A really fun memory of mine from home is from when I was about eight. My sister and my mom were sort of famous when I was quite young, before I got into surfing too much, and we had just come back from a trip to Hawaii. So I had gotten some experience there. We got home and I really wanted to go surf, but it was much bigger than I had been surfing. I managed to time it right and get out the back with them. It was my first time surfing with the two of them, like up the back — and they definitely were freaking out that I was out there with them. Seeing how nervous they were out there, I got a little nervous myself! I started to try and get out, but the only way to do that really is to get a wave. So I ended up getting, for me at that age, a very big wave. It was a special moment because I was all proud of myself for getting out there with them!

There’s this one wave that we surf pretty often. It has a rocky, pebbly beach, and grey whales will come up rub their stomachs on it to scratch themselves. There’s been a couple times where they’ll float in, float around and then swim back out. We were surfing a wave very closely, and a mom and a baby whale swam probably like 20 feet from us, which was super cool. It felt like they were right underneath me at one point.

Growing up in Tofino and on that coastline has 100 per cent made me the person that I am today. It’s where I fell in love with surfing and where I found my passion for the sport. The cold water definitely has shaped me. It is a little harder to motivate yourself to surf in Canada and in colder water, but it also makes it more special. I love the ritual of it — it takes more preparation to go out into the water. When I have my wetsuit on, and my hood, and I’m in my little bubble, that’s definitely when I feel the most myself.

Land Acknowledgement: Tofino is on the traditional and unceded territory of the ƛaʔuukʷiʔatḥ (Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation).