The Great Lakes Has Peeling Pointbreaks?
Kevin Schulz takes us inside Toronto’s thriving grassroots surf scene.
Economists look at factors like stability, healthcare, culture, environment, education and infrastructure to determine a city’s ‘liveability’. But of course, you will find plenty of surfers dwelling in harsh places, swatting malaria mozzies in dense Indonesian jungle, or in conflict torn zones along Africa’s coastline, or in the rugged solitude of the South Australian desert purely due to wave quality.
Toronto by many metrics is one of the most liveable places in the world. Vibrant, multicultural, safe, clean, progressive, but like any landlocked city for surfers, Toronto has its downsides – expensive, noisy, busy, stressful, horizonless. “A lot of people are just spinning their wheels to pay their rent,” says Antonio Lennert from Surf the Greats surf shops in the heart of Toronto. “Surfing has allowed people who are constantly hustling just to make a living to reconnect with nature in a meaningful way.”
Watch Kevin Schulz’s tour of Toronto grassroots lake surfing scene, their characters and the dreamy pointbreak setups that peel when the wind blows just right.
