Sunday.

I was DM.

It was spring, but not quite. Spring dumping practice was a couple weeks in the future. Snow was gone in all but the drifts in the shadows, but nothing was green.

I’d been telling them about one of the northern trips with ice. I think he thought I was BS-ing.

Jeremy Sanderson dared me to go for a dip in the North Sask. “You’re coming too!”

We picked up a small crowd and went down to the river.

There, spring was not as advanced. There were 18″ thick icebergs beached on the shore. The river had a mix of ice cubes ranging from cocktail cubes to tennis balls.

I judged that actual swimming was too risky. “I propose sitting neck deep until one person has had enough.” He agreed.

We peeled down to underwear and waded in.

“What have I done?” Water that cold has the intensity of fire. We waded out to not quite ball level. “Ready?” He replied “Let’s do it”

And we sat. One of the observers timed us, calling out time every five seconds.

“Do you want to go longer than a minute?” I asked.

Jeremy shook his head.

“Ok, we stop together.” We waited for the “1 minute” call from the timer, and staggered. out. We dressed as fast as we could. Legs and feet didn’t work right. Both of us were shivering, me moderately, J violently. (At that point he was your typical string-bean
looking 15 year old. Even at his age, I had the build of a fire hydrant.) We were across the lower fields and starting up Grade 8 Hill before we could feel our feet properly.