Concrete Skateboarding

Aberrican Me

PT.1 Iceland // written by Garrett Holborn

After graduating from secondary school, Dave Jonsson wasn’t sure where his life would take him, until he ended up back in Iceland, his original home. Skateboarding had always been a part of his life; however his time in Iceland stoked his passion for skateboarding. While working for an indoor skate park Dave met local skater/ filmer named Gudni Kristinsson, who was injured with a torn ACL. Since Gudni couldn’t skate he would drive Dave to spots and film. With a couple of edits out, it didn’t take long before a local shop put Dave on their team. Having a sponsor, Dave pushed his skateboarding harder.

PT.2 Flying High

Gudni, like most skaters, had a need for thrills, which lead him to the idea of being a pilot. While researching flight school Gudni came across a website advertising how cheap it was to become a pilot in British Columbia. He knew Dave lived in B.C before and brought up the idea. Spending a summer flying and skateboarding in beautiful British Columbia seemed amazing to the pair. Dave’s father was living in the Vancouver area so when summer came around Dave and Gudni moved to B.C. The summer of 2007 was spent flying Cessna’s and skateboarding every day. Gudni flew all summer, quickly becoming a skilled pilot. On the last day that Gudni would be flying in B.C he brought two extra friends along for the flight, Elliot and his girlfriend.

PT.3 Rock Bottom

Flying through the mountains of Squamish, following the planned route, clouds began to engulf the plane. In a matter of minutes all visibility was lost. Being a small Cessna they were not prepared to be flying blind. Gudni told Dave that they needed to find a new route quickly, so Dave pulled out a map and searched for a safer route. What he found was a nearby valley that looked like it would have better visibility, however the flying conditions were still far from favorable. A foreboding feeling came over the plane and for the first time ever Dave felt as if Gudni was not sure of his flying capabilities. Soon after, Gudni yelled that they were going down and before anyone knew what had happened they were no longer airborne. In a matter of seconds they had lost all of their elevation and crashed into the forest. Miraculously Elliot wasn’t hurt badly. Fearing the plane would catch fire he began to pull everyone from the plane. Dave awoke in a state of shock to Elliot yelling that he needed to get out of the plane. He lost consciousness again. Waking up later, unable to move, Dave noticed Gudni who lay unresponsive next to him. The horrible reality sunk in, they were in a plane crash in the middle of a forest near Squamish. Dave was seriously injured and Gundi’s life had been taken.

PT.4 Recovery

Eight of the most painful hours of Dave’s life are spent waiting for search and rescue to find him. Lying in the forest, with unknown injuries, dwarfed by the pain of losing a friend, Dave couldn’t piece together why they had crashed. What started as a peaceful flight with four friends had quickly turned into the loss of a best friend and an unforeseen future. Eventually found and brought to hospital, in life threatening condition, Dave learned that he had seven ruptures in his face, a broken nose and a badly broken femur. Doctors at Vancouver General Hospital told him that the chances of a full recovery were slim and that he would probably never run again. Dave realized that he had now lost his two best friends, Gudni and skateboarding. During the next eight months of recovery, skateboarding was all Dave could think about, being back on his board. Eventually he began to push around town. Ollies came next and then one day a kick flip. It was that first kick flip that Dave’s dreams of skateboarding came back within his reach. He was able to skate again.

PT.5 Coming Together

Like Dave’s plane crash proves, you’re life can change dramatically in a very short period of time. While shooting some photos at The Dry Spot one night in early January 2010 I met Jordan Smail, we talked for a few minutes and went our separate ways. The next week I ran into Jordan and one of his friends (Dwight Jantzi) while riding park at Mt. Seymour. Over the period of the month we skated and shot together a few times and one night I met Dave who was skating with Jordan and shot some pictures at The Dry Spot with him. One day I got a message from Jordan saying they were heading down to Cali to film an Aberrican Me at The Berrics and had room for one more. On February 21^st I found myself in a Hyundai Accent with Dave Jonsson, Jordan Smail and Dwight Jantzi driving through the Canadian/ USA border crossing at 3 AM.

PT.6 California Bound

Put four guys in a Hyundai Accent for 20 hours and they really get to know each other. We only stopped for gas, food and one quick race up a hill in northern Cali. Jordan owns the car and had it detailed the day before the trip, which was a horrible idea. He wanted the car in mint condition; no food, no opened drinks, no spitting sunflower seeds on the floor and no putting stickers on the car. This didn’t last long.

While driving through Seattle Jordan and I discovered that the GPS recorded our top speed, so we “tested” it out. Soon it turned into a “top speed” contest. While Dave drove through northern California and we slept he managed to beat my top speed. Our average speed was 78.5 MPH for the 7-day Cali trip, including five days of city driving. Amazingly we only ended up getting two tickets.

PT.7 The Berrics

Steve Berra had heard Dave’s story and was amazed at how resilient the human body can be. He invited Dave to come down to the Berrics to shoot an Aberrican Me. We met up with Daniel Duarte, who is an editor/cameraman at The Berrics. The first day in LA we were all worn out and rested for the day. Later that night we went to The Berrics, where Dave managed to beat Billy Marks in two out of three games of skate. The next day we headed for Venice beach, found a perfect ledge on a cannel and then we headed for the beach. Next a wood ramp that turned out to be an old X-games ramp. To find our next spot we searched schools on our GPS and started hitting up all the locals. We somehow found our way to a small airport that was fenced off and full of Cessna’s like the one in Dave’s plane crash. The sun was going down and it was almost that perfect “15 minutes of gold” time of day. We wanted footage of Dave skating with the Cessna’s in the background. Dave talked with someone at the airport about his plane crash and he gladly let us into the plane storage area to shoot. The sun went down as we packed up our gear and headed back to The Berrics. The next day we skated downtown LA, where we got kicked out of every spot within 5 minutes except for the LAPD building. The police didn’t seem to mind us skating their ledges and stairs. Back at the Berrics, Daniel got a couple shots of Dave skating for Aberrican Me. The next day Daniel shot the Aberrican Me interview on his apartment rooftop in LA, we skated The Berrics until 1 AM and Dave got four letters on PJ Ladd in a game of SKATE.

Steve Berra, Via Twitter – I ain’t gonna lie, Dave Jonsson’s Aberrican Me is the best thing we’ve ever had on www.theberrics.com

R.I.P Guðni Rúnar Kristinsson 18.9.2007 (Video of Gudni http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB3J5ILUTUs)

Thank to everyone who made the trip happen, Steve Berra, Daniel Duarte, the Williams for sharing their house with us, Nomis(http://nomisdesign.com), Wildlife Apparel(http://wildlifeapparel.com), Bobby Paul (http://bobbypaul.com), Love Skateboards (http://loveskateboards.ca) and Camp Skateboards.