Robin Pacquing is a seasoned surfer based near Toronto, Canada, who has spent nearly two decades mastering the waves of the Great Lakes. Braving frigid temperatures and unpredictable swells, she’s become an expert in navigating one of the most unconventional surf scenes in the world. Robin is also the founder of Lake Surfistas, a grassroots organization that connects and supports women of all abilities who surf, SUP, and SUP surf on the Great Lakes.
Robin Pacquing is a seasoned surfer based near Toronto, Canada, who has spent nearly two decades mastering the waves of the Great Lakes. Braving frigid temperatures and unpredictable swells, she’s become an expert in navigating one of the most unconventional surf scenes in the world.
Robin is also the founder of Lake Surfistas, a grassroots organization that connects and supports women of all abilities who surf, SUP, and SUP surf on the Great Lakes.
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Robin Pacquing:
There's something really cool about four season surf, surfing when the air is crisp and the leaves are turning color. There's a special feeling when it's snowing. It's really, really cool. And I have not encountered that anywhere in any of the ocean spots that I've been to.
Shelby Stanger:
I never thought lake surfing was something you could do year-round, let alone dedicate your life to. But Robin Pacquing, a surfer who lives outside of Toronto, Canada, has proven me wrong. Robin has been surfing the Great Lakes for almost 20 years now in all kinds of weather. Surfing on the lakes is pretty different from ocean surfing, and it takes a whole different level of grit. For one thing, swells are much shorter and less predictable. For another, the water in the Great Lakes can be extremely cold, and the outside temperatures hover around freezing for a big chunk of the year. That means you have to learn what conditions make for good waves and do some good old-fashioned driving around to check the waves yourself. Still, Robin has made it her mission to become an expert at surfing these unique shorelines. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production presented by Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard.
I've heard plenty of surfers say, "It's a lake out there," when they look out at the ocean and see few rideable waves, but as Robin knows, lakes are not always flat and glassy. Take Lake Ontario for example, which is just a couple of blocks from her house, it's one of the five Great Lakes, and its surface is more than 7,300 square miles, which is only slightly smaller than the entire state of New Jersey. Robin has felt connected to this lake since she was young, but she didn't start surfing there until she was in her mid-20s.
Robin Pacquing, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. You are our first lake surfer I've interviewed, yet.
Robin Pacquing:
Oh, wow. Thank you so much, Shelby, for having me. This is an honor.
Shelby Stanger:
I don't really think about people surfing in your neck of the woods. So I want to go back to the beginning. How did you get into the outdoors? What was your relationship with nature and the outdoors growing up and where did you grow up?
Robin Pacquing:
I grew up born and raised in Toronto, like in the city, but there was a lot of nature around me in terms of just our neighborhood and what my parents like to do on our off days. And just like a lot of immigrant families, we kind of made our life in the city, but the outdoors and the water, especially Lake Ontario, which wasn't too far from where I grew up, it was just so important to my life. So outdoorsy has been a thing, but also city life was very much a part of my life as well. So it's this dichotomy of city and nature that blended together somehow.
Shelby Stanger:
What kind of things would you do on the lake or in the lake?
Robin Pacquing:
So as a kid, my dad had a tiny little, this aluminum fishing boat with tiny outboard motor, and in the summer months we would launch the boat from Marie Curtis Park, which wasn't too far from where we lived, and we would just take the boat around through the harbor, to the Toronto Islands. We would also take the boat up north, go fishing. It was just like water was just part of my life.
Shelby Stanger:
So I'm curious, how did you learn to surf?
Robin Pacquing:
So as a teenager, I always thought that surfing and board sports, and this is in the late '80s and early '90s when I was young, I always thought that board sports, like skateboarding, surfing, that kind of stuff looks so cool. And as a city person, I didn't think I had any kind of accessibility to that kind of thing. And though we had a lot of water recreation, board sports in that kind of way was just unattainable. It was one of these things that I admired through the rare surf magazines that I would find.
And when I was, I think it was the year 2000 or 2001, we did a family trip to Hawaii, and that's when I figured, okay, this is going to be finally my time to learn how to surf. And I mean, everybody who goes on their first surfboard knows that you don't actually surf very well, but you either get it or you don't or it was a struggle. So it was a huge struggle for me on my first time on a board, but I still loved it. I loved the feeling of it.
Shelby Stanger:
And how old were you at the time?
Robin Pacquing:
20. 21. 20. I think it was 20.
Shelby Stanger:
You're exactly my age then. I guessed it. When you're talking about late '90s, it's so funny, I went to the library the other day and someone had left a stack of 1990 surfer magazines for free, and I grabbed them. I was like, "This is insane. They don't know what they're missing."
Robin Pacquing:
No.
Shelby Stanger:
And it was just amazing. So I also learned to surf in Hawaii, and what happened was I rode a 12-foot-long board and someone basically just pushed me. It changed my life. What about you?
Robin Pacquing:
So yeah, I got pushed into waves and I struggled and I would pop up way too early. And I remember catching one and just feeling that initial push of there's the push from the instructor and then when nature takes over with that inertia and it was like, "Oh my God, this is what surfing is." And then from there I just was, I like to call myself a bit of a wannabe surfer after that because it's like I went to Hawaii once and now I'm a surfer girl.
Shelby Stanger:
After that trip, Robin couldn't stop thinking about surfing. She watched surfing movies and contests on TV and continued to read any surfing magazine she could get her hands on. A few years later, Robin decided to finally purchase her own surfboard. She couldn't find any used boards in Toronto. Luckily Robin's brother lived in California, so when she visited him out west, she picked up a board. When she brought it home to Canada, she immediately started scouting out spots she could surf.
I'm curious how someone from Ontario then learned how to surf and take that back.
Robin Pacquing:
Yeah, essentially I had found out, now it's in my early mid-20s that there was actually a surfing scene in Canada and I was like, "Whoa, you can surf in Canada?" And there were people that surfed in BC in Tofino, and that blew me away where I was like, "Okay, I need to go to BC and I need to do this." So in doing that, I also found out that there was actually a very small surf culture on the Great Lakes, and that felt like, okay, this is my life's calling and this is where I need to just put in as much resource as I can to figure out how to do this, what this is all about, and who are the people that do this. I need to learn. I will admit to the fact that it was love with the water and riding of the wave, but it was also this defiance against those who said I couldn't.
Shelby Stanger:
Tell me more.
Robin Pacquing:
There was a lot of that. And those who know me know that I can be defiant in that way, stick my chin out and be like, "Nah, screw you. I'm going to do it." I know my husband and my mom will definitely attest to that. And so yeah, there was also that sense of, "You don't think I can do this? I'm going to prove you wrong." I felt very underestimated. I had teachers in elementary school that underestimated me and basically pushed me down and said, no, I'm for who I am or who what I look like or whatever my body type was, was no, you can't be an athlete at all. And so I was told from not necessarily my mom and my dad, but just from outside authority that I cannot and will not be that because of who I look like or I don't have that athletic body.
I had health issues as a kid, and so this was just like I was placed in this box of like, "You are not athletic." But in my heart, I felt like that was kind of wrong. So in high school, aside from being outdoorsy, my high school life was very much in music and arts rather than athleticism. There was a little bit of an inner defiance from this, especially seeing how surfing was. And there was also people just in general who said, "You can't surf on Lake Ontario. There's no waves." There was just a lot of naysayers who thought that that was just crazy. Why would you get into Lake Ontario? It's dirty, it's disgusting. You must be disgusting. And there was a lot of people laughing in my face when I would say, "Oh, I surf the lake," laughing in my face. Or if I was at the coast and I would say I was a lake surfer, also laugh in my face like, oh, you guys don't know. That's not real surfing.
And I know that a lot of lake surfers have encountered that at one time or another, but in the length of time that I've been doing this, I've encountered it a lot and a lot more when I was first starting off in this journey. And so every time somebody said that to me or projected that kind of negativity of, "No, you can't do that," or "No, that's stupid," or whatever, it just kind of fired in me more saying, "No, you're wrong. I'm going to prove you wrong." And what I'm doing is what I love.
Shelby Stanger:
Robin Pacquing is a lake surfer based outside of Toronto. When you think of surfing, you may picture a sandy beach with blue-green waves and lots of sunshine. Don't get me wrong. There are sandy beaches and some sunny days on Lake Ontario, but there are also many days with ice and snow. Another big difference between lake and ocean surfing is how the waves are formed. While both are formed by wind, the ocean surface is so much bigger, meaning the waves have had more of a chance to gather energy, mass, and speed. Lakes, on the other hand, have smaller surfaces, so the waves tend to be smaller choppier and much less predictable. Over the years, Robin has had to educate herself about the conditions that create rideable waves so she can actually get out there and surf.
How do you... I don't understand. What is lake surfing? Tell me about the waves there. What does that look like? What was your first time?
Robin Pacquing:
Oh, my first, okay. So in the very small amount of information that was out there on the internets that existed in the year, like 2004, 2005, I found a message board or bulletin board, I guess, a forum-
Shelby Stanger:
A forum.
Robin Pacquing:
... called Origin Surf. And I found out that this is where all the lake surfers in the United States and Canada hang out and troll each other. Cool. It was not a lot of women and a lot of gatekeeping, but I was just pushing through, I don't care, tell me. And of course there was the trolls, but then there were other people who were completely helpful in saying, "Hey, there's this book called Surfing the Great Lakes." And I was like, "Oh, what? There's actually, there's a book?" So I sourced that out and then just people were talking about how forecasting is different, and so you have to find wind and you have to find certain direction of wind.
And then that just gave me more clues to figuring out, well, when I see the lake, when it's flat, when I'm boating with my family, obviously it's going to be a different kind of weather day when there's waves. So I'll never forget one day it was rainy and windy, so I hopped in the car and I was like, "Well, I'm just going to go see what the lake was." And this was, I guess, effectively my first surf check. And yeah, that first surf check was eye-opening because I got there and I just saw, it was like a mushy two-foot shore break wave, which was very different from what I really paid attention to previously. And I was like, "Oh, wow, there are waves here." Or I just saw potential. And I was like, okay, I just need to refine this information a little bit more.
And then I got that book, Surfing the Great Lakes, and that just gave me more information. And with that, I just built more and more of that experience with going to the shore, looking at the wind, and on the right day, that window of time where the wind is pushing right, you will get these wonderful ways to head high waves. And it's a special feeling because you're doing something in a space where a lot of people don't think it's possible or even good. And I've held that beautiful feeling of that specialness and have given that feeling to others to say, "Hey, no, you can do this here." And that is super special to me.
Shelby Stanger:
Help me understand what Lake Ontario is like and how waves are formed on this lake and how big it is just for those of us like me who don't spend enough time looking at maps outside of-
Robin Pacquing:
Outside of coastal stuff.
Shelby Stanger:
... southern California and where I'm going to surf. Exactly. Because I was one of those people probably who was surfing in a lake, and it wasn't just to be mean, it was like, it just sounds funny, because we don't know about it.
Robin Pacquing:
Yeah. And then people think, "Oh, it's like lake surfing like behind a boat?" And you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And I see it as this. And if you remove the word lake and you think about, so the Great Lakes, it's a huge system of water from Lake Superior all the way down to Lake Ontario. What they really are, and if you remove that word lake, they are really a series of freshwater inland seas. They're seas. So remove the word lake and you see it as a freshwater sea. There are all kinds of shipwrecks, there are all kinds of weather patterns that can be treacherous, just like the ocean, just like a sea. And then when you see it from that point of view, then the Great Lakes are enormous, even more enormous than what you would even see on a map.
And that's where I kind of start whenever somebody's trying to put their mind to what lake surfing is like. So for us, we need wind just like anything. And there's ground swell in the ocean, there's still secondary swell with wind. So we are predominantly, at least on Lake Ontario, we need wind and we need time for that wind to push the water towards a certain area to create waves. And then there's things like the geography of the shoreline, the bathymetry, like what's the bottom looking like? And then once you realize that there are, in Toronto, there's at least a half a dozen like surf spots in the city of Toronto alone.
So there's tons of potential here because we have all kinds of interesting shorelines along Lake Ontario. So we have a huge variation of days where it could be mushy, it could be really crap, but there are days when the wind is right and you'll find these clean waves that are anywhere between head high and higher, and they are absolutely surfable. And that's just like southern Ontario. And then you have in the United States, you have Lake Michigan, which has a big surf scene and Lake Superior, which also has a huge surf scene. And then you just realize that the potential for waves in shoreline is, there's a lot of it.
Shelby Stanger:
A head-high lake wave. That's amazing.
Robin Pacquing:
Yeah, I've had drop-ins where like, I'm in, and okay, mind you, I'm not very tall. I'm just under five feet tall. But there are days where I've dropped in waves and it's feathering way above my head.
Shelby Stanger:
Robin has been studying the waves on Lake Ontario for nearly 20 years. She knows how to read the signs, what to watch for, and how to predict the best time and place to catch surfable waves. Still, there's always an element of surprise when she checks out a new spot. That uncertainty makes the moments when she does catch a great lake wave feel even more magical.
What's your best wave you've ever ridden in a lake?
Robin Pacquing:
Yeah, so there's this spot near in Prince Edward County, which is on Lake Ontario, which is towards the eastern part of the lake, and there's a spot there. I had been looking at the spot on a map for months and thinking on a west wind, and then if it's blowing really hard, and then once it switches northwest, it should create something really awesome. That was just my prediction. And so I brought my friend and I was like, "Girl, we got to go check this out because I just have a hunch." And it did exactly what I thought it was going to do. It was a super strong west wind, and then it switched to a northwest and it created this literal head high for me, clean wrapping point break, and the water was crystal clear, you can see right through the waves.
Shelby Stanger:
And it's freshwater.
Robin Pacquing:
It's freshwater, it is freshwater, crystal clear blue, see right through it. And it was, oh my goodness. That was a find, and it was just me and my friend Nadia surfing this one spot. And I mean, I've had a lot of really great waves, but that particular session was unreal. And from what I've learned of some of the locals that are in that area, there's a lot of places these nooks and crannies in that area that are like that. But again, you just have to be patient and you really have to find those days by trial and error, figuring out what wind works. And that's kind of the big adventure of lake surfing. It's just that half the time, if you're going to go for a little surf safari, you may not know what it's going to look like. You can get all the information from the buoys and wind direction and all that, but once you get there, that's one of the big surprises and you're like, "Oh, wow. It's better than I thought, or worse than I thought." But when it is better than what you think, it is such a score.
Shelby Stanger:
I love that. Oh, wow. It sounds amazing. And it just sounds so different than one, I just feel like a lazy surfer. I walk out and I'm like, "Are there waves or they're not? Are they surfable or are they not?" And then I grab my board and I go. It sounds like you have to be pretty educated on it in terms of wind direction, bottom, direction of which way this faces. But also with lakes, you surf year round and it is freezing where you are and it snows and the lake gets icy.
Robin Pacquing:
Yes.
Shelby Stanger:
How does that work?
Robin Pacquing:
So I mean, I have an enormous collection of wetsuits with boots and ponchos and hot water bottles, that kind of thing. So you need the gear, you have to be invested in the gear. And then, yeah, it is cold. And I mean, the only time that I won't surf on the lake is if it's so iced up and so jammed up that it's just literally unsafe to go out in the water. Because sometimes the ice shelf in the wintertime can form literally in an hour because it's so dynamic, and that's another sort of dangerous aspect of it. So when it's like that, I don't typically surf on those spots, I might find somewhere else or I just be like, "Okay, well it's winter, it's jammed up too bad, so sad, just wait." But on days when it is cold and there's still ice chunks floating, but you can still get into the water, you just have to deal with the cold. And maybe I'm not surfing for three, four hours, but I'm still surfing for an hour and a half at least.
Shelby Stanger:
Can you walk me through what it's like suiting up, getting ready and going to paddle out on the Great Lakes on a winter day?
Robin Pacquing:
So luckily for me, I live five minutes away from a surf spot and the night before I'll be checking the forecast and I'd already known the night before if there might be something the next day. So I'll wake up in the morning, make my coffee, and then I'll go outside to the front lawn and take a look at the lake. Do I see white caps? What do I see? Correlate that information with what the weather network or the wind forecast is saying. And then more often than not, I'll just get in my car and go drive to the surf spot first. Take a look, look at the forecast again, what it's going to be looking like in the next two, three hours? Do I go surf right now? Do I wait for the wind? Okay, get back in the car, go home, pack my kit, which has my rinse water, my leash, shea butter, Vaseline, all of that stuff.
Shelby Stanger:
Wait, why?
Robin Pacquing:
Oh, to prevent wind burn, just moisturize your face.
Shelby Stanger:
Shea butter and Vaseline are not in my surf kit.
Robin Pacquing:
Yeah, in my surf kit to prevent wind burn. And it also prevents icicles, and I know you've probably seen these selfies of these guys with ice beards and all that stuff, and there is one way to prevent that and that shea butter or Vaseline, because it hurts to have ice. So I'll suit up at home, put on the thick suit, put on the boots. I don't put on the gloves yet, make a hot thing of tea, and then I tell husband, "Hey, I'm going out to Cliffs and I'll be in the water. I'll text you when I'm done." So float plan always just so he knows that I'm safe, where I'm going to be and all that stuff, always. Get in the car, board is on the car. Kit is there, got my tea. Once I get there, put on my gloves, I will wax my paddle and my gloves just so I can get the grip. And then out I go.
And when I am surfing on those days, there's lots of times where I would be sitting on the water just looking at the perspective around you and realize how beautiful that perspective is, how the trees look like from the water, how the water is moving the way it does. You look over and you're on the shore and you see a wave coming or you see a fellow surfer catch a wave and you just enjoy these moments. And lately, actually, I've been trying to fall in love with these moments, these small little that just ground me.
Shelby Stanger:
What's the gnarliest conditions you ever surfed in?
Robin Pacquing:
There was this one day where it just started snowing and then it became super white-out conditions. So I'm out there and I can barely see 10 feet in front of me because it was just-
Shelby Stanger:
You don't even know where the shore is.
Robin Pacquing:
... snow. Yeah. I mean, I could see where the shore is. I know, I can just tell how the water is going, but it was just for about half an hour it was just white-out conditions and you're being pelted in the face by ice pellets and snow, and the weather is like that. It's not snowing nicely, it's just coming at you. So those are the days that I find the gnarliest.
Shelby Stanger:
And yet you love it.
Robin Pacquing:
Yet I do love it. Absolutely. Because you'll still catch those waves and you'll still get that feeling that every surfer loves of riding a wave.
Shelby Stanger:
What advice would you give someone looking to go surf a lake for the first time?
Robin Pacquing:
I would say run with that stoke, but before getting into the water, I find that if you really want to be a successful surfer here, it takes a lot of grit and a lot of observation and just understanding where you are and meet yourself where you are whatever day it is, and then get a board and get out there and have fun and just play.
Shelby Stanger:
Lake surfing has made such an impact on Robin that she and a friend co-founded an affinity group called Lake Surfistas in 2014. The organization hosts get togethers and events to build community amongst the women who surf and stand up paddle on the Great Lakes. You can check them out online at lakesurfistas.org or on Instagram at @lakesurfistas. That's L-A-K-E S-U-R-F-I-S-T-A-S. If you want to get in touch with Robin, you can check her out on Instagram @robinsue. That's R-O-B-I-N S-U-E.
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI podcast network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producers are Jenny Barber and Hannah Boyd. Our executive producers are Paolo Motila and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to rate it, and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.