The two gray-haired fishermen shore-casting for salmon eye my surfboard with suspicion, as though it is some new type of fishing boat and I am here to invade their sacred fishing spot along the Minnesota shores of Lake Superior.

I slip into my wetsuit, give them a friendly Hawaiian Shaka sign (a kind of Hawaiian “thumbs up” with thumb and little finger raised) and then I watch the water. A nice set of smooth, crystal blue waves pitches and peels down the rocky shoreline toward me.

Surfers, like fishermen, are territorial when it comes to their home-breaks (our fishing-holes), and I know how they feel as they watch me paddle and punch my way through the waves to the outside water peaks.

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Surfer Brian Stabinger contemplates the waves at Union Bay, Michigan, during the “surfing season” that starts in October and can last into January. PHOTO BY BOB TEMA

I smile to myself. As a surfer, I don’t have to worry about the crowds here. In 25 years of bringing my board to this rocky point break on the shores of Lake Superior, I have yet to see another surfer paddle out.

Typically Lake Superior is not a place where people expect to find surfers. Most wave riders prefer ocean coasts or seek out the heart of surfing’s origins - the Pacific islands of Hawaii. That’s where I learned how to surf in the early 1970s.

The history of this sport or pastime or obsession (depending on the surfer) is a long one.

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Lake waves at the French River in Minnesota let Bob Tema “walk on water.” PHOTO BY BRIAN STABINGER

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Thousands of years ago, Polynesians brought the skills of wave riding to Hawaii. In 1778, Captain James Cook and his crew on the twin ships HMS Discovery and HMS Resolution were the first Europeans to observe and record the natives riding waves on specially carved planks of wood. The sight of men “walking on water” amazed them and they named this “The Royal Sport of Kings.”

Later, writers such as Mark Twain described the rejuvenating experience of “surf bathing” with the natives and adventurer-author Jack London, visiting in 1907, paddled into the warm tropical waters of Waikiki to give wave riding a try.

By the turn of the 20th century, Hawaii, now a U.S. territory, was becoming a popular tourist vacation spot for mainlanders - the haoles (HAU lees) or non-native “foreigners” who flocked to the warm beaches of Oahu to watch Hawaiians practice their ancient art of wave riding.

Still later, more tourists wanted to learn how to ride the waves. Some of the fun-loving “beach boys” of Waikiki were recruited to teach the visitors. One became a legend among surfers: Duke Paoa Kahanamoku.

Considered the best swimmer, paddle boarder and surfer in Hawaii, Duke went to the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden, and won the gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle. He would win five medals at four Olympics. The charismatic Hawaiian became “The Ambassador of Modern Surfing,” touring Europe and the United States, giving exhibitions and swimming in contests. The spectators and fans called him “The Swimming Duke,” “The Bronze Duke of Waikiki” or “The Human Fish.” In 1920, on his way home after again winning the Olympic gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle at Antwerp, Belgium, Duke and his fellow Hawaiians stopped in Detroit to give exhibitions.

It’s here that Lake Superior first made its mark on ocean surfing.

A young lad named Thomas E. Blake, raised in Washburn, Wisconsin, met the legendary Duke Kahanamoku in Detroit and four years later would follow these surfing enthusiasts to the islands after a stint in California from where he earned national accolades - and some traveling money - in swimming competitions.

Tom learned the skills of paddle boarding and surfing and, most importantly, learned how to carve the boards. So it was that this boy reared by the waves of the world’s largest fresh-water lake became the man credited with revolutionizing the design of boards used for salt-water surfing worldwide.

At the time, surfboards were carved from a single plank of heavy wood. Weighing up to 100 pounds, the boards were not very maneuverable and were awkward. Tom copied an ancient, largely ignored board design he saw in Honolulu’s Bishop Museum. Creative experimenting, along with a new wood product called plywood, produced Blake’s “hollow board,” lighter and faster then the typical boards being used. Although it was dubbed the “Cigar Box” by skeptics, the famous Duke tried and liked the design.

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Tom Blake of Washburn, Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Superior, designed “modern” surfboards like those shown in this 1930s photo featured in a short biography, Tom Blake Surfing: 1922-1930 by Gary Lynch.

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In 1928, Tom took the board to California and won the first Pacific Coast Surfriding Championship. By 1931, he’d patented and begun manufacturing the surfboards. 

Besides building the first hollow surfboard, Tom was the first to surf Malibu Beach, plus he designed and added a keel (or fin) to surfboards, wrote the first book on surfing, invented the aluminum rescue torpedo, developed the first sailboard and designed the first waterproof camera.

This Lake Superior-bred water lover fully adopted the easy-going harmony of “the Aloha frame-of-mind,” according to his biographer, Gary Lynch. Besides Duke Kahanamoku, Tom is the only other man to be inducted into both the International Surfing Hall of Fame in Huntington Beach, California, and the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Tom, who served with the U.S. Coast Guard and in World War II, “retired” from surfing at the age of 55 and eventually returned to Lake Superior. 

He often turned up for a summer to live in his white van at Memorial Park in Washburn, recalls Tony Woiak, who heads the Washburn Historical Society. There’s little doubt that Tom Blake was the first to set a surfboard into the waters of Lake Superior.

“We were little kids,” Tony says of his encounters with an elder Tom Blake who was surfing the lake waves.

When the white-haired old “hippy” talked philosophy to the kids, describing the interconnectedness of atoms and universal harmony, Tony admits they didn’t know they were chatting with a ground-breaker and an internationally acclaimed surfer.

“We just thought he was an old man, nuts, surfing Lake Superior.”

In 1994, at the age of 92, Tom Blake died and was buried in Washburn.

Like Tom Blake, I was fortunate enough to grow up along the shores of Lake Superior. As a boy, I body surfed the warm summer waves that broke on the sandy beaches of Park Point in Duluth, Minnesota.

Then in 1966, Bruce Brown’s movie “Endless Summer” exploded the popularity of the surf culture and also exploded my interest in the sport. After I saw this story of two surfers traveling the world searching for the perfect wave, I was stoked! Little did I know, others around the Great Lakes were interested in surfing, too. The Great Lakes Surfing Association formed in 1966 in Grand Haven, Michigan.

But I looked elsewhere for the big surf. Fresh out of high school, I left for California to learn the sport and, after saving up enough, moved to Hawaii to surf the big waves and to learn about the lifestyle called the spirit of aloha, both a noun and verb that for the Hawaiians encompasses greetings and good-bye, as well as affection and compassion.

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A map shows best “breaks” for waves around Lake Superior, recorded in Surfing the Great Lakes by P.L. Strazz.

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What I learned about this philosophy of universal harmony stays with me. What I learned there about surfing I’ve implemented and adapted now that I live again on the shore of a fresh-water sea.

The apparently simple act of catching a wave and riding it is among the most difficult of sports to master. Surfers must be expert swimmers with a keen sense of the ocean’s currents and waves and the effect of the wind on water. These same skills apply to surfing Lake Superior’s waves, but with some significant differences.

First difference: staying on top of the water. The cold fresh water of Lake Superior is not as buoyant as warm salt water. Cold itself is another key difference. The lake’s water temperatures rarely reach 60 degrees Fahrenheit. So swimming thongs are out. Wetsuits are the necessary fashion. Besides keeping you warm, wetsuits help you to float better.

The wave works are different, too, from the ocean to the Great Lakes. Deep ocean swell waves are typically farther apart than the wind-generated swells, or surface waves, on Lake Superior. It takes strong, northeasterly winds for Lake Superior to generate waves large enough to surf.

I didn’t think of surfing my home lake until November 1975 when my buddy and I returned from the islands with our Hawaiian surfboards and witnessed some of the largest waves ever seen on Lake Superior. Fierce, northeasterly gales produced 20-foot rogue waves, too big and dangerous for us to ride. We realized that cold, gray autumn day that Lake Superior creates big, serious surf.

Over the next few years, my surfing “Bro” and I lived the Lake Superior version of “Endless Summer.” Exploring the gentle waves breaking on the sand bars of Park Point, we found that the best places to catch waves were off the canal wall toward the Point and down the road at the Beach Park. We named these spots “Off the Pier” and “First Turns.”

On the rocky shoreline north of Duluth, places like the mouths of Lester and French rivers produce nice waves over river-washed cobblestone deltas.

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Surfer Bob Tema finds plenty of action on the wind-induced waves that pound Lake Superior’s shores in late autumn and early winter. PHOTO BY BRIAN STABINGER

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One of the most powerful and best type of waves we surfed is a classic “point break” wave called “Stony Point.” Generated out of deep water, this wave breaks over a group of large boulders and forms a perfect peak, best surfed when the winds turn off shore and the water surface becomes glassy. The ultimate big wave for us surges at Beaver Bay, north of Two Harbors, Minnesota. A 130-foot cliff shelters this river mouth from the northeasterly winds, allowing big waves to roll around the point into the calm waters of the bay. Both of these powerful waves should be surfed with caution by experienced surfers only and with a partner.

There are great “breaks” for surfers all around Lake Superior (see map). And while Lake Superior generally does not create the shore-lapping gigantic waves of ocean surfing, it does propel surfers along the meditative miracle of “walking on water.”

In recent years, surfing seems to be catching another big wave, even on the Great Lakes, thanks to groups like the Great Lakes Surfing Association. Rick Boss, president of GLSA, says the association’s original 1966 motto and goals remain the same: “to promote goodwill and camaraderie among Great Lakes surfers.”

Surfing on the Internet has promoted surfing on the Great Lakes. GLSA’s website (www.lakesurf.com) has attracted a core group of more than 50 members from the United States and Canada. GLSA organizes and sponsors contests, gatherings and surf safaris. It marks the opening of the Great Lakes surfing season each year on Labor Day weekend with a gathering in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, at the Dairyland Surfing Contest.

This past Labor Day weekend at the western tip of Lake Superior, local surfers enjoyed our own “surf safari” with a gathering of about a half dozen surfers. Quite the crowd for our lake.

Two longtime Lake Superior surfers (who can be seen on the GSLA website) are Brian Stabinger and Bob Tema of the Twin Cities area. Brian has surfed other Great Lakes, but prefers the north shore of Lake Superior. He wishes more surfers would catch the wave here.

“I’d like to see a few more faces out in the line-up,” he admits, “but what really counts is that this beautiful coast, although fickle at times, has some very good surf. People do every sport imaginable up here, but miss out on this one for some reason.”

PHOTO BY BOB TEMA

Bob and Brian have recorded some of their thoughts about different breaks around the lake. Sometimes the waves are there, but surfing can only be imagined. Consider Bob’s observations from October 1999, watching waves at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan, in a place surfers call White Giant: “Walls of water fold and explode like a dying star’s last flash. A stunning spectacle, but only God himself would dare to surf it.”

Like children to Tom Blake, Lake Superior surfers like Brian, Bob and I find that the essence of surfing is the same here as anywhere else in the world. The ancient Polynesian spirit of aloha has worked its way north to Lake Superior. The blissful excitement of catching a wave, even in the cold north, is alluring and captivating and reunites the ancient relationship between man and the sea, man and the rhythm and powers of nature.

Back on Minnesota’s shore, those two old salmon fishermen’s smiles keep me warm as I watch the next set of waves come toward the point. The cold, clear fresh water beads on the waxed deck of my old single-finned surfboard. I paddle over the first wave and turn as the peak of the second, larger wave lifts me. I stroke into the face of the smooth wave and rise to my feet in one simple move.

Tapping years of experience and working together with the wave, I spread my arms in pure flight and make the drop down the wave’s steep face. Carving a hard bottom turn, I race along the water’s cascading lip as it heaves and pitches over the rock ledge and boulders below the surface. I kick out over the top of the wave and start to paddle back out.

Over my shoulder I notice the two fishermen waving to me, giving me the Hawaiian thumb’s up sign like I had just hooked and caught a great fish at my favorite fishing hole.

They were stoked for me. Aloha.

Contractor, writer, father, husband and surfer, Greg Isaacson finds his “aloha” spirit in many ways in Duluth, Minnesota.

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