Lake Superior Pandemic Surfing
Looking for some social distancing? There aren’t many crowds in the frigid waters of Lake Superior this time of year.
Video by Samantha Lindberg.
Looking for some social distancing? There aren’t many crowds in the frigid waters of Lake Superior this time of year.
Video by Samantha Lindberg.
This video by Erik Wilkie documents a Sept. 3 surf outing at Stoney Point on Lake Superior, just south of Knife River.
Hudson-based F3 Visuals shot this Lake Superior surf video earlier this year and released it this week.
This video by Erik Wilkie documents a Jan. 20 surfing expedition on Lake Superior when the temperature was -15 Fahrenheit.
Shoe company Vans brings its branded content team to Duluth, and the locals show them some of the winter surf “hot” spots.
Once again Brent Eliason of Ease Drones has captured some exceptional aerial video of Lake Superior surfers at Stoney Point. The footage is from Dec. 28.
“All the surfers in this video were killing it!!!” Eliason wrote in the YouTube description. “My favorite shots are between 2:20 and 2:40. At 2:20 you will see UMD’s Randy Carlson just dominating on the SUP.”
Flashback to the big storm on Oct. 10: Brent Eliason of Ease Drones shot this aerial video as surfers took advantage of the 50 m.p.h. wind gusts at Stoney Point on Lake Superior.
Ten years ago — Dec. 10, 2008 — City Pages profiled Duluth surfer Greg Isaacson.
In 1975, he found himself paddling out onto Lake Superior with a few local fishermen looking at him like he was insane. Isaacson went out in the middle of a storm. He wore the top half of a diving suit, which gave his arms all the flexibility and natural movement of the Michelin Man. This jerry-rigged outfit, combined with the glacial temperatures of the water, allowed him just 20 minutes of water time.
But the first wave he caught was magic.
High-definition videos of people surfing Lake Superior have become a fairly regular thing on Perfect Duluth Day in recent years. The short and fuzzy one above lacks the quality we’re used to these days, but is featured today because it’s ten years old and might be the first Lake Superior surf video published on PDD — or maybe anywhere else. (Prove that assertion wrong and find an older one.)
Barrett Chase posted this clip on April 10, 2008. He noted winds were at 40 m.p.h.
“Check out this short video snippet of some crazies surfing on Lake Insanity near Lester River today just before the onset of the blizzard,” he wrote.
Video by Spencer Nelson.
Yes, this is the third time in two weeks that Perfect Duluth Day has featured a Lake Superior surfing video. It just happens to be what people are making good videos about these days. This one is the second surf video by Jasper Meddock Productions, shot on April 20 at Stoney Point, about seven miles north of Duluth in Duluth Township. The music is “Quick Musical Doodles” by Two Feet.
Jasper Meddock Productions shot this video at the mouth of the Lester River in Duluth on April 10. The song is “How Low” by José González.
In the August/September issue of Surfer magazine, Justin Housman travels to Duluth to discover “that isolated Midwestern surf scene” on Lake Superior, where surfers “chisel boards free from the roofs of their snowbound cars, trudge through forests and thigh-deep snow, paddle out for a few frigid waves, then emerge from the water with icicles growing from their shocked, pink faces.”
Video by Ali Rogers of Prana Lens. Narration by Rob Bell.
Video by Kyle James.
