Fun fact about Habitat 67, you can surf on the river just there. A few people live there, put their wetsuits in their condos and go surf for an hour or two, which is kind of unexpected in Montréal.
Yep. It's a standing wave pretty close from the bank right behind H67. People surf there pretty much all year round, summer[1] or winter[2], it's pretty mental seeing them come out of the river with ice picks dangling from their beards.
There's a standing wave in a creek in Munichs central park. It's not an uncommon sight to see people in wetsuit and with a board crossing the central square. Freaks out non-locals every time.
I just thought it'd be a good idea to give a warning as having some unexpected music blast in your ears when you're just there to see a guy surfing a winter wave looks like might annoy some.
It's a really nice wave, I've surfed it in a kayak. The water is quite clear (at least when I was there) so as I was surfing, I had a pretty clear view of the underwater ledge that forms the wave.
There's an even better wave upstream near the Lachine neighborhood.
He probably means Big Joe and Pyramid, not many surfers go there it's really dangerous and a .5km paddle just to get to.
I was one of the OG habitat kakayers, there was no surfers back then, none. I saw maybe 1-2 kayakers a month, usually the guys from the old riot factory, no one knew about it. I found it only because my friend happened to live at habitat.
To be honest once people found out about it and the surf school started it was ruined, I never go anymore, Big Joe is still empty though most of the time, you have to be nuts to bring a suft board way out there, I think in 5 years I saw maybe 3 surfers out there and 2 arrived by jet ski.
Awesome to hear, it's not too bad in a kayak although really big waves. I've been there quite a few times even though I live in the UK, it is well worth the trip to combine Ottawa and Lachine/Montreal partying.
First time out I followed a Riot paddler who was keen to take me out as the rest of my crew didn't want to go. There was a massive thunderstorm and I noticed that everyone else had gone so I paddled back alone, riding the lightening.
I'm not the one who went on the front page of la presse and in the national news, nor was I part of any of the drama that followed. It was a cool spot and then I moved on to other places, my friend also moved out of habitat so I had no place to park my car lol.
Definitly a place I wish I would live in :)