THEBACHA/FORT SMITH - When Vance Sanderson speaks of keeping the culture alive in Fort Smith, it can have two meanings.

Vance Sanderson: Fort Smith resident operates store focused on skateboarding and snowboarding culture. He has run S.Y.I. Skate & Snow since 2005. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

Sanderson's day job is promoting the Cree language, but he is also helping to preserve a subculture – the skateboarding and snowboarding lifestyle.

In 2005, he opened a store – S.Y.I. Skate & Snow – to serve skateboarders and snowboarders.

"Then, there was no real place to buy boards other than down south," he said. "So I wanted to establish a business here that sold boards and to keep the culture alive in this town."

Sanderson has loved skateboarding and snowboarding since he was a child growing up in Fort Smith.

"Now that I've done it for over 20 years, I just enjoy it," he said. "Right now, I'm still learning and it's still fun."

That's despite many injuries over the years, including broken bones and being knocked out.

At 32, he describes himself as a veteran among Fort Smith's boarders.

Sanderson did not simply jump into the retail sector to serve the boarding subculture. Instead, he went to Aurora College and earned a diploma in business management.

"I wanted some kind of background where I knew what I was doing when I was getting into this," he recalled.

His store, which is next door to his home, is in a renovated building that used to house a rental shop for tools and mechanical equipment.

Along with skateboards and snowboards, it offers everything needed for the lifestyle – clothing, banners, wheels, belts and wallets, posters, T-shirts, videos, and more.

Sanderson serves about 40 boarders in Fort Smith.

"Now there's a new generation of young riders that are coming up that keeps my shop going. This is all for them," he said.

The age range of customers is from 10 to 16, he noted. "That would be my core."

Skateboarding accounts for about 70 per cent of the business, while snowboarding makes up the rest.

There are also some customers who don't even skateboard or snowboard, but who like the subculture's styles.

Sanderson said he would never be able to rely on the store for a living.

"It's not something where I’m making a lot of money," he said. "It's enough to keep the culture alive."

With the population of Fort Smith, it's not feasible to keep such a shop going unless a person really wants to make it happen, he said. "You put your own money into it and you sacrifice. I've done a lot of that."

Plus, he obtained $20,000 in loans from business funding agencies.

The name of the store has a family connection.

"My son's name is Syi so I wanted to dedicate the shop to him, and so it's just S.Y.I. Skate & Snow," Sanderson explained, adding originally the letters were used to mean 'Shred Your Image'.

Eventually, he hopes to pass the store along to his son, who is now 10 and an avid skateboarder and snowboarder. That is if his son wants to take over the store when he grows up.

"Whatever he wants to do, I'm definitely supportive of his future," Sanderson said.

Even though he has a full-time job elsewhere, the store also takes up a lot of his time because he opens it in the evenings and on weekends.

Aside from operating the store, Sanderson, who speaks fluent Cree, is the manager of the NWT Cree language program, an initiative of the GNWT and the Northwest Territory Metis Nation.

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