Skateboarding has done a complete 540 since the days I rolled down the street on my Powell-Peralta Caballero deck, Tracker trucks and OJ’s.
Growing up in Vancouver we didn’t have a big range of options for terrain. The cul-de-sac out front of my house was littered with blast ramps and quarter-pipes that I built (with stolen wood, but that’s another story). My friends and I used to wheel a ramp a couple kilometers down the road to a big brick building to do some wall riding.
There were only two skate parks in those days: the Broadway bowls and the North Van bowls. My preferred stomping grounds was the one in the North Shore. It had a big snake run that led to a deep bowl. We’d ride up and down the banks, picking up momentum, then dip down and up the bowl and launch an air out the other side.
The author gets air, circa 1988
There was also the Richmond Skate Ranch, but that was far and you had to pay to get into the warehouse full of halfpipes, so more likely for us was the concrete playground of downtown Vancouver — the steps and rails of the art gallery and anything we could find before being chased away by security guards.
But enough reminiscing. Although the board has been put away for a long time, I still love to stop and watch the skaters anytime I’m out. The sport is different, evolving way beyond my ability levels. The sticker “Skateboarding Is Not A Crime” doesn’t make sense anymore, because it no longer is a crime. As Chris Young of the Vancouver Skateboarders Coalition says:
“10 years ago kids were getting tickets, getting their boards confiscated, and there was nowhere to skate except for China Creek.”
In Vancouver the scene is thriving. One of Vancouver’s premier bloggers, Miss 604, brought to my attention that this week, June 15-22, has been offically named Skateboard Week in Vancouver.
It’s sanctioned by the city, and has been announced by Commissioner Sarah Blyth on behalf of Mayor Gregor Robertson. The week culminates in Go Skateboarding Day with the Emerica team on Sunday, June 21.
These days, skate parks are popping up regularly, including six new ones in the past 10 years, and the VSBC are a major part of the sport’s success. To hear these words from the Vancouver mayor was something I would never have dreamed about in my youth:
“NOW THEREFORE, I, Mayor Gregor Robertson, on behalf of the City of Vancouver, do hereby proclaim June 15 – 22, 2009 as “Skateboarding Week” to recognize the importance of this sport in our city.”
Congratulations, Vancouver.
COMMUNITY CONNECTION
For a glimpse of what Vancouver looked like 20 years ago in the skate scene, check out Baxter Jackson’s article, Egypt’s Emerging Skate Scene.
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11 Comments... join the discussion!
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Ahh, yes, the Walnut grove ramp! Is that a young Animal Chin in the background?
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Carlo- I loved this piece and the photo especially!
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I second that–this is great.
I’m a big fan of the photo too. I smell a new photo essay…The Way We Were: The Matador Team in the 80s.
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Hal, bloody brilliant idea.
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Thanks guys…by the way, that little guy is my nephew. He was 2 there I think. He’s now about a foot taller than me.
This was a fun piece to write, there’s nothing like going down memory lane. I only have fond memories of my skateboarding days. A few years ago I bought a setup, just for fun, and would go to the parking lot and bust a couple of moves, a kickflip here, grind there…then I went with a friend to a skatepark, fell and remembered how hard concrete was. That was about it for me.
I’m trying to remember the name of the board I’m riding here. I have the graphic clear in my head, but the name is escaping me. My favourite deck was a Natas Kaupas mini (SMA if I remember right), and the last deck, which I snapped in half, was a Ray Barbee.
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We’ve come a long way, baby.
These little whipper snappers today don’t know how hard we had it way back when we had to skate through snow uphill (both ways) just to hit a launch ramp! (See the pic of Carlo if you don’t believe me).
‘Go Skateboarding Day’ is not only in Vancouver, it’s in in Abu Dhabi, UAE every year (really is global now). Still, in the neighboring Sultanate of Oman, when I skate to the store from my villa to the store or to the sheesha cafe, I get the same incredulous looks I did when I was a kid back in the ’80’s.
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I remembered the deck! It’s a Mark “Gonz” Gonzales…made by VIsion. And you can get a complete setup through Amazon for $69 – http://www.amazon.com/VISION-Skateboards-RE-ISSUE-Complete-SKATEBOARD/dp/B00210O4KE
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Thanks for the article and using my photo from the Coquitlam skate park. Growing up in Whalley, i did some street skating to get around but now i take my kid to the skate parks far and wide since we live in North Van.
You might enjoy a few a artifacts from a mixed media story piece i did about LongBoard Hockey League:
http://feasthouse.wordpress.com/2007/04/03/longbord-hockey-article-in-heads-magazine/
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Sweet, DaveO. I’ve actually seen people playing this before, I think it was at Sunset Beach (English Bay)…down on Beach Ave. Thanks!
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