The Snowboarder's Journal - frequency 17.1
HOLD YOUR LINE: Beau Bishop’s Broken Script
Words: David MacKinnon 2019-09-23 13:57:01
It’s hard to find a place in the hyper-saturated Whistler, BC snowboard scene. Top-level snowboarders get lost to familiar spots, and widespread recognition often eludes those who lay roots in the freestyle mecca. But every now and again, a rider with a special blend of skill, style, and grit reaches snowboarding’s collective consciousness. Beau Bishop is one of the few. The Toronto native is gaining recognition outside of Canada and holding his own as top riders call him up. But this second-generation scrapper had to fight to find a foothold in the upper echelon of backcountry freestylists—he’s faced adversity and visions of defeat. Beau has crafted a unique presence in Whistler via DIY edits and a blue-collar work ethic, grinding through hard times to make things happen on his own terms.
It started in classic Canadian fashion, at a toboggan hill in Ontario. He first “snowboarded” on an old skate deck before strapping into a Black Snow. The Bishops were a hockey family for the most part, but Beau’s grandparents liked skiing. They took Beau and his older brother Craig to Mount St. Louis when he was 11 years old, for their first day of real snowboarding. “We spent the whole day basically belly sliding, until my grandpa took us to the bunny hill and taught us how to use edges,” Beau says. “He’d never snowboarded, but he was able to figure it out.” From there, he grew as a snowboarder with his friend Dan Fair, whose family had a chalet at Blue Mountain. They’d bring Beau to ride on weekends.
As Beau finished high school, he decided to pursue professional snowboarding. His dad, Wayne, understood—he’d chased a dream himself, playing in the International Hockey League for five years. He’d been an enforcer, making it as far as a farm team for the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche. “He definitely raised me to be tough and never give up,” Beau says. “And he fully supported my snowboarding. He wanted me to go for it.”
With his family’s blessing, Beau moved to Whistler in fall 2004. He tuned skis and snowboards at a shop near the base of the Village Gondola at night and rode every day. There, Beau met Dave Fortin. He picked up the Whistler program fast, started filming with Gnarcore, and gained sponsorship via Ride Snowboards, Dragon Optics and Westbeach. Under the mentorship of Gerhard Gross, Dave Rouleau and Myrosha Daley, Beau built on the fundamentals he’d learned in Ontario’s notoriously icy parks. He came up alongside such guys as Chris Rasman, Emanuel “E-Man” Anderson and Rusty Ockenden. They embodied the ideals of Canadian snowboarding: Hold nothing back, respect your predecessors’ style, and indulge in just enough debauchery to keep things raw.
The price of admission, however, went beyond talent. During Beau’s first summer in Whistler, he got a seasonal job with a log-home-restoration crew. He spent his days on scaffolding, grinding and sanding logs behind a respirator and goggles. “It’s probably the dirtiest job I’ve ever done,” Beau says. “Your whole body is covered in an inch of sawdust, you’re sweating like crazy, and you’re hanging over some gnarly cliffside with no harness trying to reach the end of a log. There were a lot of moments when I was like, ‘What the hell am I doing? I came here to snowboard, not wreck myself working on some millionaire’s house.’”
Claude, the supervisor who’d set him up with the job, took a liking to Beau. “He was this really funny French Canadian dude, who was basically a huge prick to everyone,” Beau says. “But he saw that I worked hard and wasn’t a complete idiot, and he knew the job would let me save money for snowboarding, so he made sure I stuck it out. If I ever complained or showed up hungover, he’d put me in my place. One day I was in pretty rough shape and Claude made me move the 44-foot ladder from one side of the house to the other by myself. That sucked. But he never sent me home. And going into the next winter with some savings, I was able to snowboard more—that showed me it was worth it.”
Soon, Beau was invited on trips, shoots and private sessions. “He joined the Sandbox crew quiet and unassuming,” Kevin Sansalone, Sandbox founder, says. “We didn’t know him too well, but his Ride team manager and some mutual friends gave him the vouch. Our first session with Beau was a heavy one, a big step-down in the Whistler backcountry, filming with a heli. Beau stepped up and stomped four bangers including a double backflip and a cab 9, first try, with all the stress and noise that comes with high-pressure heli shoots. Those riding skills combined with his work ethic and easy-going, humble attitude instantly made Beau one of our favorite riders to have on the crew.”
“Goals were becoming realities,” Beau says. “I was like, ‘This might happen—I might actually be able to make this work.’”
Then came the crash. It was early March 2011, and Beau was filming for Sandbox. He’d been on until that point, his early season footage earning him a shared part. But the knuckle of the notorious Hurley Road Gap in Pemberton, BC ended his season. On the first hit of the session, Beau tried a backside 720 and came up short. The 50-foot fall to flat broke his back and shattered his right heel. The footage is in Sandbox’s Day and Age—Beau’s scream tells the story.
Beau thought his pro-snowboarding career was over. He moved back to Ontario and went to Seneca College to study business marketing. He picked up useful skills in his classes, but it was his rehabilitation work with physiotherapist Jesse Awenus that proved pivotal. Jesse convinced the then-25-year-old Beau he could recover. “He was like, ‘You can get better. You’re going to be OK—we just need to work hard and rehab it properly,’” Beau says. “I owe him a lot.”
Beau put in the hours—he figures his rehab ran a loss for Jesse’s clinic. “They couldn’t get rid of me. They gave me a monthly membership, which they probably regretted—I’m sure I burned through way more than they charged me in hydro. I had their treadmill pool running for hours.”
By the end of his first semester, Beau had decided to move back to Whistler. Doctors warned he might cause permanent, debilitating damage to his ankle. Even his dad questioned Beau’s return to snowboarding. “He just figured I was lucky not to be paralyzed,” Beau says. “He was—and still is—concerned I might have another big crash. But when he saw how much I wanted it, he got behind it—he knows it’s my life, and he respected my choice.”
Beau’s mom, a paramedic, understood the risks. She’d been at his side a day after the injury. Still, she backed his decision.
Within a year of returning to Whistler, Beau was stacking for Snowboard Canada’s Glimpse (2013). His part showed he had what it takes to film for a major production company, but the majors were folding. It was a time of transition, when Whistler’s top riders were forming their own crews in response to the changing industry. Beau worked with Trevan Salmon, Andrew Burns and filmer Dave Craig to put out “Turn & Burn.” The series featured boarding from Japan to Alaska built around aggressive Whistler freestyle and lasted from 2014-2017.
Beau continued restoring log homes during the summer. He was closing in on a decade at the job when his boss decided to call it quits. “He had reached a point where he needed to leave Whistler and he wanted somebody to take over the company,” Beau says. “He got a few of us together and was like, ‘I want one of you to keep it going.’ It was a hard choice, but I knew it was an insane opportunity, and I knew I could do it. I called my dad and he was like, ‘It’s a no-brainer,’ so I decided to go for it. My old boss was like, ‘We can figure it out. If it takes you five years to pay me, that’s OK.’ And that’s pretty much what I did. It was the nicest thing anyone’s ever done.”
His first two summers as owner, Beau worked seven days a week. Ten-hour shifts were bookended by administrative work. But Beau knew the program: Work now, snowboard later. He was setting himself up to be in it for life.
As Beau laid foundations, he dropped an edit that caught the snowboarding world’s attention. The #PointOfBeau Movie defied POV axioms, managing nine minutes of compelling action. It offered an unfiltered view of the Whistler scene. “#PointOfBeau really captured what it’s like being a pro boarder in Whistler because it shows how all the different crews fit together and how much fun we all have boarding,” Chris Rasman says. “In a way, it’s more real than some of the high-production-value stuff we create, and it lets people connect to what we’re doing out there. Once the industry noticed that Beau’s riding blurs all those boundaries between ManBoys, D.O.P.E., Out of Service, even underground park riders, I think they turned on to something we knew all along: Beau’s one of the most noteworthy shredders in Whistler.”
Today, Beau’s known for his polished, flowing freestyle. He doesn’t stray far from the fall line, and he’s open to opportunities that come his way. “I don’t exactly have a crew,” he says. “My program is really just going out with [filmer] Dave [Craig] and whoever’s available or hitting up other crews like the ManBoys and seeing if I can jump in with them. I went to Japan this winter with Danimals [Dan Liedahl] for his movie. There was a while where I wasn’t sure if I’d ever reach that level where I could ride with Jake Blauvelt for a week or go to Japan with Pat Moore. It’s an honor when guys like that hit me up.”
Beau’s a self-made snowboarder. He’s built himself a life in the Sea-to-Sky Corridor and come into his own as a business owner. The office work that used to take him hours now happens quickly, he’s able to employ his friends, and he and his partner Angela recently bought a home in Pemberton. He’s crafted a rare existence in the Whistler scene, living the pro-rider lifestyle without the financial pressure of snowboarding solely for a living. His approach allows him the freedom to ride more powder than most, and so he does.
Beau speaks humbly about his future. “This has been such a sick ride, and if it ended tomorrow not much would change, to be honest,” he says. “If all my sponsors dropped me, I’d be like, ‘Well, that was fun.’ I really don’t think it would stop me from doing what I’m doing.”
Photo Caption: “We were on a road trip in Northern BC and bought this giant box of fireworks. Beau thought it would be funny to fire up a Roman candle and shoot everybody while we were getting the sleds ready to go, but the firework in question ended up being this lame fountain thing. He was stuck breathing in the smoke till it finally died, so I guess the joke’s on him.” Photo: Crispin Cannon
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