Welcome to Living Legends, a new eight-part video series brought to you exclusively by Push.ca and Degree. The idea behind Living Legends is a simple one, we want to honor and document the careers of professional skateboarders and snowboarders that have a significant impact on their sports but remain in the game.

Over the coming months you can expect flurry of historical photos, footage, interviews and back-stories on every individual featured. A new episode of Living Legends drops every two weeks, so keep your eyes peeled for features on some of your all-time favorite pros. This week we head east (then west) to learn the history of the godfather, Martin Gallant.

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Living Legends: Martin Gallant [by Pete Andersen]

Martin Gallant goes by the nickname "The Godfather". There is speculation as to whether this moniker was self-proclaimed, or given to him by the French Canadian snowboarders that he has paved the way for over the years. Gallant's age, as he puts it, "is classified information." What we do know is that he was amongst the first wave of snowboarders to pioneer the journey from Quebec to Whistler, BC in and around 1990. As far back as he, or anyone else can remember, Martin has marched to the beat of his own rhythm section, and he couldn't care less what others think about it. He does what he has to do to stay true to himself and get as much time on his snowboard as possible.

Ryan O'Dowd photo.

From his early days on the Kemper snowboard team that left a wake of destruction behind them everywhere they went, to his involvement in creating The Gathering film series that introduced French Canadian snowboarders to the world, all the way up to today, Martin Gallant has tried to pay forward everything he has learned. European escapades with Andy Hetzel, heli trips in Alaska with Craig Kelly and snowmobiling with the Adventurescope crew have left Martin Gallant with a wealth of knowledge about snowboarding, snow pack and how to stay safe in the backcountry, and he will share it with every next generation shred he comes across.

Phil Tifo photo.

Gallant has spent the last three summer's collecting fallen cedar trees and plans on using them to build a log cabin in the Sea-to-Sky corridor of BC this summer. His main reason for doing this? So he can snowmobile up the Tantalus mountain range, from his backyard, all winter long. This is the epitome of Martin ‘The Godfather' Gallant.

And don't miss our previous Living Legends with Dennis Bannock (bonus skate edit) and Shin Campos (bonus video part).

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