The Polar Plunge

Every year in January, Bemidji hosts its 'Brrrmidji Polar Days.' The festivities run all day long, and ALL of them happen on frozen Lake Bemidji. Some of the events are: a golf tournament, a 5k race, snowmobile racing, ice fishing competition, cross country skiing & broom ball. The most popular event of the celebration each year though, is The Polar Plunge. They cut out a rectangle shaped hole in the lake and people register to be jumpers, all to raise money for the Special Olympics. Before we moved up here, I had heard about crazy events like this & it was super fun to be able to watch it in person. There were all sorts of jumpers: young ones, old ones, costumed ones, non costumed ones & of course some crazy ones in bikinis & speedos!

Here is a shot of what the hole looked like before the jumpers began jumping in. After they began jumping in, the water started to displace & it actually flooded about 6 inches deep where all the crowds were standing to watch! Luckily, we got there early enough to get great seats on the bleachers. So, our feet were not frozen by the end of it like most everyone else's were.

There were two divers in the water the entire time who helped all of the jumpers out of the water. Very few of them could get out themselves...the water is just too cold & your body freezes up so fast! Here were some of my favorite jumpers from that day.

The firefighters

I thought these girls were super cute dressed up as paul & babe

Andi's 'what the heck are they doing' face. You can see the flooding pretty good at the bottom of this picture.

Here was Dawson's favorite...Spiderman of course.

The bikini girls.

And, the scarecrow.

I don't know if I would ever be brave enough to participate in this event, but I sure would donate to someone else who was brave enough to jump!