and left me with only the feeling of never wanting to leave. Some people don’t get emotional leaving places, and, frankly, I’ll never be one of those folks. I hope you find yourself on a similar passage, of chasing peaks, finding good-hearted fun, and always, always, seeking out the ways to make the places we visit better and brighter. There’s also countless more waves to drop into and ways to give back than what I’ve outlined here, so continue to tread your own traveller path and pursue what excites and enriches you!