The annual Frank Ney Memorial Polar Bear Swim in Nanaimo scheduled for Sunday, Dec 26 has been canceled. (Royal LePage Nanaimo Realty)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

pandemic cancellation

Frank Ney Memorial Polar Bear Swim cancelled for second straight year

Dec 15, 2021 | 3:27 PM

NANAIMO — A Boxing Day tradition at Departure Bay Beach has been put on ice for another year.

Brad Ney, coordinator of the annual Frank Ney Memorial Polar Bear Swim, said organizers felt it was in the public’s interest to cancel the Sunday Dec. 26 gathering.

The son of late Nanaimo mayor Frank Ney said the arrival of the apparent fast-spreading Omicron variant led to scrapping the event.

“We’ve been sort of pinned by the post and not able to get out of the starting gate here on this. We’ve had to put it on hold unfortunately,” Ney told NanaimoNewsNOW.

Having several hundred people from a variety of social circles and communities gathering in one place would present an unnecessary risk at this time, Ney said.

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“It’s a hard thing to monitor…you don’t know where everybody’s coming from, people could be coming back from holidays — a whole bunch of people gather that normally don’t gather in the same realm.”

Ney encouraged people to participate in their own private Boxing Day plunges at the beach, which several people did last year.

The previous Boxing Day dip in Nanaimo occurred in 2019, which was the 60^th anniversary of the wildly popular event.

The event features hundreds of people, including some wearing outlandish costumes, charging the cold ocean in front of cheering onlookers.

Funds generated from past events organized by Royal LePage Nanaimo Realty supported Haven Society in Nanaimo.

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