Eric Gietzen grew up in Shorewood, close to Lake Michigan, seeing the crashing waves and listening to the lore about famous shipwrecks.
“When I woke up in the morning, if there would be big waves, I could hear them,” he recalls.
Ryan Bigelow also grew up in the Milwaukee area.
Neither of them imagined that as adults they’d surf on Lake Michigan.
Gietzen and Bigelow are board members of Surfrider Milwaukee. The chapter is part of a global Surfrider Foundation network, dedicated to promoting and protecting water resources and beaches with coastal cleanups, community outreach and sometimes legal battles.
Membership begins at just $25 a year.
“In Milwaukee, our mission has been to get people down to the beach and to show the lake is not just a resource for industry,” Gietzen says. “Our mission has been to get people in the water doing something they probably wouldn’t normally do. We hope they fall in love with the lake. Anything you fall in love with, you are going to protect. And now, more than ever, we need people to love our Great Lakes.”
On Aug. 4, Surfrider Milwaukee holds its annual Surf@Water at — where else? — Atwater Beach in Shorewood.
The event begins with a paddle onto the lake at about 5:45 a.m. to celebrate the sunrise. Then there’s a beach blessing, morning coffee with Colectivo, yoga with instructor Annie Melchior, a cleanup along the shore, surf and standup paddle board lessons in collaboration with Lake Effect Surf Shop, an evening picnic, Hawaiian-style music by Ocean Rush and a board swap.
“People are getting stoked about it,” says Bigelow, who works as a radiologic technologist and UWM instructor.
“It’s a fun day,” adds Gietzen, a high school English teacher who also operates a lifeguard service at Atwater Beach.
INTO THE SURF
Gietzen got into surfing in the mid-1980s at Atwater Beach after a buddy came home from Madison with a surfboard found in a garbage pile.
“We decided to give it a go,” he says. “Unbeknownst to me, there was already a somewhat thriving surf culture in Sheboygan” dating back to the 1960s.
Sheboygan surfing has been documented in magazines and films. Travel writers have referred to the blue-collar community north of Milwaukee as the “Malibu of the Midwest.”
“They had a pretty big crew doing their thing,” Gietzen says, adding that surf clubs also existed in Racine and other prime surf spots around the lake in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.
“But when I started, maybe five or six other guys in the Milwaukee area were surfing. The scene back then was not very big.”
The Milwaukee scene has grown over the past two decades, boosted by shops such as Lake Effect in Shorewood, organizations such as Surfrider, advances in wetsuits and other equipment, and enthusiasts such as Gietzen and Bigelow.
“Right now, this is the golden age of surfing on the Great Lakes,” boasts Gietzen.
“We want to build a community that loves the lake,” Bigelow says. “We want to pass that along.”
Bigelow became involved with Surfrider about six years ago.
“We’re like-minded individuals,” he says. “We just love surfing. And this is a way to share our passion.”
Bigelow remembers as a child watching surfing movies and putting up surf posters on bedroom walls, but he was a skateboarder and didn’t get into the water version until the early 1990s. At the time, he was serving in the U.S. Army and stationed on a base in Hawaii.
“Every weekend, I was at the beach,” Bigelow says of those days.
Observers from the shore might notice Milwaukee surfers use longer and thicker boards instead of shortboards. The reason is freshwater is less buoyant than saltwater.
“A longboard is definitely more soulful. There’s the ease of the glide,” Bigelow says.
“You’ll catch more waves,” adds Gietzen, whose household — with two surfing sons — has 10 boards.
CATCHING A BREAK
Surfing on Lake Michigan is a year-round sport, but some seasons provide better conditions than others.
Surf quality depends not only on geography but also weather, which is why avid surfers track forecasts and learn about wind patterns.
“On the Great Lakes, we usually have a quick wind swell. Waves appear and then it shuts down pretty fast,” says Gietzen. “You want to be in the right place at the right time.”
Surf@water takes place in August so beginners can learn the basics of the sport in milder conditions.
For experienced surfers, more intense action comes in the fall and winter, maybe early spring.
“It’s a winter lake,” says Bigelow. “More quality surf. More power. Winter waves hold up longer.”
Improvements in wetsuits mean surfers stay warm — or warmer — in the winter, but they still emerge from the water with icicle beards.
In the movies, ocean surfers live at and on the water. They’re out daily, dawn to dusk. Milwaukee surfers might get out three times a month if they’re lucky.
“And sometimes we’re rewarded with really epic surf and sometimes we’re skunked,” Gietzen says. “But getting into the water with your friends, it’s such a joy.
“Three or four times a year you get a really epic swell that has a lasting impression.”
The memory of a thrill ride, an awesome trick, an epic swell, or a perfect paddle can carry a surfer through months without action.
Bigelow says such sessions keep the stoke tank full: “If you can get that session, just one session, it can carry you for months.”
On the water: Save these dates
Aug. 4, 5:30 a.m.–8 p.m. Surf@Water, Atwater Beach, 4000 N. Lake Dr., Shorewood. The “sun up to sun down celebration of surf, sun and fun” is presented by and benefits Surfrider Milwaukee. The event features a sunrise “paddle out” on Lake Michigan, along with a beach blessing, beach yoga, beach cleanup, surf and paddleboard lessons, a picnic, live music by Ocean Rush and a board swap. For more, visit milwaukee.surfrider.org.
Aug. 5, 6:30–9 p.m. Fifth annual We Are Water Celebration, South Shore Park Beach, 2900 S. Shore Dr., Bay View. An all-ages event celebrating “Shared water/Shared humanity.” Presented by Milwaukee Water Commons, the “illuminating” event features music, poetry and light. For more, to visit milwaukeewatercommons.org.
Aug. 11, 8 a.m. Cream City Classic, Public Pier at North Jackson and East Erie streets in the Third Ward. Milwaukee’s first open river swim offers prizes to finalists in the race on the Milwaukee River and raises money for swimming programs. Spectators can watch from the RiverWalk, and there will be festivities during and after the race in the MIAD parking lot. The event involves University of Wisconsin/Sea Grant, Milwaukee Riverkeeper, Milwaukee Water Commons and the Harbor District Milwaukee. For more, visit creamcityclassic.org.
Note: This story originally published in the Wisconsin Gazette.