Features

10 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW

ABOUT MEGHANN O’BRIEN

BY SARA TOLLESTRUP

There are some people who love snowboarding and that’s all. Meghann O’Brien’s snowboarding looks effortless – I’ve seen her go super big on a hip, grab method and land as soft as a feather. However, she’s not one of those people that only loves snowboarding, she loves about a million other things too. It’s obvious she draws on her passions outside of snowboarding to bring energy, creativity and fluidity to her riding. Keep reading to find out what makes Meghann the diversely talented and unique person she is.

GO FISH

Meghann spends her summer’s commercial fishing on a seine boat in Northern British Columbia. A seine boat is equipped with a seine, or a large fishing net that hangs vertically in the water because weights are attached along the bottom edge and float along the top. Meghann’s dad, Brian O’Brien, is a commercial fisherman who fishes in the summer, saves his money and spends his winters snowboarding. Seeing this pattern work perfectly for people like her dad who want a winter full of powder turns and park laps, Meghann got on board. She also likes the fact that while fishing she can get away from city life and find time to think.

SHE CAN’T PUT DOWN THE KOMBUCHA

Kombucha is a drink that dates back to the Qin Dynasty in China. It contains many different cultures along with several organic acids, active enzymes, amino acids, anti-oxidants, and polyphenols – lost? Me too, but apparently it’s good for your health and Meghann drinks it like there’s about to be a Kombucha prohibition.

SEW WHAT?

Meghann has a sick collection of Beta Unit dresses. You thought Beta Unit made T-shirts, not dresses, didn’t you? It’s true but Meghann likes to cut up a couple of different tees and stitch them together. Blue tee + yellow tee + pink tee + a print of Kate Moss’s face = Meghann’s dress.

SHE’S AN ACCOMPLISHED ARTIST

This summer Meghann learned how to weave cedar baskets from some extremely talented people living on Vancouver Island. She seems to have a natural ability. In fact she made her first basket without any instruction. Less than a year later, Meghann has sold her first baskets to a Whistler Gallery called The Path and Vancouver’s Lattimer Gallery.

SHE HAS SAILED THE MEDITERRANEAN AND SHREDDED THE ALPS

When she was 19-years-old, Meghann worked as a maid, of sorts, on a sailboat in the Greek Islands. The families she worked for were millionaires but somehow she talked them into picking figs with her. That winter Meghann moved to Switzerland with her friend and together they got a place in Champery and season’s passes for the Port du Soleil area.

SHE HASN’T ALWAYS BEEN ON THE PROGRAM

Before she rode for Forum and became the first female added to the Foursquare team, Meghann rode for Rossignol. During high school Meghann rode Rossi decks and then took a brief break from sponsored snowboarding to study and travel. Feeling the need to get back on a board full-time, Meghann got hooked up wit Roberta Rodger from Infamous Management Inc. who lined her up with her current sponsors: Forum, Foursquare and Spy.

SHE WANTS TO KEEP HER NATIVE HERITAGE ALIVE

She collects glass Indian trade beads from beaches. She wants to wear Lakota moccasins from the 1800s and learned to speak Kwakwaka’wakw. She also wants to make bentwood boxes and a dug out canoe to go on berry picking trips with her grandma in her hometown of Alert Bay, BC.

SHE’S IN LOVE WITH TERRACE

Terrace, BC that is, not somebody named Terrace. It’s a small town in Northwest BC with a population of about 13,300. Meghann is stoked on Terrace because it’s surrounded by the Coast Mountain range and is a 12-hour ferry ride from Port Hardy, which is near Alert Bay. Terrace is an ideal spot for Meghann to enjoy her passion for snowboarding and culture because of its consistent snow dumps and rich Native culture.

MERCEDES NICOLL WAS HER RIVAL

Back in the day Meghann and Mercedes used to go head to head in the British Columbia Snowboard Association (BCSA) rankings. If Meghann came first then Mercedes came second and vice versa. These days Mercedes is riding for the Canadian National team and Meghann is focused on filming with Runway and freeriding, and the two are friends – it seems.

SHE’S GOING TO CHANGE THE WORLD

When Meghann was young her mom went to see a psychic who told her Meghann was going to “drastically change the world.” Here’s one of Meghann’s best ideas about how to change the world to date. “It involves taking government workers who do landscaping, and redirecting their energy from trimming hedges and planting tulips to planting strawberries and raspberries and having an apple tree, pear tree, etc on every block. Government workers would tend to and harvest all the goods. It would be a free food surplus from our government and it would cost nothing more than what they already pay people to tend public spaces. It would make people healthier and more connected to the seasons, drastically reduce our dependency on US chemical-laden vegetables, reduce our need for transporting food, and also would basically be amazing.”