Snowboarding 101 | An Exploration of Essential Street Films 1995 — 2020

Professors 

William Fraser is a snowboarder from Edmonton, AB. Over the last 13 years, he has produced content for media outlets like Yobeat, Snowboarder, Slush, and King Snow. He has also made a handful of snowboard films; however, none of them were big enough to fulfill his need for attention. As he gets older, he spends his time coaching snowboarding, shaping young minds on essential topics like pants over or under highbacks. With a lifetime of snowboard enthusiasm and mediocre accomplishments, there are many more suitable for this job, but many not dumb enough to take it. 

Professor Fraser walking the walk at Sunshine Village, AB. 

JJ Westbury is a washed-up snowboarder from the Foothills of Alberta. A casual interest in a pile of old Transworld Snow Mag’s evolved into an obsession, and most of his youth was spent either at the local hill or obsessively watching snowboard videos. He has filmed multiple video parts, some more tasteful than others, and been involved in numerous other video projects in documentation roles. These experiences have informed his hardline position as a supporter of traditional snowboard media formats. 

Watch professor Westbury's full part in Everybody Everybody.

Contact Information

E-mail: will.fraser@frunt270.com & jj.westbury@srdsucks.com

Office Hours: Available during weekdays for chairlift meetings at Canadian Olympic Park or Rabbit Hill. No specific schedule can be promised — evenings are best.

Office Location: Chairlift #1 at Canadian Olympic Park in Calgary. Or Tee Bar #8 at Rabbit Hill in Edmonton

Course Description

This course is designed in light of applications like TikTok and Instagram, which are growing into the dominant sources for consumption of snowboard material in the digital era. However, they are not as reliable or rich in content as many of the snowboard films made in the past.

With this course, you will learn about the history of Canadian snowboarding, as we highlight essential street snowboard films that have been made between 1995 and 2020. The emphasis of this course will be on street snowboarding. For backcountry snowboarding, please take Snowboarding 102: An Introduction to The Deep Stuff. For more international insights, we recommend Snowboarding 251: Shredding, a Global Perspective.

Course Objectives

Major objectives of the course are to help you: 

  1. Embed your snowboarding experience into the larger stream of contemporary snowboard culture.

  2. Understand the evolution of tricks and the impact of particular geographical regions on snowboarding since 1995. 

  3. Develop a foundational understanding of spot building, including acceptable kicker size, generating speed, and safety practices.

  4. Build a perspective for the future of Canadian snowboarding.

Required Readings & Resources

  1. kingsnowboard.com 

  2. tormentmag.com 

  3. slushthemagazine.com

  4. youtube.com/@lostsnowboardvideos

Course Schedule

Attendance Policy

To do well, class attendance is mandatory. However, an excused absence will be granted with a doctor's note, a planned absence, or a street clip.

Anecdotal Reviews

The Gathering Collective (see 1995 to 2005) was really inspirational to me. Because it was French and one of the first videos I saw. It made everything relatable and attainable. I could see French names, not American names that I didn’t associate with. It was kinda like they were Hollywood stars. The gathering was there, hanging with the Hollywood stars, but their last names were one of ours.”— Louif Paradis

Bandwagon: “Certain tricks were done in a way I had not seen before. When I was younger, a backlip was a backlip and a nose press was a nose press, but with that video, everything was done so properly. I was like, ‘this looks different.’ It was very aggressive and confident. It looks professional.” — Jed Anderson

“The Bruners Video was huge. Watching that and being like “Holy shit, Quebec gets so much snow. We need to go there.” Seeing all these sick spots and people doing dope shit out there made me want to get out of Alberta.” — Kennedi Deck

“Misschief films, ...As If! and RoShamBo, which evolved into Runway films La La Land, shaped a lot of what I wanted to do in snowboarding… I hate to sound cliché, but you were not seeing women very much in snowboard media at the time, and then there were these all-girls snowboard videos.” — Darrah Reid-McLean

Grade Outline

Disclaimer

We’ve tried our best to create a syllabus that captures the essence of Canadian street snowboarding. That said, it is by no means a complete account of all the films that shaped the culture between 1995 and 2020. Our focus was on videos featuring Canadian riders, Canadian production crews, and street snowboarding, as well as those readily available online—many important films have not been preserved safely in the digital archive.

These limits were sometimes constraining, so exceptions were made when it was deemed necessary. We did our best to be fair with this course; however, it is also important to remember that geographic bias, personal taste, and repeated head injuries have all played a role in the shaping of this list.

We want to offer a large thank you to our consulates who helped fill in our blind spots: Ben Bilocq, Sebastien Picard, Louif Paradis, Dylan Vachon, Kennedi Deck, Darrah Reid-McLean, and anyone else who was texted for an opinion. Your support was invaluable. 

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