A vast majority of them probably even have participated in those activities. But what about snowskating? What is this winter sport?

Snowskating is a combination of skateboarding and snowboarding. Participants find themselves gliding through the snow on a skateboard — without wheels — with a slick bottom like a snowboard.

Though there are plenty of people who partake in snowskating in the U.P., Escanaba native Jeremy Manson is the only one who does it professionally.

“It’s been right around 10 years since I’ve been snowskating,” said the 22-year old Manson, who is a 2013 graduate of Escanaba High School. “It was just always for fun and it still is all for fun, but over time I got better at it and things started to present themselves. Basically I’m just trying to be a kid as long as I can.”

Courtesy photo As a professional snowskater, Jeremy Manson has his own signiture snowskate board with his name on the bottom that can be purchased at www.ambitionsnowskates.com.

Just like many snowskaters, Manson got his start from experiencing skateboarding and snowboarding.

“I like skateboarding much more than I did snowboarding just because I don’t really like the feeling of being attached to the board,” said Manson. “So as soon as I found out about snowskating I begged my parents to buy me a board for Christmas every year and it just kind of took off from there.”

Manson first started out with a smaller snowskating company called Icon Snowskates, but after two years of snowskating for them the company went under leaving Manson to reach out to Ambition Snowskates.

Manson has been riding for Ambition Snowskates for four years making videos while they sent him free boards.

Ambition Snowskates was started out of Montreal, Canada in 2004 to progress the sport of snowskating. Ambition has five professional snowskaters on its team including Manson, who just recently started riding professionally for them last winter and has been participating in 2-3 competitions a year.

Competitions are judged on a series of of tricks performed on multiple stairs, rails and gaps on each coarse.

Each competition is put together by Ambition Snowskates to showcase its snowskaters and according to Manson are more social than anything.

“Most of the time it’s not super competitive,” said Manson, who lives in Marquette and works at Fuller’s Outdoor Maintenance and Marquette Mountain. “It’s mostly all of us having fun. But the last couple of events I’ve been right around the top three.”

The winner usually receives $250 while second place brings in $100 and third place gets $50.

Competitions span anywhere from Colorado to Wisconsin to Montreal.

“They want us to travel as much as possible,” said Manson. “They pay for our expenses for our traveling basically just to go out and promote it as best as possible and have some fun.”

Manson has a blast at what he does and encourages anybody who loves winter sports to try it out.

“I would tell anybody to give it a try,” said Manson. “Everything’s worth trying at least once. If you like skateboarding or snowboarding or any kind of action sport similar to it than it’s a great thing to pick up. Once you start there’s nowhere to go but up.”