La Boutique du Skate (0)

January 29, 2009 at 15:25
filed under skate+snow+surf

The photo above, which was on the Transworld Skateboarding cover of the January 1991 issue, is closely linked to an important period of my life. It has nothing to do with the substance of this photo itself but rather with the content of this particular issue. The short version is that as a teenage entrepreneur who was simply following his heart, I had returned from a California summer skate trip with the conviction that a good skateboard shop was essential for a striving scene. Living in a city with 7-month long winters, once the first step of the shop was underway, the natural evolution of this realization quickly grew into a large investment to build an indoor skatepark.

Several tens of thousands of dollars worth of wood later, and the hard work of a particularly talented ramp builder who I assisted, a 10,000 square foot ‘wooden oasis’ was born. Skateboarders from across the province were soon making the trek to Québec to come share with us the stoke. I have countless memories of heated sessions and many friendships were borne out of shared sessions at the skatepark.

Back to the story behind the TWS cover: on a cross-Canada tour, skate photographer-now-turned-Holywood-big-shot-and-of-Girl-fame Spike Jonze and writer Kevin Wilkins turned up at the park. They skated with us and, of course, shot the token photos they would need for their article. Needless to say, when the TWS issue showed up at the shop and I realized I had gotten a full-page photo in TWS Skate, I was estactic. Through my numerous moves across continents and oceans, I had lost the prized issue and the photo was only a memory in my mind, that is until I was lucky enough to go snowboarding over the holidays with TWS Skate Editor Eric Stricker, a friend of a friend. After a few runs of secret pow stashes, I seized the opportunity and asked him if he could do me a favor: Eric was kind enough to dig through the TWS archives and I received the issue this week, happy to have this memento to share with you.

Chink chink at a wooden oasis. French-speaking desert dweller Emanuel Krebs teetering and tottering at Boutique du Skate

The TWS caption on the photo reads as follows: Chink chink at a wooden oasis. French-speaking desert dweller Emanuel Krebs teetering and tottering at Boutique du Skate

I know this is no Bob Burnquist craziness but you have to keep in mind that this was in 1990 – as if the gear doesn’t make that obvious! Getting my hands on this photo has led me to dig through some archives of my own and I’ll be back with a few ‘historical’ Boutique du Skate posts shortly.

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  1. luwee

    on January 29, 2009 at 18:55

    Hot damn!
    The good old days… I forgot that I it was Spike Jonze that we spoke to. rad.
    And I always wondered if it was me sitting in the stairs behind.

    thanks for the memory lane

  2. Guy

    on January 30, 2009 at 07:58

    Until recently I had the Boutique sticker on my vhs remote!!! That place has such a place in my teens year! Many freindship started there too!!! We have talk so much about that pic over the year it’s nice to see it again!
    Cheers
    -G

  3. Hugues

    on February 2, 2009 at 19:06

    This is GOLD, thank’s Manu and LA BOUTIQUE for those wonderful années!!! So much good memories in that place and so many epic session!
    Hugues

  4. Hugues

    on February 3, 2009 at 03:38

    Style is aboute those small details…look at Manu’s fingers…for those who’ve skated with him before, you know what i m talking about!
    Hugues

  5. La Boutique du Skate (2) | Thought Patterns

    on February 28, 2009 at 06:28

    [...] style of this skateboarder is really indicative of the era during which we opened the indoor park. This stylish frontside air could have been Chris Miller but it’s actually Nicky Guerrero, [...]

  6. La Boutique du Skate (3) | Thought Patterns

    on March 18, 2009 at 05:09

    [...] I managed to get my hands on a old issue of TWS Skateboarding in which the shop and myself were featured, and so began the trip down memory [...]

  7. Yan

    on April 12, 2009 at 11:37

    Quel beau souvenir, 3h. de route pour skater à l’intérieur l’hiver !!! Les dudes de Québec nous inspiraient à fond, à chaque retour vers Riki town on étais pompé à l’os!!
    MERCI!!

  8. La Boutique du Skate (4) | Thought Patterns

    on April 24, 2009 at 06:40

    [...] post on the subject of sticker designs I came up with during my teens for my skateboard/snowboard shop. It’s been interesting for me to recall the context in which I was coming up with these [...]

  9. La Boutique du Skate (1) | Thought Patterns

    on May 27, 2009 at 13:27

    [...] of the first things I needed to do once I had the skate shop going was to get some stickers made. What could be of any more importance than that? This was going [...]