Friendship Through Foam Swords
Welcome to the Seaside Keep.
You might hear the Seaside Keep before you see them. Every Sunday, their battle cries and laughter fill the air on the cusp of the Burnaby border as they swoop their colourful swords against each other's metal breastplates.
They are an unlikely group. After all, seeing people fight in medieval outfits against the backdrop of a park is not an everyday phenomenon. For people passing by, it may look like nothing more than a collection of adults play-fighting. But, for those involved, it is a welcoming community where long-lasting friendships are made.
Will Maclean (Gimsly), man in the black armour, fights against two members of a different Amtgard keep that travelled to Vancouver for a tournament. Maclean ends up on his knees after one member takes out his legs in battle.
Will Maclean (Gimsly), man in the black armour, fights against two members of a different Amtgard keep that travelled to Vancouver for a tournament. Maclean ends up on his knees after one member takes out his legs in battle.
The Seaside Keep is the local chapter of an international community called Amtgard. Members of the keep engage in live-action role-playing (LARPing), where they dress in their best medieval garb (outfits) and battle each other using weapons handcrafted from foam mats and swimming noodles.
It all started in August 2022 when five members gathered in Cameron Park to form the keep as Vancouver’s first and only Amtgard chapter. Through word of mouth and the sheer curiosity of parkgoers, the Seaside Keep grew to outstanding numbers in a single year. It became an incredible and extensive community that no one could predict.
There is something for everyone – fantasy, crafting, swordplay, and even politics. While everyone who attends has a different reason for joining, the community spirit is a common reason that many members stay. In a city that is notorious for being hard to make friends in, the Seaside Keep may just be the place to find a sense of belonging.
One person who found a sense of belonging at the Seaside Keep is Cody Grant. Members of the keep thought Grant was already a fellow LARPer when he approached them with his cascading brown hair and medieval attire. But that is just his everyday look.
Grant follows the Ásatrú Pagan religion. He worships the Norse gods and believes in the glory of Valhalla. It was an instant connection when he discovered the keep.
“This has become my life,” he said. “I just want to have really good fights, and then I die. Then I come back, and I have really great fights again. It's like a Norse dream, almost.”
He used his faith to develop his ruthless persona, Gunnarr. In the game, members refer to each other by their persona names and can develop backstories for their persona. Gunnarr translates to ‘warrior’ in Old Norse, according to Grant. As such, he created his persona as a Viking whose character arc went from an anti-hero to a reliable ally.
“I want to be like a Viking. Throughout the playthrough, it just really resonated with me,” said Grant. “I started him off wanting to be more villainous and ruthless, but throughout the story, he became more trusting for his friends and became more caring and heroic.”
Cody Grant (Gunnarr)
Cody Grant (Gunnarr)
Cody Grant (Gunnarr)
Cody Grant (Gunnarr)
The opportunity to explore and develop his persona is not the only value Grant found in the Seaside Keep. In his words, he “found a found family.”
“I have found more support from this community in the few short months I've been playing it than many other avenues in my life,” he said.
“I found the most amazing, wonderful group of people, and I talked to them every single day about life problems or how work’s going,” Grant shared about the friendships he has made within this keep and another keep he visited in the United States. “The support from these random people is immense."
Grant found a chosen family within the Seaside Keep, and he is not the only one.
Madison Chapel is another member who holds the community dear to her heart. She has been LARPing on and off for around six years and initially joined for the fighting opportunities the keep provided.
“I grew up in a really small town in Manitoba. My town didn’t have anything like that, so I had to go and seek it out,” she said. “Like, where can I go and do something like this because this looks like so much fun?”
Chapel created the persona Aera and managed to find a keep in Winnipeg. But she was eager to join a new one when she moved to Vancouver for graduate school. Joining the Seaside Keep paid off for Chapel. She is known as the best fighter within the keep, and her skills have helped deepen her relationships within the community.
“They look up to me as a really good fighter because I've been doing the game for a few years now. So, it's this really cool dynamic within the community where the longer you're in the community, the more you get out into the community,” she said.
“The more you're able to give back, it just continuously cycles to lift everybody up and make the community a better place.”
Madison Chapel (Aera) catches her breath while respawning. She has been killed in battle and can rejoin after two minutes.
Madison Chapel (Aera) catches her breath while respawning. She has been killed in battle and can rejoin after two minutes.
Aside from members being able to act as role models for each other in the game, Chapel also emphasized the support the community can bring. Especially if the keep were ever to experience judgement from close-minded onlookers. While she shared that most people are very positive toward them when they pass by, Chapel also noted that the community spirit is so strong that no negative outside judgement could ever affect them.
“We know that when we go out onto the field, we're going to be able to have a good time with everybody else,” she said. “Nobody on the field is going to look at us and say, ‘Oh, look at those nerds swinging foam swords.’”
“Everybody is just getting into it and connecting over this huge common interest that they have.”
Fighting with foam swords might be a more unusual way to spend your Sunday afternoon, but Grant and Chapel are two examples of how it can become an uplifting part of your life.
The Seaside Keep is a place where you can let go of your inhibitions and find childlike glee running around with friends. Play during childhood is such an essential part of making friends while growing up, and the Seaside Keep proves that it can be done in adulthood as well.
It will be hard to find a more tight-knit community than this one. So, grab a swimming noodle from your local dollar store and head over to Cameron Park to join in the wondrous world of the Seaside Keep.
The Seaside Keep meets at Cameron Park, Burnaby, on Sundays at 12 pm.
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