Surf Sister Surf School is celebrating

10 years in business!

1999-2009

2009 is a big year for Surf Sister Surf School. It was 10 years ago Jenny Hudnall/Stewart decided to start a surf school in Tofino after teaching surf lessons locally since 1992.

With a strong surfing and entrepreneurial family history in Tofino (her parents ran the first whale watching company off of Long Beach called Clayoquot Cruise and Charter Co.- an hour and a half trip was only $3 in 1972!) the decision to start a business was an easy one for the Tofino- born surfer girl.

Surf Sister held the first wildly popular Weekend Surf Clinics in 1999 with local surf girls Catherine Bruhwiler/Temple and Nicki Ferguson/Blake rounding out the trio of surf instructors for the all-women surf clinics. Lessons and clinics were held where the waves were best for the day, sometimes Long Beach, sometimes Cox Bay, sometimes Chesterman Beach.

The Surf Sister office was mobile at first, and located in the back of Jenny’s 1998 Toyota truck. Roof racks held the 10 soft surfboards and large totes carried the pile of wetsuits and booties for the students. The rusty old hand operated VISA machine in the back of the truck would sometimes snap credit cards right in half because of the amount of sand stuck inside it!

In 2002 Surf Sister opened the first store in a new building next door to Live to Surf. Lessons expanded to include guys because the goal of Surf Sister was not to exclude men, but rather to make sure that women felt very included and received the precise instruction they needed to succeed at surfing. Instructors were trained in CPR and Bronze Medallion and Bronze Cross to ensure client safety. Instructors surfed every day before and after work, and taught surf lessons year-round.

National media soon caught wind of this young and fun new business in Tofino and the press went wild. Articles such as “Better than Sex!” Tofino’s Curl Girls” and “The New Wave” appeared in newspapers across Canada.

Surf Sister’s staff expanded from 3 instructors to 6, then to 12. Louise Rodgers and Krissy Mongomery joined the team, bringing their surfing skills and business expertise to the table. Surf Sister staff took their first staff retreat/ training in 2004 to Baja Mexico, where Andrea McGowan showed the girls how to push their surfing skills to the next level. Surf Sister attracted international surf instructors who traveled to Canada to teach surfing in the summer and snowboarding in the winter.

Surf Sister moved into the big shop closer to town at 625 Campbell Street in 2005 when the small shop was finally just way too small to hold all of the girls plus all of the surfboards and wetsuits. Expansion was the natural evolution of this successful surf school.

Today Surf Sister has 25 all female staff and boasts the highest returning staff rate of any business in Tofino. The store is 1500 square feet of Surf Sister clothing, Billabong Girls, Lucy Love, Von Zipper sunglasses, Kustom shoes, Billabong wetsuits, Surf Diva Surfboards, artwork, and other unique Tofino gifts. An espresso bar featuring Serious Coffee and locally made treats by Sweet T’s Cake and Pastry round out the main attractions of the new store. There is also a “History of Surfing in Tofino” wall showing photos of Jim Sadler and other surfers from the 1970’s showing their style.

Surf Sister would like to give a huge thanks all of their staff for their amazing dedication to teaching others how to surf and their pure devotion to the Tofino surfing lifestyle. Ride the wave!

(Below are 2 photos of early surf lessons plus 2 surf lesson posters) First Surf Clinics offered by Surf Sister Surf School 1999.

Click on a thumb above to enlarge photo.