Arctic Dippers

The Arctic Polar Dippers

What started out as a crazy idea .. wound up being an actual crazy idea. Aaron (the researcher) had the idea that we should all go for a polar dip in the bay. Well.. by the end of the day we were all pretty much in. So here we are at 6:30 all gathered at David and Irene's trying to figure out where we were going to go for the dip. Victor Bay? The other side of Arctic Bay? Out side of Arctic Bay? Nope. We went right to the break water.

Imagine, if you will, a bunch of teachers, mental health worker and RCMP officers show up all in a large group, all warmly (and strangely) dressed all piling out onto the beach .. only to begin peeling off layers of clothing. The kids were quite curious to know what on earth we were doing, and the tourists who were here were even more curious. We explained to them that we do this everyday and that they should join in the fun (hahaha).

After group pictures were taken (more pics to follow once we get the mailing list figured out) we all ran into the slightly cold water (what was it? 1.2 degrees?) [found out later on that the water was 0.6 degrees and the air temp was 1.2 degrees] yelling out polar cry ...er... yell, kids in the background cheering us on, tourists watching and taking pictures of us crazy Southerners going in for a dip.

It wasn't too bad - once you got used to the cold it was pretty nice - and surprisingly, we were pretty warm after getting out of the water. But, we all quickly pilled into warm and running trucks and got home quickly to get warmed up. Now it's off to hockey night.