Editor’s Note: The Hometown Hype film tour is presented by White Claw.
Northern Michigan is a place where surfing seems so unlikely that some people don’t believe it actually happens there. Mike King, the director of the latest episode of The Inertia’s Hometown Hype, recalls being told by his girlfriend, Ella (whose family owns local shop Sleeping Bear Surf) that she actually had to deal with patrons coming into the shop thinking it was some sort of scam.
“She said, her entire life, people would be arguing with her, telling her that she can’t surf on the lakes,” he explains. “And she’s like, ‘I was literally just surfing yesterday.’ It was almost like these people were upset that there’s a surf shop here.”
And yet it’s there, right in the middle of Empire, Michigan. It sits at the center of a surf scene that encompasses Northern Michigan as a whole, where a number of small, rural towns make up a larger, intertwined community.
Mike has been surfing the Great Lakes since high school, but he spent a decade out West, skiing professionally. During his time as a professional athlete, he began to try to add value to sponsors by taking on pre and post-production work on ski film projects – which then snowballed into becoming a lensman. When he eventually returned to Michigan, he started dating Ella, which brought him to the shop. “It’s a little bit roundabout, but I basically just started hanging around Sleeping Bear Surf and getting more and more into water sports and surfing on the Great Lakes,” he explains.
Now, he has set out to shed light on Northern Michigan’s surf community, and help that community find its place in the surfing world at large.
Though there is wave riding in Northern Michigan, despite the nay-sayers, it is a surf scene seemingly created by a collective suspension of disbelief. “You kind of need to be an idealist,” says Mike. “You’re always thinking and hoping the waves are gonna be good, but then most of the time they’re not as good as we hope.”
Luckily, the great lakes seem to be full of idealists.
“The conditions are not the best in the world, so the people going out and doing it are not afraid to go out in pretty crazy conditions,” explains King. “Sometimes it could be sunny and 75 degrees. Other times it could be negative 10 degrees, with two feet of snow. So it takes an interesting type of person [to surf that]. The swells don’t happen as much as we’d like them to, so every time they do happen, everyone’s so excited.”
The excitement is more than just your garden variety stoke, however. It’s a feeling that seems to be inexorably intertwined with the nature of Michigan surf.
“Surfing the Great Lakes as a whole is still relatively new and we are all still learning,” says Mike. “The swells, the waves, all the factors, let alone the actual act of riding a wave. It’s just been a hoot, people going out and just playing in the water and just really trying to make the best of it. I think that’s just kind of unified the group, and it just makes it a special experience.”
That adventurous (some would say insane) spirit will serve Michigan surfers well, going forward. Because, as Mike tells it, there’s still far more to be discovered on the Great Lakes.
“One of the things that I think is so cool, is that it feels like we’re still on the fringe,” he adds. “We’re discovering new waves every year, still, studying bathymetry maps and finding new places. There’s just so much exploration and it’s exciting to feel like a lot of the Great Lakes are still untapped for surfing.”
The Hometown Hype premiere of Northern Michigan is Thursday, October 23rd in Frankfort. Please RSVP here to attend the show. A special thanks to White Claw for bringing this fantastic film tour to life.
Directed, Shot & Edited by
Mike King
Produced by
Ella Skrocki & Luke House
Additional Footage by
This is Practical
Ryan Busch
Spencer Milbocker
Beth Price (16mm Footage)
Grant Piering (8mm Footage)
Still Photography
Beth Price Photography
Special Thanks
Ethan Sperber
John O’Callaghan
Kile Parker
Featuring Watermen
Sean McLain
Chad Jordan
Johnny Bapka
Matt Mulligan
Jim Rogers
Ella Skrocki
Frank Skrocki
Reiss Skrocki
Beth Price
John O’Callaghan
Mike King
