Twelve-thousand years ago, people stood on the shores of the California coast just south of Point Conception and north of present-day Gaviota and marveled at their good fortune. Mild weather. A south-facing coastline protected from the shrieking winds to the north. Bountiful seafood, plenty of game in the hills and spring-fed creeks spilling down from low-lying coastal mountains. In the winter, as they launched canoes from sandy creek mouths tucked into the lees of points, they would have paddled wide of waves peeling like pinwheels over cobblestone and reef-dotted bottoms; perhaps the paddlers looked into the almond eyes of green tubes spiraling empty toward the clean yellow sand, an oar raised in appreciation and awe. History has long forgotten if it ever knew, the names of the original inhabitants of that idyllic stretch of coast. After who knows how many generations, the people living there came to call themselves the Chumash—a word that roughly translates as “shell collectors.”
When the Spanish arrived in Southern California in the 1700s, the Chumash had developed into a bustling society of fisherman, hunters, artisans and shaman. Their culture was complex and sophisticated, and their food supply so rich it afforded ample free time to enjoy the golden coast. The Chumash lived a lifestyle unrivaled anywhere else in pre-historic North America. Soon after the first Spanish arrived, though, the Chumash were mostly gone, victims first of exotic European diseases, then the predatory mission system and finally the cultural bulldozer that was the relentless advance of the American West. The point-studded coastline, however, remained mostly as it was. The emerald green waves still peeled, the golden grasses waved, the wind still rushed through wild canyons, smelling of live oak and sage, the very essence of coastal California.
Bu hikaye Surfer dergisinin Volume 61, Issue 3 / Winter 2020 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye Surfer dergisinin Volume 61, Issue 3 / Winter 2020 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
60 Years Ahead
We had a whole plan for this year. Funny, right? Surfer's 60 year anniversary volume was going to be filled with stories nodding to SURFER’s past, with cover concepts paying homage to the magazine’s most iconic imagery. Our new Page One depicts something that’s never happened in surfing before, let alone on a prior SURFER cover. And our table of contents was completely scrapped and replaced as we reacted to the fizzing, sparking, roiling world around us. In other words, 2020 happened to SURFER, just like it happened to you.
A Few Things We Got Horribly Wrong
You don’t make 60 years of magazines without dropping some balls. Here are a few
THE LGBTQ+ WAVE
Surf culture has a long history of marginalizing the LGBTQ+ community, but a new generation of queer surfers is working to change that
For Generations to Come
Rockaway’s Lou Harris is spreading the stoke to Black youth and leading surfers in paddling out for racial justice
Christina Koch, 41
Texas surfer, NASA astronaut, record holder for the longest continuous spaceflight by a woman
END TIMES FOR PRO SURFING
By the time the pandemic is done reshaping the world, will the World Tour still have a place in it?
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
After decades of exclusive access to Hollister Ranch, the most coveted stretch of California coast is finally going public
What They Don't Tell You
How does becoming a mother affect your surfing life?
Four Things to Make You Feel A Little Less Shitty About Everything
Helpful reminders for the quarantine era
The Art of Being Seen
How a group of black women are finding creative ways to make diversity in surfing more visible