{"id":383668,"date":"2026-01-02T14:34:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T14:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/383668\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T14:34:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T14:34:18","slug":"why-not-jump-into-icy-cold-water-polar-dippers-kick-off-new-year-in-charlottetown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/383668\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Why not jump into icy cold water?&#8217;: Polar dippers kick off new year in Charlottetown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\" alt=\"Text to Speech Icon\" width=\"44\" height=\"44\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Listen to this article<\/p>\n<p>Estimated 2 minutes<\/p>\n<p>The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n<p>The crowd of spectators was much larger than the number of people lined up to go into the icy waters of the Charlottetown harbour for Thursday&#8217;s polar bear dip.<\/p>\n<p>Conditions were icy for the 36th annual dip, but it didn&#8217;t dampen people&#8217;s excitement for the event. <\/p>\n<p>Organizer Jake MacCallum said they decided to bring people two at a time to a small area they had cut in the shallow water.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When you&#8217;re in the cold you just want to get out, but we&#8217;re going to do our best to keep things moving in an orderly fashion&#8221; said MacCallum.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"A line up of people wait their turn to do the Polar Bear Dip in Charlottetown. \"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767364457_82_default.jpg\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.7777777777777777\" data-cy=\"image-img\"\/>A steady lineup of people took the plunge into the icy waters of the Charlottetown harbour. (Laura Meader\/CBC)<\/p>\n<p>He said doing the polar dip is not easy, but it&#8217;s a great way to set yourself up for other challenges in the new year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you can do this, what else can you do?&#8221; said MacCallum.<\/p>\n<p>Exhilarating feeling<\/p>\n<p>Organizers estimate about 150 people went into the water. Some people were fully submerged, while others just did a quick dip. All seemed relieved upon getting out of the water, greeted by hoots and hollers from the crowd.<\/p>\n<p>Jennifer Riley has been doing polar bear dips for about five years. She said it&#8217;s a good mental challenge.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s just kind of an exhilarating feeling,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Why not jump into icy cold water?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cathrina Mugford said it&#8217;s basically like a cleanse.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Woman with CBC mircophone talks about participating in the Polar Bear Dip.\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767364457_304_default.jpg\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.7777777777777777\" data-cy=\"image-img\"\/>Cathrina Mugford did the polar bear dip in Charlottetown for the first time this year.  (Laura Meader\/CBC)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Just you know, start everything fresh, wash all the bad off and hopefully hope for the good,&#8221; said Mugford.<\/p>\n<p>Canadian way of life<\/p>\n<p>Some of the polar dippers were first-timers, some of whom were new to Canada and P.E.I.<\/p>\n<p>Ivan Garrido moved to P.E.I. from Chile a couple of years ago. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Man submerges into icy water during Polar Bear Dip in Charlottetown.\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767364458_369_default.jpg\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.7777777777777777\" data-cy=\"image-img\"\/>Ivan Garrido said the polar bear dip was very cold, but it&#8217;s part of the Canadian experience. (Laura Meader\/CBC)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was great, it was great,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I feel better for trying new things like this, you know.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said he&#8217;ll definitely do it again next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-383668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}