Canada
In Canada "Polar Bear Swims", "Plunges", or "Dips", are a New Years Day tradition in numerous communities across the country. Vancouver, BC's annual Polar Bear Swim Club has been active since 1920 and typically has 1,000 to 2,000 registered participants, with a record 2,128 registrants plunging into English Bay in 2000. Registration is not enforced and the actual number of swimmers may be significantly higher. Estimates of the number of observers are typically up to 10,000. Suburban White Rock, BC's was founded in 1958, and other suburbs including Port Moody and North Vancouver also hold swims
Other locations include Edmonton AB, Calgary AB, Ottawa ON, Toronto ON, Clarington ON, Sarnia ON, Montreal QC, Halifax NS, Prince Edward Island, and St. John's NL. In Yellowknife NWT, the "Freezin for a Reason" plunge is held in March after the spring thaw.
Read more about this topic: Polar Bear Plunge
Famous quotes containing the word canada:
“In Canada an ordinary New England house would be mistaken for the château, and while every village here contains at least several gentlemen or “squires,” there is but one to a seigniory.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I do not consider divorce an evil by any means. It is just as much a refuge for women married to brutal men as Canada was to the slaves of brutal masters.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“Canadians look down on the United States and consider it Hell. They are right to do so. Canada is to the United States what, in Dante’s scheme, Limbo is to Hell.”
—Irving Layton (b. 1912)