Mesmerizing Ice Waves Break on Lake Michigan (Watch)

But no surfing. A little tough when there’s chunks of ice in the lineup.

As mentioned above, however, the surf scene on the Great Lakes is surprisingly thriving. And it’s not something new, either; surfers have been riding waves on Lake Michigan for decades. In Dana Brown’s 2003 full-length film, Step Into Liquid, he documented the scene in Sheboygan, Wisconsin:

“Deep in America’s heartland, a thousand miles from any ocean, is the surf city of Lake Michigan: Sheboygan, Wisconsin. A hotbed for freshwater surfers. Describing the surf scene in Sheboygan comes down to two words: the stoke.”

And speaking to one surfer, Robert “Doc” Beaton, who has been surfing the lake since 1966, he explained the novelty surfing phenomena as the following:

“We’ve got a tightknit group of guys. Maybe a dozen guys, and we’ve all grown up together. As kids, we hung out at the beach. Some of the guys went off to college, some went off to Vietnam. But guys came back, married, and raised families. And we surfed through all of this. We hit the water, we hoot and holler at each other, we surf for four or five hours, somebody will crack open a 12-pack of beer, and we’ll just lie about the good rides we had.”

Then, there’s the famous line from another surfer:

“It’s legendary here on the Great Lakes. On a good day, it breaks just like Banzai Pipeline, North Shore of Oahu. We get barrels so big, they’ll hide a Volkswagen.”

A man can dream.