This little badass Skate Witch is 6-year-old Erin Oakes from Vancouver, Canada who ripped around on her skateboard on Halloween in 1977!! The photo was taken by her dad, Ken Oakes and published in The Vancouver Sun newspaper (Nov. 1, 1977). Ken Oakes was a photographer who worked for the newspaper, as well as contributed photos to Life magazine.
The heading says, “It’s Faster Than a Broom” and apparently Erin would skate from house to house, parked it at the end of driveways, ran in for treats and skated on. Special shout out to Jeff Cole in Vancouver for the heads up!!!
The best part is that the Skate Witch now has a lot of significance for female skaters, starting with Danny Plotnick’s classic video The Skate Witches from 1986, which spawned the zine “The Skate Witches” by Kristin Ebeling and Shari White, and a variety of girl gangs that have adopted the reference.
Here’s a few more retro Halloween witches, just missing that key element of a skateboard:
Womxn Skateboard History 