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Invited North

Stay Wild

 

Vans hikes to Canada with the Joel Tudor Duct Tape Invitational

Story & Photos by Evan Schell evanschell.com // @theslipperysaltwaterchronicles

Two hundred miles west of Vancouver, Canada is a small, coastal town called Tofino. Situated on the northern region of the Esowista Peninsula, Tofino’s natural beauty is absolutely mesmerizing. Temperate rainforests made up of spruce, cedar, and hemlock trees line the Pacific Rim Highway that ends in downtown Tofino. Made up of equal parts tourists and friendly locals, downtown Tofino is a surf-centric locale full of great restaurants, shops, and a beautiful view of the neighboring islands to the north that make up the Clayoquot Sound.

Over the last two decades Tofino has steadily become a popular cold-water surf destination. A handful of local surfers have gained global notoriety in the surfing world, which in turn has helped spotlight this small region of British Columbia. This has led to a number of professional surfing contests taking place at local breaks like Cox Bay. Last year was the first time that Vans held the Joel Tudor Duct Tape Invitational event at Cox Bay, where sixteen surfers from all over the world competed for a cash prize and bragging rights. When Vans and Joel Tudor returned this year, they decided to change up the event format to make it more inclusive and fun for the local surfers of Tofino. Vans team riders Dane Reynolds, Alex Knost, Tanner Gudauskas, and Joel Tudor each shaped two surfboards that anyone at the beach could ride. The Duct Tape Festival was the epitome of a perfect beach day. Sunny skies, fun waves, and great people lined the beach for a full day of good times.

Well-known local photographer, Jeremy Koreski, began documenting surfing, skating, and Tofino’s unique natural landscapes as a teenager. Over the years Jeremy and his photography have not only helped local surfers gain more exposure outside of Tofino, but he has also teamed up with environmental NGOs like Central Westcoast Forest Society to help protect and educate people about sustainable forestry management in Tofino and the surrounding islands.

Surfers are inherently interconnected with the natural world, whether they realize it or not. In Tofino, it’s obvious that the locals have a heightened understanding of the importance of preserving and protecting the beautiful coastline that they rely on. 

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DirtQuake 2017

Stay Wild

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My Personal Agenda

Stay Wild

Confessions of an amateur industry outsider.

Words by Justin “Scrappers” Morrison

Photos by Sera Lindsey

When I make the trip to Agenda Long Beach every 6 months I bring my business cards to exchange during businessy hand shakes, but instead I get my hair cut at Victorious, share family-style hugs, and witnessing the evolution of the industry. My business cards stay in the pocket.

Agenda is one of the last great trade shows standing in the ashes of a crumbling industry. I’m just an amateur industry outsider, I could be wrong, I’m surly over-simplifying things, I don't know shit, but it looks like the industry ecosystem has evolved and so has the trade show. 

RETAIL EVOLVED - Customers buy online directly from brands now, so big box retail is dead. The Amazon effect has spread. People spend more time in their social feeds then wandering the mall. The way we shop has changed. The “Buy Now” button has replaced the cashier. 

EXHIBITS EVOLVED - Exhibitors don’t need to meet face to face with retailers to line up huge wholesale orders at a table anymore. Booth space has become parking space for cool cars and art shows. The booth space has become ad space.

 

SPORT EVOLVED - Camping is the new sport of choice. Poler brought “Camp Vibes” to the action sport industry and those vibrations had a big effect. Leading surf and skate brands like Hurley, Sanuk, and Vans now make goods that appeal to road-tripping happy-camper hikers. Even brands like Patagonia, Yeti, Hydroflask, and Polartec have left the Outdoor Retailer trade show to exhibit at Agenda.

ADVERTISING EVOLVED - Brands create their own content and share their own stories, so advertising agencies and advertising outlets have no reason to schmooze in the booth now. Traditional advertising is dead. Brand manifestos and huge marketing campaigns are a memory. Fully-funded creative content scrolls past our eyes now. A good story told by a real person is more effective than a logo-covered billboard now.   

FAME EVOLVED - The sponsored competitive athlete lost the popular vote to the faceless side boob social media ambassador. Brands don’t pay surfers to surf in their name like they used to, they pay road trippers to tag them in photos. I've noticed the word “Performance” has been replaced by the word “Vibes”.

EDITORIAL EVOLVED - Magazines no longer need to be printed or be the voice to their readers, they can make more money as digital talent agencies. Livefastmag.com had a booth showcasing their new creative service wing of the business called Pepper. It’s their way of creating content for brands without being seen as a collaboration with the magazine. Is this the new ad agency model? I’m not sure, but it looks like brands are doing this more than they do traditional advertising.

AGENDA EVOLVED - The Agenda Show is fading away in the light of The Agenda Festival. This year the doors opened to the public selling tickets to over 10,000 people who wanted to see the exhibits on their way to the music stages to see big acts like Tyler the Creator, Ludacris, and Lil’ Dicky.

LONG BEACH DOESN'T CARE - Despite all the industry evolutions I see at Agenda, my favorite stuff is happened in the neighborhood. The independent shops outside of the trade show serve their community, not the industry. I met a lot of kind and friendly locals at Port’s ping pong paddle art show. They reminded me that I actually don’t give a shit about the industry and how it’s evolving. All I really care about are good vibrations from real people like you.

Maybe the biggest change is that things have become more personal?

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Island Foxes

Stay Wild

 

Exploring One of California’s Forgotten Islands with the Stay Wild Adventure Club

Story by Justin “Scrappers” Morrison // @scrappers

Photos by Sera Lindsey // @portablesera

Julie Pinzur // @mokuyobithreads

Alex Seastrom // @mowglisurf

Renee Lusano // @wrenees

When we got back to shore, my colorful new backpack had been unzipped by island foxes, or Urocyon littoralis if you’re scientific. Using their tiny teeth, they pulled towels and water toys out looking for food, sunblock, or anything they could snack on. The joke was on them though — I left all of our food back on the mainland. Back at the grocery store. Back where I forgot to buy food for everyone on this camping trip to eat. Ha-haw! Take that, you cute snack-sized foxes. Take that joke and eat it!

The island fox, or snack fox if you will, is native to the Channel Islands. Most national parks have big hot geysers, giant waterfalls, thousand-year-old trees, and other majestic things like mountains. The Channel Islands National Park has snack foxes. All day long they roam the beach and campgrounds looking for cute bite-sized trouble to get into. 

The snack fox was standing on the edge of extinction not long ago when their numbers dropped below 100. Even though they are snack-sized, they are the largest native animal on the islands. The only critters bigger than them were the bald eagles who prefer to snack on fish, not foxes. When the island’s bald eagle populations died off due to DDT chemical insecticides, the fox-snacking golden eagle moved in. The golden eagle snacked so hard on the foxes that the foxes were added to the endangered species list in 2004. But hey, cheer up! Hard-working biologists and volunteers cleaned up the DDT, relocated the golden eagles, and reintroduced the bald eagles, restoring the ecological balance of things. By 2016 the snack fox numbers rose back up thanks to a captive breeding program. They became the fastest critter to be added and removed from the endangered species list. 

Today’s snack foxes are just listed as “near threatened,” but I think their legal status should be “damn cute.” Every trail we wandered had a snack fox running along it just teasing you like a sidewalk cat who wants to be picked up. While I got water from the campground spigot, a snack fox licked from the puddle. I could not resist reaching down and petting its soft fur. Sorry, national park rangers. I’m sure it’s illegal to touch them, but I swear we didn’t feed them. We didn’t have any food.

The friends on this trip have all lived in California for most of our lives, but none of us have been to these islands. It’s crazy to think that a national park is so close to Los Angeles. I think most Californians overlook it because you can’t drive to it. We took an hour-long boat ride from Ventura, stopping only to gaze at dolphins and blue whales jumping out of the water. We also stopped to pick up mylar balloons. 

Our campsite was only $15 and we reserved it a week before pitching our tents. Most Southern Californian car campers have to book campsites months in advance and pay up to $60 a night for a site that’s more of an RV parking lot than a camp. 

We hiked and explored the dusty trails snaking their way out of camp and up to epic lookouts. We smelled flowers and climbed trees. We had all kinds of dumb fun. Using collapsible ORU kayaks, Renee and Sera towed me, Julie, and Alex around the bay in a fun train of floaties. My floaty was the size of a toilet seat, so I had to swim along to be the caboose. A sea lion popped up and snarled like a protective dog. I stopped being the caboose and swam the fawk out of the ocean.

Water slapped the brown agates on the beach till they were wet and shiny. The rocks reminded me of those root beer bottle gummy candies. I skipped rocks shaped like perfect York peppermint patties. The vivid California poppies reminded me of that orange crunchy stuff inside a Butterfingers candy bar. Everything in nature can be compared to some kind of candy when you’re hungry enough.

Later on, the Island Packers ferry boat docked and unloaded fresh faces to the island. I smooth-talked my way to the galley and bought all the food I could carry in my tiny hands. Stumbling back down the beach to my hungry friends, I juggled granola bars, bruised bananas, oranges, and candy bars. We snacked hard like snack foxes. 

This adventure was made with help from our friends at Sanuk

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