Polar Bear Swim rings in 2020 with centenary chilly dip in English Bay
Credit to Author: Gordon McIntyre| Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2019 13:00:33 +0000
Peter Pantages would surely love the sight on New Year’s Day of thousands of people lining the beach at English Bay for the annual Polar Bear Swim.
It is the 100th anniversary of the swim, which officially began in 1920 on Christmas Day when nine other swimmers accepted Pantages’ challenge and joined him in the chilly English Bay water for what to him was his daily routine come rain, hail, snow or fog.
In fact, when the fog was particularly thick, Pantages would listen for the sound of streetcar wheels creaking at Davie and Denman to guide him back to shore, according to historian George Burrows.
“I have a lot of great memories of him,” Lisa Pantages said of her grandfather, a Greek immigrant, nephew of Vancouver vaudeville impresario Alexander Pantages, proprietor of the iconic Peter Pan Cafe at 1180 Granville St. and all-around larger-than-life character.
“He was a go-getter, he was referred to as The General by the family. But to me he was just a very gentle man.”
Polar Bear swimmers, Christmas Day, 1928. After starting off on New Year’s Day, 1920, the swim was held on Christmas Day for several years in the 1920s.
Peter Pantages was so dedicated to a daily ocean dip that he got the Pacific Steamship Company to agree to stop the boat on his trips to California or Hawaii so he could jump into the chop every day. When the weather didn’t cooperate, he would soak in a cold saltwater bath onboard and get the ship’s captain to write a letter of certificate to prove he’d been in icy brine every day.
The annual Polar Bear Swim moved to New Year’s Day in the late 1920s and became such an event that news of it was broadcast by the BBC and the Australian state broadcaster.
The English Bay water has been noted to dip as low as -1C (in 1949) for the swim and in 1963 a trench had to be shovelled to the shoreline through two feet of snow on the beach.
“It’s probably the oldest (polar bear swim) in the world that we know of as an official swim club,” Lisa Pantages said. “Coney Island (New York) argues with us about that a little bit.”
Peter Pantages arrived in Vancouver from Greece in 1917 as a 15-year-old and swam in the ocean pretty much every day from then on, his granddaughter said.
“Basically the swim started kind of as a bet with friends of his who weren’t daily swimmers,” she said. “Then it became a tradition and as my grandfather’s notoriety kind of grew, the swim and the tradition of the swim grew, and other families adopted it into their New Year’s Day tradition.
“The rest is history.”
The Polar Bear swim in English Bay in 1978. Honourable Polar Bear swim club members (left to right) Tony Pantages, Lisa Pantages, Basil Pantages, Herb Capozzi and Tony Ferraro.
The official record of the number of swimmers was recorded in 2014 with 2,550 registered participants. But hundreds more who don’t register also take part, some of them on the spur of the moment. Thousands more line the shore to watch, hold towels or blankets, or have a bracing flask of recovery fluid on hand for those coming out of the water.
The air temperature the past two years was 1C, so you could actually warm up by jumping into the water (6C in 2018, 7C in 2017).
“I guess (Peter Pantages) was one of the first Vancouver-brand ambassadors,” Lisa said.
Since the 1950s the Vancouver Park Board has organized the event in conjunction with the Pantages family, providing lifeguards, first aid tents, crowd control, and now a family zone and access ramps. About 3,000 registered and non-registered swimmers are expected for the 2020 swim (plunge scheduled for 2:30 p.m.) and about another 6,000 spectators.
And who knows how many others will do the dip at other locations in what has become a multi-generations family event all over.
“Pretty much every other (New Year’s Day) swim that happens, especially in British Columbia, is an offshoot of the Vancouver English Bay swim,” Lisa Pantages said. “People have started their own traditions and that was always what my grandfather’s vision of the swim was, he was very much about community and tradition.”
Peter Pantages died in 1971 in Hawaii. Fittingly, he was swimming when he passed away.
“He went the way he would have liked to,” Lisa Pantages said. “If you’ve got to go you might as well be doing what you love.”
Peter Pantages (far right) and staff at the Peter Pan Cafe on Granville Street, 1940s. The British flags were hung from the marquee during the Second World War. Photo: Dominion Photo Co.
Boys on the snowy beach at English Bay with the Sylvia Hotel in the background prior to an early Polar Bear Swim.
Boys on the snowy beach by the bath house at English Bay prior to an early Polar Bear Swim.
Diving into English Bay by the old pier on Christmas Day, 1928, for the Polar Bear Swim.
Early day Polar Bear swimmers on Diamond Ice truck before their icy dip in English Bay.
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