Sluggo launching large around 1986 - Photo Faulkner
Canada's oldest skatepark. located in North Vancouver, recently celebrated its 35th birthday and it needs your input. It seems like a new development: Seylynn Village is underway and the developers want to enrich the park where Seylynn skatepark is. The developers are contributing upwards of 2.5 million $'s into the park and hopefully the skatepark will get its fair share as it could use the upgrades.
Eve Feaver 1986 - Photo Faulkner"Seylynn, what can I put into words to express how you have shaped my life? Let's start at our first meeting on October 14th 1978, I was 10yrs old and you were a fresh canvas just unveiled. I had started skateboarding in 76' and had my first taste of bowl in 77' when West Van Bowl was opened. Next season you were constructed and you became my home away from home for the past 35yrs. Holy shit I'm old!!! I have left more flesh there, than all other skateparks combined and feel as if I am alive in your hips and waves.
Seylynn is my birthplace as a skater. It's my mother, friend, living room, sanctuary, meeting place and in some sense, my church. I will skate there until I can no longer make my body move to skate. I love you Seylynn."
- Don "Bushman" Wilson
The North Vancouver District (NVD) has been holding public meetings discussing the Seylynn/Bridgman Planning plan and the process is going to continue for the next several months. The NVD is looking to the community and skaters to provide their input. The NVD has noted there is no intention to remove the bowl and that they recognize the historical and recreational value of the facility and as a part of the study, the NVD is reviewing options to determine how the heritage destination might be feasible for the skate bowl.
Josh Evin going large as usual on Canada Day 2003 - photo Faulkner"Some of my favorite memories of Seylynn are of getting dropped off there by my Dad on his way to work at 7am on a quiet summer morning with my friends Steve Parnell Boyd & Matt Ghikas. We had this massive concrete canvas all to ourselves, immediately getting busy just learning to “cross” and “snake”. In those days, when the park had more than about 5 people at it, everyone “called” their lines. It was so cool, so vocal, so much communication happening. So before doing anything, you’d announce to everyone what you were going to do, so no collisions would happen. “Crossing” was just rolling through the little kind of halfpipe sections between the waves. “Snaking” was obviously doing the snake line. “Launching” was flying out of the bowl. I don’t think there were too many more things that people did back then. Nobody ollied the hips or out of MFP or anything. Nobody really ollied period. Tons of early grabs, pumping and carving. Sometimes a “halfpipe” session in the bowl."
- Jim Barnum
The point of no return:
"Many skateboarders (myself included) who started in the 70's or 80's have experienced an insane amount of evolution that skateboarding has gone through. This ever changing atmosphere that we lived with in my opinion, has always kept it fresh. It wasn't something that a dumb jock could pick up and and stick with. It wasn't repetitive enough for that kind of mentality. It was like a non-sport sport in which you were always discovering new things.
Where Seylynn plays into this was that it was made as a perfect and unique structure. To stay creative it was easy to look at new angles to approach, push your limits and your individuality. Over the years I've seen thousands of people skate Seylynn. For many Seylynn is where they fell in love with skateboarding and learned how to skate with style.
My first memory of Seylynn is going there around 1983-4 and watching all the older guys at the time skate. Reggae was playing. Carving, tail blocks, airs inverts, ollie's and many other new moves were fascinating and perplexing me to the point of no return."
- George Faulkner
The Seylynn Story, Full story, 27 mins:
Help Seylynn bowl to get recognized as heritage site. Write an email to Susan Rogers & Kathleen Larsen at the North Vancouver District by sharing why you feel Seylynn should be a heritage site.
LarsenK@dnv.org
Susan_Rogers@dnv.org
Eve Still ripping hard - Photo FaulknerSupport the "Seylynn can be preserved as a designated Heritage site" Facebook group
-->> https://www.facebook.com/Seylynnskateparkheritagesite
"I got a very clear picture of some of the reasons that Seylynn is such an important piece of our lives the first time I skated the Big O. As I appreciated how cool the scene at the Big O was, I realized that Seylynn has many of the same characteristics:
1 - there is a clearly defined “top” or starting point, and everybody hangs out there. It makes for a very social experience.
2 - There’s a main line that’s about going down, and then back up and you’re done; not around & around the park until you get tired or bail. It’s kind of bonding how everybody is doing the same thing, just their version of it. It’s very intimate, not like a few guys are over skating the ledge, a few guys are skating the bowl, spread out. Everybody has to man up & bust out their best stuff because everyone is watching & doing the same thing. It’s so cool & progressive that way, it makes you want to bust out. And anyway, the O and Seylynn are about a line that is down and back up, down and back up…and when you come roosting out of a run you end up shooting pretty much right into the pack of bros who all hoot and holler as you bust in…again, it’s really bonding and fun.
3 – it’s very private, nobody else really comes around. Not many lurkers, no parents, no skate moms…it’s our little world there.
4 – the privacy also allows one to do whatever you want to, it’s our living room. Just like a softball game, you can have a mellow couple of beers at a session and the Mom patrol isn’t freaking out."
- Jim Barnum
*News about upgrades to Whistler's skatepark should be in soon as the Whistler municipality is also working on their master plan.
