'No Play Snowboard' Salomon in Japan
Banned from Otaru
In a windowless room on the second floor of the Otaru police station. A table lies between myself and three officers. My pockets have been emptied, and they’ve perfectly laid out every item in my wallet in front of me – all of my cards, coins, bills, and even scrap paper. My belongings were so immaculately organized that I wished for nothing more than to be able to take a photograph to remember that moment, but a mental image would have to do. The tension in the room came and went as the officers switched between joking amongst themselves and grilling me about my intentions in the city of Otaru. We had a notable language barrier, and their English was limited to driving home the mantra “no play snowboard.” It was only after I gave them my word that my peers and I wouldn’t 'play snowboarding' in the city that they returned my things and sent me on my way. Throughout my 20-minute stay at the station, I began to understand these people and this culture, a bit more intimately.
Words Finn Westbury | Photos Joseph Roby From Issue 16.3
Gian Sutter | We're in Japan with Louif, you already know we are gonna go check out some dam spots. It was cool to see everyone in the crew get inspired by his approach; this spot felt Lou-coded. Gian made this look so damn chill, but I'll go on record to say the snow was pretty shit, and you can't see a damn thing until you're already flying off the lip. This is one of my favourite spots and photos from the whole trip.
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How did I get in this situation, you may ask? Franky, a bit of bad luck. This all transpired on the first day of a 15-day filming trip with Emma Crosby, Gian Sutter, Louif Paradis, filmmaker Bryden Bowley, and photographer Joseph Roby for My Clay Angel, a new project with Salomon. For everyone but Louif, it was our first time in Japan, and we were overflowing with excitement. We were experiencing something so new, yet thanks to seasoned Japan traveler Lou in the mix, everything was taken care of. We had a place to stay, a van, and years upon years of knowledge of the process of filming in the area. Our first flare-up of bad luck was a sharp increase in temperature in the area upon our arrival. The plan was to ride powder but granted the current conditions, we chose to pivot to a more street-oriented trip.
We were incredibly mindful that the kick-out factor was high, so we attempted our best to control it. Our first spot, at a desolate hospital on the fringes of the ocean-front city, felt like a safe place to start. Lo and behold, after Emma does her first speed check, a police car rolls up. Our luck begins to sour. An older officer is leading the charge, with a younger officer trailing apologetically behind. I feel like he understood that we meant no harm, yet he was at the whim of his partner. We proceeded with utmost respect, and after providing our information, we were sent on our way. In our heads, we are all thinking, OK, bad start, but all good. We headed to the completely opposite side of the city to a public property feature, another spot we deemed rather low-risk. We build the spot with haste, and Gian gets into it. Before we know it, we hear shouting; the same older police officer is flying down the stairs towards us. This time, he's pissed, and we begin to learn exactly how important the notion of respect is in Japan. We had disrespected him, and that wasn’t going to fly.
We’re ordered to follow them to the Otaru police headquarters. As we piled into our van, the vibes were nearing rock bottom. Our collective hopeful attitude was obliterated, and we sat in near silence as we trailed the flashing lights of the small police cruiser through the city. As we are nearing our destination, we see a pretty horrific car crash. One car is up on the sidewalk, the front end completely destroyed, with the other vehicle sitting in the middle of the intersection surrounded by debris. A woman is frantically waving down the police car ahead of us, and we light up; had our luck turned? Excitedly, we felt there was no way that the police wouldn’t deem the crash more important than delivering justice to a couple of innocent snowboarders. Our hopes were crushed as fast as it had arrived as the police ahead of us touched the brakes for a split second, before continuing through the intersection. In complete disbelief, we pull into the police station parking lot. Louif is driving, and I’m in the passenger seat. He looks my way and quietly inquires, “You got this?” I’ve spoken in the past about how I kinda like seeing if I can convince cops to let us snowboard, and it seems that it’s caught up with me.
Emma Crosby | This was on one of the last days of the trip, so we decided to test our luck and send the trip off by getting back into the danger zone of the Otaru city limits. This worked in our favour because it was tucked away behind a large L-shaped school that was up in the hills, with one obvious road up from the metropolitan zone. We all beasted the setup, and then, as Emma went to get her board, I zipped down the road with a walkie-talkie and gave the other one to Gian. I was the eyes, posted up overlooking the main access route. Our plan was if I saw the police rolling up, I'd holler and they'd have about three minutes to pack their shit. Emma popped this one off quickly, and I only freaked out into the walkie-talkie once when a police car drove the road below me with their lights before turning the other way. We played with fire a bit with this one, and it felt nice not to get burnt.
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Out of the City
As I walk back to the van following my time in the station, I don’t have much more to tell the squad other than, “We’re pretty fucked.” Luckily, when you surround yourself with the right people, even when shit goes completely south, all is not lost. Louif has a couple of spots down the coast, and as we explored those zones, we settled into a functional rhythm for the rest of the trip. Wake up early, drive an hour (or more) out of the city, and snowboard on spots in desolate locations with fewer inhabitants to snitch on us, or at the very least, more time before the authorities show up. When we were done filming for the day, we spent the rest of the daylight trekking further, exploring new zones and new potential spots. We deployed preventative measures on numerous occasions, such as having someone post up with a walkie-talkie down the road and announcing whenever a car would drive by. There were a few instances where I felt like the protagonist of some weird snowboard spy movie, calling in potential threats to the completion of the task at hand.
Finn Westbury | This one is in Sapporo, the largest city in Hokkaido. Initially, I was fascinated by the idea of trying to ride the entire thing, multi-kinked powder ledge style. Cue the Louif hybrid spot influence. When we rolled up the first time, it became apparent that the full ride wouldn't work out, so I opted for the middle entry. We rolled on the weekend, and there was a band practicing just inside of the school behind the spot, so whenever I would strap in I was serenaded by the sounds of the band. Good vibes. Shoutout to Tommy Gesme for ollieing into the last section many years back.
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Something Special
The area we snowboarded in is breathtakingly beautiful, and by the end of the trip, we begin to joke that if we can’t see the ocean from the spot, we don’t want to hit it. In one instance, the outrun of Gian's spot was a sandy beach. Another time, Emma hit this picturesque spot on a human-made fishing peninsula that extended out into the ocean. Despite an icy layer from the heat wave, the temps turned, and more snow began to fall. We explored remote dam spots, perfectly aligned with Louif’s street-pow ethos. We had an amazing day riding dust on crust at a local resort with Taka and his crew. We shoveled our little hearts out, we ate a bunch of amazing 7-Eleven rice squares, and as the trip proceeded, we found ourselves sitting on a nice little stack of footage and photographs. Without explicitly realizing it, our luck had turned.
I think I can speak for most of us that this Japan trip was the highlight of the winter. Overcoming the incredibly heinous start to the trip was truly something special, and if we didn’t have such a good crew, who knows if it would have gone down the way it did? I can’t wait to return, and I’m hopeful that I won’t be interrogated by foreign police anytime soon.
