It's winter, and the sun has shifted away from the Northern Hemisphere, making the days shorter and the weather colder. It's the perfect temperature for snuggling by a fire, bundling up warmly to venture out ice skating, or donning a bathing suit and jumping into a 45°F lake.
Wait, what?
That's right, January 1st, 2010, will mark Canada's 90th annual Polar Bear Swim, where lunatics (a.k.a. hardcore devotees to charity) jump into a freezing lake with nothing but of bit of spandex to protect them from them elements.
Polar Bear Clubs are an offshoot of the equally crazy sport of ice swimming, where a hole is cut into the ice so swimmers can jump into the freezing waters hiding just beneath. Ice swimmers tout the sport's health and spiritual benefits -- but a little vodka to warm the bones doesn't hurt either.
Of course, if you'd rather keep your clothes on while you enjoy the extreme cold, there's the North Pole Marathon where runners race 26.2 miles across Arctic ice floes in sub-zero temperatures. Or try the slightly less insane sport of ice biking, where cyclists refuse to acknowledge that the combination of a frozen road and a thirty pound bike frame is probably not a good mix. And if water sports are more your forte, snowkiting takes the sport of kiteboarding from the ocean to the snow. Snowkiters use skis or a snowboard to glide across the snow with the assistance of a foil or inflatable kite, but unlike kiteboarding, snowkiters have the added thrill of dodging trees and other inanimate objects as they sail across the snowy plains.
Sooner or later, some hearty soul is going to invent blizzard parasailing. When that happens, I'll wish them well... then bundle down under my down comforter with a cup of hot apple cider. They're nuts.
Suggested Sites...
- Polar Bear Swim 2010 - Vancouver - site for the 90th Polar Bear Swim in Vancouver
- Polar Bear Swim 2010 - Toronto - site for the 90th Polar Bear Swim in Toronto.
- Plungapalooza - the annual Polar Bear Plunge in Baltimore, Maryland.
- Snowkiting - pictures, videos, tips, and more.
- Icebike - pictures, stories, equipment recommendations, etc.
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