Ah, those zany Canadians. A whole bunch of them did their thing on Friday, braving frigid temperatures to leap into various bodies of water across the country.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, 10 people jumped into the Atlantic off a snow-covered wharf in Portugal Cove.
In Nova Scotia, about 130 people — some in colourful costumes — gathered to jump into the Atlantic from a wharf in the 22nd Annual Herring Cove Polar Bear Dip.
In Toronto, snow flurries didn’t deter several hundred people from turning out at a Toronto beach to run en masse into Lake Ontario in the 11th annual Toronto Polar Bear Dip.
Meanwhile, organizers of the 31st annual Courage Polar Bear Dip in neighbouring Oakville were hoping nearly 1,000 people would take the plunge into Lake Ontario.
The oldest Polar Bear Club in the country was founded in 1920 in Vancouver. Since then the tradition has spread, but Vancouver’s club remains the largest. (Of course, British Columbia tends to be way warmer than the rest of Canada.)
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