As the familiar crisp edge begins to bite into the shortening days, my thoughts become clearer and I begin to dream again of colder climates and distant lands.  I first went to Vancouver Island in 2005 to meet some of Canadian surfing’s most interesting characters and pioneers. This was the journey that planted the seed for Cold Water Souls - an anthropological exploration of some of the world’s least hospitable surfing locales – and a book that was some 5 years in the making so it was a pleasure to talk to journalist Kate MacLennan about the Island’s surf scene for Canadian lifestyle quarterly Montecristo. _CN

Wave of Rumination – Kate MacLennan

By the time Chris Nelson’s voice makes it up to the the satellite and back down to Vancouver, it is already dark in the Badlands. Our interview is deliberately happening after the fleeting sun as set lest Nelson miss an evening paddle out..Nelson a journalist had spent the latter part of the past decade touring the northern hemisphere to chronicle the birth of cold water surf communities, visiting Iceland, Japan, Scotland and Vancouver Island. His book Cold Water Souls: In Search of Srfing’s Cold Water Pioneers was said to have ‘unearthed a whole new sub species in the surfing genus’ by revered niche magazine The Surfer’s Path...cont…