Polar Bear Swim: A New Years Tradition

Can you think of a better way to ring in   the New Year than plunging into  freezing water? 

All over the world, thousands of people participate in annual Polar Bear swims, running into icy lakes, rivers and even oceans  in order to  welcome the new year.  The first day of the year in 2013 was no different. 

Some do it because it has become an "fun and exciting" tradition for themselves, their families and friends. 

Others do it only once in their life "just for the experience of being able to say they went swimming on the January 1stm." or because they think it will bring them good luck.

Still others do it to raise money for charity.  This year, the majority of American Polar Bear plunges were held to raise money for victims of Hurricane Sandy. 

 Netherlands Polar Bear Swim Biggest in the World 
 

The biggest polar bear swim in the world takes place in the Netherlands. Every New Year's day  more than 30,000 people jump into freezing water in a  "neiujhaarsduik"   (New Year's dive)  in 89 locations around the country. This year a record 37,000 participated in the annual event.

The largest dive is held at the beach of Scheveningen, where well over 10,000 people plunge into the sea each year. 

The Dutch tradition started in 1960 in Zandvoort when a swim club decided to start the year fresh with a plunge in the sea. The new year’s dive received national attention after a big soup brand decided to sponsor it. From that moment on, the amount of participants and locations has increased every year.” 




Vancouver, Canada: Oldest Polar Bear Swim 

One of the oldest and most established Polar Bear swims took place in Vancouver Canada's English Bay. This year  a record 2,200 dressed in super hero, dinosaur, shark and other wild costumes raced into the water to the encouragement of more than 20,000 observers. 
 
The Vancouver Polar Bear Swim club has been around since 1920 when there were only 10 swimmers. Since then  its membership has grown to hold a new record of 2,246 official entries set in 2011. Now, in its 93rd year, this year's 2013 swim raised food and cash for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank.

Increasingly International
An increasing number of people from all over the world are now participating in the annual event. 

Baba Keisuku, a Japanese-English language student in Vancouver, came third in a 100 yard swimming race that was part of the day's events.  

 "It's too cold, " said Keisuku. "It's like swimming in icy needles." 

Paulo Costa, a 30 year old engineer who moved to Vancouver from Brazil five years ago,
took his fourth plunge into the ocean on New Year's Day. 

"It's fun," he said. " "When you first go in, it hurts., Then you go home and take a hot shower, the best part of the day."    

Polar Bear swims also took place in dozens of other Canadian cities and towns, including St. John's Newfoundland, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary and Edmonton where thousands people of all ages brave the freezing snowy conditions to participate in their own celebration of New Year. 

 Courage Polar Bear Dip Largest Fund Raiser in Canada  

Meanwhile, in Oakville Ontario, more than 700 ran into Lake Ontario to raise money for World Vision.  In the 17 years since the Courage Polar Bear Dip first partnered with World Vision it has raised more than $1 million for clean water projects. 

"At first it was just some friends and family who got together," said Trent Courage co-founder of the event.  " But even after we moved it somewhere public and got charities involved, I never dreamed we'd be here looking at a $1 million mark and what effect that $1 million has," he said. 

Listening Quiz Polar Bear Swim

Polar Bear Swim Popular in Europe, U.S and China 

Celebrating in South Queensbery, Scoland 

Not only Canadians braved the cold to participate in a Polar Bear swim  

This year, more than 1,000 swimmers, many of whom wore costumes,  participated in the annual Loony Dook Polar Bear Swim to ring in 2013 in South Queensberry Scotland. 

Thousands more in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweeden, Russia and even China - where the idea of a refreshing  

Man in Berlin, Germany enjoys a cold swim 

cold swim on New Years Day has also 
taken hold - jumped into lakes, rivers, 
outdoor pools and even holes in the ice.

Meanwhile all over the United States similar events also took place - mainly for charity.

The Coney Island Polar Bear Club in New York, the oldest Polar Bear Club in the world, swam in the Atlantic Ocean to help raise funds for Camp Sunshine, an organization that helps kids fighting  life threatening diseases. 

Coney Island Club existed since 1902

This year participants were also encouraged to donate to assist in the rebuilding of the Coney Island community which was devastated after Hurricane Sandy hit it earlier in December. 

 Dozens of other cities including Seattle, Boston, Chicago and Detroit among many also held Polar Bear dips to help raise funds for victims of Hurricane Sandy.   
                                                               

For more photos of polar Bear swims around the world:

• Calgary Herald Photo Gallery 
• MSN Polar Bear Swim Gallery

Only Man in World to Swim with Polar Bear 

Meanwhile, Mark Dumas, a 60 year old bear trainer from  Abbotsford, British Columbia is the only man in the world who swims with a polar bear. 

Online Interactive Reading Quizzes  ( can also be downloaded as pdf files)

• Reading Gap Fill: Only Man Who Can Swim with a Polar Bear

• The Polar Bear Swim: a New Year's Tradition

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Where do Vancouver's Ethnic Minorities Live?

Last week the Vancouver Sun ran a five part series on the neighbourhoods within Metropolitan Vancouver in which its ethnic minorities have decided to settle down.

According to the 2006 Canada Census information, almost 40,000 immigrants arrive in Metro Vancouver every year. Often referred to as the Lower Mainland, Metro Vancouver is a region of 2.2. million people that comprises of Vancouver, Richmond, Delta, White Rock, Tswassen, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Surrey, Langley
Again based oln the last census, 42% of Metro Vancouverès population consists of visible minorities. That number will definitely rise when the results of the 2011 census are published.

 In his five part series, columnist Douglas Todd reported on the areas and neighbourhoods where ethnic minorities, including South Asian, Chinese, Filipino, Italian, Dutch, English and many other ethnic groups have made their homes. The series  includes a series of interactive maps that detail where different ethnic groups are living.

The series is both informative, and useful reading if you want to get to know  the city and the region you are living in. As such, I am including links to all the of the articles and maps as well as the complete version of he last story. 
In his last and concluding article of the series Todd made some raised important questions that all of us who live in the Vancouver area need to think and talk about.  This includes long time Canadians, both former immigrant and native born and recent immigrants.  

Do we want to continue living in ethnic enclaves where we feel less of a sense of a belonging to Canada, or do we want to mix it up a little more so that this city famous for its tolerant multiculturalism becomes truly multicultural in every sense of the word ?   immigrants.  .
 
 RELATED: “Ethnic mapping: A unique interactive way to explore Metro Vancouver”

Ethnic mapping 1: “The pulsing South Asian heart of Surrey”

Ethnic mapping 2: “Some bustling Richmond enclaves 80 per cent Chinese”

Ethnic mapping 3: “Filipinos live beside Skytrain stations”

Ethnic mapping 4: “Europeans in peaceful Tsawwassen”

Ethnic mapping 5: “Find Metro’s Dutch, Germans, Iranians and Italians”

Ethnic mapping 6: “Find Metro’s Koreans, Poles, Scots, Ukrainians and more”

Vancouver Sun Staff Blog: The Search

Ethnic Mapping Conclusion:

As Enclaves Grow, will Metro Residents' Trust Fade?
by Douglas Todd 

The  Vancouver Sun’s unique ethnic mapping series has revealed a distinct trend – that Metro Vancouver’s neighbourhoods are becoming increasingly defined by ethnicity.

What will the diverse face of Metro Vancouver look like in a couple of decades? If recent high immigration settlement patterns continue, the fast-growing region of 2.2 million will further evolve into a collection of enclaves.

The vast majority of Metro Vancouver residents, of all ethnic origins, tend to be friendly, or, at minimum, tolerant, toward people of different backgrounds, whom they meet every day in offices, schools, on transit and in shopping outlets.

But, in the midst of this apparent inter-ethnic urban calm, The Sun’s ethnic mapping series has revealed Metro Vancouver residents are increasingly choosing to seek comfort by living near people of the same colour or ancestry, whether Chinese, South Asian, Filipino or Caucasian.

Indeed, Metro Vancouver may be the country’s prime illustration of a shift that is occurring across Canada’s major bustling metropolises, which new immigrants overwhelmingly choose over smaller cities.

In 1981, Canada had only six ethnic enclaves, which Census Canada defines as neighbourhoods where more than 30 per cent of the population is a visible minority.

Now, the number of ethnic enclaves in the country has mushroomed to more than 260.

The Sun’s mapping series, based on 2006 census data, has determined that roughly 110 of those enclaves are in Metro Vancouver. No major Canadian region has more enclaves as a proportion of its population.More than 70 of those Metro ethnic enclaves are predominantly Chinese. Most are in the cities of Vancouver and Richmond.Another 40 ethnic enclaves are predominantly South Asian. Most are in southeast Vancouver and north Surrey.

In 2006, more than 42 per cent of Metro residents were members of a visible minority. When the results of the 2011 census are revealed, the number of both visible minorities and ethnic enclaves is expected to have expanded further.Furthermore, if Statistics Canada eventually begins, as some expect, to start counting whites the same way they do other visible minorities, the number of ethnic enclaves in Metro Vancouver would sharply increase again.

What did The Sun series discover about how the rise of enclaves is affecting the face and culture of Metro Vancouver? Many Metro residents, of all colours, often declare pride in their ethnic neighbourhoods, professing they are places where people of diverse backgrounds generally get along cheerfully. Metro Vancouver, the series confirms, is home to untold mixed-ethnic business connections, friendships, partnerships and marriages. Some young people are leaders in this intercultural fusion.

But The Sun has also found distinct murmurs of discomfort among young and old throughout Metro, expressed both on the record and off, in private.

Interviews generally backed up the impression captured by a 2010 Nanos Research poll, which found 29 per cent of British Columbians want to increase immigration rates. But 31 per cent of B.C. residents want levels to stay the same, and almost 40 per cent desire fewer newcomers.
There are many echoes in Metro of famous Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam’s massive survey of 30,000 Americans, which determined that people who live in ethnic enclaves generally tend to be more distrusting of those around them.Meanwhile, a series of scholarly studies out of the University of B.C., Scandinavia and by Transparency International consistently show that the most contented people and well functioning governments and economies are those based on a high degree of mutual trust.

The Sun’s interviews fully backed up University of Victoria scholar Zheng Wu’s recent study, which found immigrants say they feel “comforted” and “protected” by settling into enclaves of people of their own ethnicity.At the same time, however, Wu saw a downside, concluding that life in ethnic enclaves reduces immigrants’ “sense of belonging to Canada.”  
Few Metro Vancouverites suggest trust and mutual reliability have disappeared among the city’s disparate residents.But suspicion often comes out in whispers – over which ethnic group is making housing unaffordable, why schools are so ruthlessly competitive, how store signs are often appearing in languages other than English and whether employers, white or Asian, are willing to hire outside their ethnic group.

Around the planet, Canadians, and especially Metro Vancouverites, are often complimented for their broadminded approach to living together in the same cities as people of multiple ethnic origins.

Like London and Toronto, Metro Vancouver is becoming a mass laboratory for globalization, an experiment in whether cooperation can flourish in a major metropolis made up of people from different backgrounds.

No one knows how Metro will turn out a few decades from now. If enclaves expand, will the city come up with the institutions, people or values that can foster a sense of unity among its eclectic residents?To counter the demographic shifts that are moving residents into distinct neighbourhoods in Metro Vancouver, will there be ties that bind us together, that encourage a sense of common purpose?  The world will be watching to find if this city has the answers.

What are your opinions or feelings on this topic? 

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