Adventures in Shipping

When we were up on Vancouver Island for our last release party of Stay Wild's spring issue we witnessed something very cool. We were shooting sling shots at hand painted targets inside Sitka when a crew of dudes showed up with fancy back packs in tow. They had just stepped of a sail boat they raced in record time from Astoria Oregon to Vancouver Island. One of the crew members was Luke Mathers from Truce designs a backpack company that Sitka wanted to carry in their store. So instead of just mailing the backpacks Luke turned the shipping process into a real adventure on a sail boat. See the video and read the interview below for more details:

What happens if someone falls off the boat?

We have a man overboard procedure and a few pieces of equipment to deal with that possibility... but  It's definitely one of the worst things that could happen.  Without a drysuit, the chances of survival off the PNW coast would go down very quickly.  The main piece of equipment is a harness and tether that always stays clipped in to a 'jackline,' in this case a length of thick Kevlar webbing running down the length of the boat.  Everyone also has PFDs, high-visibility hoods and strobe lights that would help us stay afloat and visible for a short time.  One person on the boat would be assigned to keep an eye on the man overboard, while the rest quickly drop the sails and start the engine.  It'd be a lot easier to reach the person overboard being able to head in any direction and slow down quickly to fish them out.  Although as the swell increases, your heading options decrease - a wave could swamp the boat if it's not taken well.

You guys lost a sail in the race. Is that pretty common?

We tore our spinnaker in the first few hours of the race, it's not uncommon in heavy wind conditions when people are really pushing their boats.  Unfortunately we weren't the only boat to lose a sail, it's good for the sail lofts who get to repair them though - and hopefully for Truce as well! Once a sail is beyond repair, we recycle the material to make new bags.

How did the crew come together?

The guys who own the boat are good at keeping a solid crew going, for this race is was mostly about who was into it and didn't mind being wet for a couple days!  I met them originally through my friend and fellow sail loft employee, she's a great sailor and the guys who own the boat love having her and her friends aboard.  There's lots of sailing and racing on the Columbia river in summer, and there are usually boats looking for dedicated crew members.

Are your bags designed to hold up to the rainy Northwest climate exclusively or would they work well in tropical paradise too?

Truce packs were designed for the Northwest, but work well in any weather.  With our seam sealed liner, they can keep gear dry in any downpour while also being great travel bags.  We always love getting feedback and photos from customers to see where they've taken their packs!

Why didn't you just ship the bags there. Wait, never mind, that's exactly what you did.

Haha yep, it was our most carbon neutral (and fun!) product delivery to date!  Now if only we could use the same technique to deliver some packs to Japan or New Zealand...

Got any photos of the bags you took to Sitka?

See more of what Truce does HERE>>>

Fortune Wild

Fortune Found
A Sitka Adventure

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Words by Malcolm Johnson and Reid & Arran Jackson
Photos by Kyler Vos and Rene Gauthier

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Some time in the Long Ago, on the narrow spit that marks the northeastern tip of Haida Gwaii,
Raven happened on a clamshell half-buried in a heap of kelp. There were strange noises coming from the shell, so he pulled it free with his beak and leaned in for a closer look. Raven found that the clamshell was filled with tiny, chattering creatures, hiding in fright from the loud rush of the waves and the bright glare of the springtime sun.

Those tiny creatures were the first humans, and the late Haida artist Bill Reid completes the story:

“So the Raven leaned his great head close to the shell, and with the smooth trickster’s tongue that had got him out of so many mis-adventures in his troubled and troublesome existence, he coaxed and cajoled and coerced the little creatures to come out and play in his wonderful, shiny new world.”

On this chain of islands far off the coast of British Columbia, the humans and the wilder things have been living in something close to harmony ever since. The traditional homeland of the Haida people, the archipelago formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands remains a stronghold of proud indigenous culture and profound natural beauty. It also happens to be loaded with surf potential – hollow beachbreaks, meandering rivermouth rights, and, if myths are to be believed, a few deepwater reefs that can hold waves
as tall as the ancient trees that line the shore.

Last year, an adventuresome crew that included Peter Devries, Noah Cohen, and brothers Reid and Arran Jackson set off into a rarely surfed area of Haida Gwaii to start filming The Fortune Wild. A Sitka Films production directed by Ben Gulliver, it’s a plucky little story about surfing the farthest corners of the Pacific Northwest – and about exploring and preserving this shiny new world that Raven welcomed us into so long ago.

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I can’t imagine what life would’ve been like had I not spent my formative years near the ocean and discovered surfing at a young age. Every surfer dreams of solo sessions in perfect waves, and for those of us living in the Pacific Northwest those sessions can be found closer to home than one might imagine.  – Reid

Growing up on Vancouver Island with an active family, many of our weekends were spent touring around in kayaks or going biking or hiking. Sea kayaking was a huge inspiration and introduction to the ways of the ocean. But when Reid and I started surfing, our parents compromised and let us tow our boards behind the boats so we could enjoy the new beaches we discovered wherever we went. – Arran

The Sitka trip to Haida Gwaii had been a dream of ours for years, and we finally decided it was time to make it happen. Some research had us stumbling on an oasis screaming with surf potential, and after a lot of dreaming and scheming, emails and phone calls, plane rides and boat rides, we actually pulled it off.
When we arrived, we spent three days on Graham Island, the largest island in the archipelago. It was our last chance to gather camping essentials and complete our mountainous packs. Standing on the beach, we looked at the trees surrounding us and knew those were the same trees the first explorers saw when they arrived.
The last evening before taking off, we spent a little time running errands in town. By the time we were ready to go, the sun had set and the wind and rain had come up. I was standing barefoot in my shorts with the wet and cold hitting my face and muck between my toes. We were about to paddle our fully loaded canoe through the blinding wind and darkness to an island off of an island. I turned to face our destination and howl into the night. The adventure had only just begun, and I felt ready for anything. – Reid

For months, we’d been studying maps and trying to imagine what it would be like. As we approached our campsite, the visions I had in my mind started to take shape before my eyes. We rounded the sandbar to see little wedges peeling down the beach, and then it took some time to figure out where to land and pull our gear to shore.
Once we were on the beach, the boys were freaking out. Ben Gulliver and Kyler Vos were fumbling with their camera gear, Pete was running down the beach to check the bar and the rest of us were getting dizzy from trying to decide where to set up camp while still peeking out from the trees to call out good sets to each other.
We were like kids in a candy shop. I took a step back to absorb all that was happening around me with a shit-eating grin plastered to my face like pre-pubescent acne. It was sensory overload. – Arran

While the waves were flat, we enjoyed some of the other activities our little piece of coast had to offer. Fishing, hiking, foraging, and relaxing in homemade saunas were our go-to pursuits. But the timing of the trip had also brought a ton of garbage to the shores from the tsunami in Japan, as well as from the normal marine debris. We fashioned the waste we collected into sports equipment like basketball nets and hockey sticks to stay active. Exploring our surroundings around camp was an endless adventure – many moons ago, our temporary home was likely a summer fishing camp, but it had been centuries since it had been left to the wild and months, if not years, since humans had last been there.
We felt lucky to be able to roam free with only the deer watching as we played. Hundreds of years earlier, Haida people were making a life there; some years after that, European settlers may have been plying the local waters. But that week, we had that wild coast to ourselves to feed on and play on. – Reid

When you put all your effort into planning and imagining a place, then have that dream become reality, that is one true sense of human happiness. – Arran  

More at sitka.ca

The Fortune Wild - Trailer from Sitka on Vimeo.

Spring Issue Release Tour

We delivered the magazine all up and down the west coast from San Diego to Vancouver Island in this big ass truck we borrowed from our buddy AL "The Owl"!!!
Everyday was another adventure revolving around delivering the magazine to awesome shops, surfing, having release parties, meeting tons of epic people, camping, and getting wild.

Special thanks to the places that hosted our release parties:

Los Angeles // Space15Twenty / Without Walls
Tues 4/22, 7-9:30pm

San Diego // Gym Standard
Thurs 4/24, 6-9pm

Laguna Beach // Thalia Surf Shop
Fri 4/25, 6-9pm

Ventura // Iron and Resin
Sat 4/26, 6-9pm

Victoria BC // Sitka
Sat 5/10, 6-9pm

Get on your Bike and Ride!!!

Stay Wild: Ride a Motorcycle from Chris Lopez on Vimeo.

We posted this tiny video on our instagram feed last week with like ZERO info abut it.

Here's a Q&A with the film-maker and Stay Wild's bad-ass intern Chris Lopez!

What is the footage from?

This footage is from the summer of 2013. My friends, Jake Skirving, Tyler Heyl, and myself were toying around with the idea of starting some sort of small video production, design, and photography collective. Tyler is a photographer, Jake and myself are designers and dabble in photography. We all want to do something creative and eventually want to work together, so we decided to make the work that we want to do for fun. That way we learn hands on and if the end product turns out good enough we can use it to show others what we can do.

So Jake built a giant dry erase board and we set up outside his band room in Boring, Oregon. We  brainstormed topics for a video, until we decided on making a short motorcycle video. There are a lot of windy country roads with great views through forests that open up to a killer view of Mt. Hood out in Boring. We decided to film my friend Jake who rides a stripped down 1975 CB360, it’s about as cafe racer as it gets. The bike is dark and aggressive so we wanted the riding and music in the video to stay consistent with the tone we had set.

The story is that an anonymous guy (we never show his face because we wanted the viewer to be able to place himself/herself in this guy’s shoes) with street clothes slowly prepares himself for a ride but as soon as that garage door raises he’s balls to the wall shreddin’. Our goal was to show that for this guy his bike, is his escape. When he gets on it he can’t help but to redline it.

We were going to make another video that features myself, riding more lightheartedly. Using my bike for going on camping trips, hauling crap around, breaking down, etc.

Think you’ll be able to finish the video this summer?

We have most of the b-roll shot, locations scouted, and the rest of the shots storyboarded. We all just need to coordinate our days off so that we can shoot one or two days a week. So to answer your question, yeah I think we’ll be able to finish it this summer.

What’s up with that music?

The music is by King Dude from Seattle, Washington. The song is called “Holy Land.” My friend Jake recently found out that one of his co-workers at Tanner Goods was King Dude’s roommate at the time he wrote “Burning Daylight” the album that “Holy Land” is on. Small world.

We put Jake on music duty while Tyler and I were looking up shots we wanted to get and camera techniques. Jake showed us a handful of dark sounding songs that evoked the emotion we were trying to go for. King Dude’s Holy Land felt the best so we went with that.

What’s the wildest you’ve ever felt?

Maybe skinny dipping in the Willamette off the dock by OMSI, or making sweet love on the edge of a cliff in the middle of the night.