Portrait by Gabe Morford
Our latest 5000 Words contributor is Davis Torgerson. Davis recently relocated from the American Midwest to California, two completely different climates. This selection of pictures is a window into the world of Davis and fellow Minnesotans that may leave you hankering for the great outdoors or glad that our winter is a less full body experience. We would like to thank Davis for sharing these life experiences with us…
Being from Minnesota everyone always asks if we play hockey. Yah, you betcha. We play hockey and we play it outside. Every time I go back home for the holidays we always try and get a pick up game of puck going.
And yes, we even play on frozen lakes. It’s one of the craziest feelings skating around in the middle of a lake.
Prince is an icon in Minnesota, and he made Lake Minnetonka quite famous from the movie “Purple Reign”. This is my buddy Joe Hall and I trying to purify ourselves in the waters of Lake Minnetonka, only one problem…
It’s not only hockey we use frozen lakes for. This was with my cousins on Green Lake. We were snowmobiling on the lake and pulled up to someone trying to drive out to the middle to do some ice fishing. There was an unusual warm spell that created some soft ice. We helped push him out of the hole he was stuck in and he continued on in hopes of catching some walleye. Everyone on my Dad’s side of the family including us has at one point had a cabin on this lake.
It’s not all winter in Minnesota. This is the same lake as the photo above. It’s one of the most peaceful things just sitting by the lake watching the sunset. Welcome to the North Coast.
Back home a bunch of the locals play a game of B.E.E.R.S. It’s a game of S.K.A.T.E. and if you miss a trick you can opt to either take the letter or beer bong a beer. This is my buddy Dennis Burdick after an incredible run to the finals where either the beers snuck up on him, or the spotlight was too bright.
Look it’s skateboarding, it’s something we do as kids for fun. Just because you’re out in the streets trying to document something for a company’s marketing purposes it doesn’t change why you started skateboarding. This is Benny Maglinao and Sam McGuire hard at work.
Since moving to California and getting older I’ve started camping and exploring the outdoors. A couple buddies and I did a little backpacking trip in Sequoia last May. We quickly realized the further up the mountain we climbed that the lake we were going to camp at was going to be buried in snow. It’s a very humbling experience when you don’t bring a chair and there’s nothing dry to sit on to eat your dehydrated dinner. This is my buddy Morgan Funk coming to terms with that.
But not all camping trips have to be grueling. Tim Fulton, Robbie Brockel, Tony Hufnagel, David Jaimes and Jack Olson enjoying a picturesque waterfall.