Off The Grid In British Columbia With Canadian Surf Hero Raph Bruhwiler

Some surf trips are easy, just simple fun in the sun. Others push you, test you, make you reconsider what the hell you’ve been doing with your life. A few days on a small aluminum skiff with Raph Bruhwiler up in the depths of British Columbia falls into the later category. Less than a week after formally stepping into the Editor-In-Chief job here at SURFER, I was on a plane bound for Vancouver, intent on falling off the grid and disregarding any of the overwhelming duties of my new job.

Perhaps it wasn’t the most responsible decision, but it felt like it had to be done. As the new editor of SURFER, a lifelong dream to be sure, somehow I rationalized the move. The opportunity to join Raph up in his own private, cold-water Mentawais had come up months earlier through friends at a Canadian-based company called VSSL, which focuses their creative efforts on building coffee-making tools for those that prefer a life lived far off the grid. Admittedly, I’m weird and don’t like coffee, but I do love surf trips and it had been a hot minute since I’d gotten on a plane with a surfboard.

Much has been made of Canadian surfing as of late. Tofino’s got as much buzz as a fresh cup of espresso, and while that quaint, seaside community is where Raph calls home, his heart lies further north in a wooded world where the trees grow down to the water’s edge, the fish are always biting, eagles circle overhead and there’s an untold wealth of surf potential. In our days together, Raph and I never discussed if it was okay to name the zone in any subsequent stories, but in this day and age where the information super highway leads to supersized crowds, I’m taking the high road. You’ll have to track Raph down and book a trip with him if you want any more specifics. Just know that it’s deep British Columbia and in a week of surfing we never once saw another surfer. Wolves, bears and otters, yes, but no other surfers.

Day one with Raph was glorious. The sun shown down upon our merry band of pranksters. In about 10 minutes we’d caught all the fish we could eat, then jumped overboard to surf a fun little right-hander that felt a bit like Upper Trestles with a shallow, rock shelf on the inside that made things interesting. Wearing a 4/3 and booties, the water felt a lot like Santa Cruz or San Francisco—cold, but not the bone-chilling frozen temps I’d been fixating on in the days leading up to the trip.

The next few days were a different story. The wind and weather moved in. The folks at Salt Life had loaded me up with bunch of water-proof foul weather gear for the trip, and I’m happy to report it worked like a dream. Even in the pissing rain and whipping wind, I managed to stay remarkably dry on the long, meandering boat rides in search of surf.

The conditions would have discouraged most any other surfer from leaving the lodge, but not Raph. He has the zone incredibly wired. Tides, wind direction, swell direction and interval, his local knowledge is more intuitive than any Surfline model. Over decades of trial and error, he’s learned what breaks work on what conditions. He’s also the one that discovered all of the breaks, which helps. Raph literally holds the key to a magic, emerald kingdom of surf bliss—and if you want a piece, you have to go through him.

Luckily, Raph’s probably one of the nicest, most welcoming humans you’re ever going to come across. Smiling and gregarious, a family man with a heart of gold, he was happy to share his world with us. A testament to his enduring stoke and understanding of the region, we surfed multiple times a day, scoring everything from fun beachbreak wedges to long point surf.

The surf was great, but the camaraderie was even better. Making coffee over an open fire on the beach between sessions, wandering beaches riddled with wolf tracks and bush-whacking up creeks with fresh bear shit on the banks, it felt like everything a surf trip should be. When the surf wasn’t on, we caught fish and ate fresh oysters shucked right on the beach while eagles circled overhead.

One of my all-time favorite surf movies is Chris Malloy’s “Shelter.” Released in 2001, it features everyone from Brad Gerlach to Donavon Frankenreiter and Rob Machado posted up on a farm in Australia. They’re surfing, shaping, playing guitar, and basically just living that free and easy, Morning of the Earth life. This trip felt a bit like an extension of that. It’s amazing what happens with the rest of the world just falls away. That’s there the real magic lies.

Like most surf trips, this one went too fast and ended too quickly. Raph and the crew, the waves and the wildlife, there’s just nothing else like it. On the way back to Vancouver, the founder of VSSL asked me if the trip had lived up to my expectations. I explained that I’d come with zero expectations, just a desire to get away, reset and enjoy good time with good people. In that regard, the trip not only lived up to expectations, it vastly exceeded them. And now, mired in meetings and deadlines, I gotta say, get me back to Canada.

Related: From Tofino to Teahupoo: Canada's Chance at an Olympic Medal