Though modern snowboarding’s birth via Sherman Poppen’s invention of the Snurfer is well documented, there are earlier claims to people standing sideways to slide on snow.
One of these comes from the unlikely source of Turkey, where children in the mountainous logging village of Petran took to riding on primitive boards made from planks of wood nailed together and bent at the nose using steam.
Foothills: The Unlinked Heritage Of Snowboarding is a brilliant documentary from Patagonia following two of their ambassadors, Alex Yoder and Nick Russell, on a journey to the Kaçkar Mountains, where they meet one man determined to preserve this local tradition. Taking to the boards themselves, they show just how radical you can get on the most basic of snow craft.
Though it is a cul-de-sac in the overall history of snowboarding, ‘Petranboarding’ nevertheless offers us all a lesson in the timeless and cross-cultural nature of stoke.