In today’s story minute, we’re going to look at the obscure sport of Geese Surfing
Pictured here is legendary Canadian Goose Surfer, Vanda Vonk, competing in the Ontario 500, in which she successfully defended her title.
Vonk has caused much controversy in the tight-knit North American surfing community by not using Canadian Geese, instead preferring to Luxembourg Black-Tipped Geese, which are both more agile and louder in honk.
Geese Surfing has never really caught as a mainstream sport, mainly due to the logistics of covering what is a very long distance event, and also due to the face that competition geese have never been media friendly and tend to bite their interviewer.
Origin of the sport
No one is quite sure when geese surfing originated. Some believe that it’s roots are very ancient indeed, and perhaps predate recorded history. Archaeological evidence suggests that humans have been harnessing flying creatures.
Controversies
The renowned cad Terrence Dastard-Leigh planned to sabotage the 1938 Dover to Calais race by using a pair of hawks to frighten the geese and thus effect the the outcome of the race. He stood to win a fortune as part of an illegal betting circle.
However rumours of his plan were leaked by a fox formerely employed by Dastardly-Leigh, who had enough of his ex-bosses conniving ways and decided to seek revenge.
All of the competing geese were informed of the plan and sought to sabotage it before it could be put into place.
While traveling to the race, a huge formation of geese descended on Dastardly-Leigh’s car and covered it in droppings, forcing him to go immediately to the dry cleaners to try and salvage his suit.
How you can take up the sport
The general requirement is to have a flock of geese and a surf board. Although Erma Widget of Ohio was able to improvise with a formation of wood grouse and a converted ironing board.
Professional geese surfing
Due to the fact that the sport has never really managed to take off, and that fact that it has consistently failed to attract commercial sponsorship, it is extremely hard to make a living geese living. The only exception to this appears to be in Denmark where it is the country’s seventeenth most popular sport and boosts two professional leagues.
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