The Global SUP Community

Billy Harris writes in from a library somewhere in the NorthWest Territory. Wild animals, long drives and the Slave River

It hit me about 14 hours into the drive, why would anyone go this far to go surf a couple of waves. Nothing from what I heard about the Slave river is small and that includes the drive up there. The whole thing is without a doubt the most reduculus drive ever concived and to boot I along with my fellow idiots had to pay a 10 toll for the ride. Bozos the whole lot of us, all this driving and danger to do circles in water. It comes down to the fact that not only are we paying for longest drive to a river that I have ever made but the whole way Deer and I mean big Canadian deer are trying to commit suicide. Elk, wolves, fox, and Swamp donkeys all had a shot at us. My eyes were wide my lips were curled my brian was fried my hands were gripped to the dash like a toung to a slead in a middle of a blizzard. Jock Bradley a professional photographer with Rippin Productions at the helm scared the lights out of me. As you can imagine we are not too sharp at 345 am and the wild life tested us again and again. The old boy, Jock, drove from Seattle to Dawson Creek Albert in 19 hours. The sun came up about 345 am right in our faces to make the evil stretch of highway all the uglier.

Jock I love dearly drives like a mad man, His comfort level in speed is way far above mine will ever be. Like most country hicks I grew up in the sticks. Like any country kid I'll go out of my way to dodge a moose swirve for a deer. However I would ride the ditches for a ground Hog………. About Jasper we hit a road block, Barrier a small town had lit on fire and we realized that the Wavesport Rep Kevin Henderson lived there. We paused for a moment of silence and pushed on.

Well to cut a long story short the river is massive.

(anna git-n-it) gidi up anna…..
We surfed at the scarrest wae I have ever seen. The edge as its called is the biggest wave beside the ugliest hole ever. The wave pushes into the hole and the water behind the wave pushes into the hole. There is an eddy behind that you can get all beat up in. Its not even funny when someone else is betting beat down.

Well on day two I was in a rush to go back and there is this big ass hill to slide down. I got to the top and Andrew Holcombe was sliding down just a head of me and I wanted to catch him. The hill is really steep and goes forever. I was gaining on him fast, really fast and then I screamed and rammed him so hard that I deflected off to the right and into the manky mank bushes hitting a tree. I managed to get back on track and came to a hault on the beach laughing with Andrew. Then he said. "where's your helmet at". Dam…… I was walking as fast as I could and the mosquitos were on me. I have this can of DEET in my lifejacket pocket. I wear an Extrasport rescue vest and you can fit all sorts of stuff in there. Well I was trying not to stop and I managed to hit the button on the top of the can while I was struggling to get it out of the pocket. The mouth of course was wide open taking in air when I hit the handy button on top. I managed to blast the roof of my mouth squarely with a well shaken can of deet and I thought that I was going to DIE. I breathed in for a moment I had to cause I was close to death climbing the hill to begin with. As I inhailed I almost blacked out, I let out a gaaakkkk and snapped my mouth shut. My eyes somehow were closed but my tounge as a write this is still tingling and everything tastes like well Deet. Deet is no breath fresher Let me tell you.
Well harris was in luck. The nice lady that hooked us up with the Tage_Mahaul of paddling palaces invited us all over for a swett lodge. The Chief really big dude with long hair and slow deliberate talk was the man in charge. He was really hard to make small talk with. If you said, "beautiful day hungh or you been here long" he would just ignore you. Not much in the way of chit chat. That went for the rest of the family too. But whoooooooooo do they have a swett lodge. It looked like a turtle and inside I thought that we were going to loose JOCK. I looked at him after the first break of 4 rounds and I was waiting for him to grab his shoulder and keel over. Andrew was letting out water like a human sive and the girls looked all happy near the door. Infact I belve that tiff was cold. By the 4th round of steem I was at my limit. The completely dark room was unnerving enough the guy beside me was going to die I thought and I was breathing through my fist and buring my fingers on every inhail. It was a truly amazing experience. I was not allowed to take any pictures at all so bummer for me…….and you guys to and I am sorry. I got a bit glaired at for asking…. Everyone else glaired too. Im always in trouble for something…..

This moring I am going to go run pelican after some Chi-Tea on the front deck. Everyone seems really excited….. it's a beautiful day. keeps saying, "you know Pelican". And I keep saying, "no I don't" any how well go run that thing today.

Billy Harris ON A MISSION