Polar Bear King Marion Chuka and Queen Trudie Logan, kneeling, along with participants in the 1959 Cabrillo Beach Polar Bear Swim. (Credit: Cabrillo Beach Polar Bears website)
The Coney Island Polar Bear Club in New York City gets the credit in America for the oldest organized ritual of swimming in cold winter waters to start the New Year, having formalized the practice in 1903. Residents of Milwaukee began their well-known tradition of hopping into icy Lake Michigan on Jan. 1, 1916, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
In San Pedro, the tradition began sometime during the late 1940s with a group of Los Angeles County lifeguards at Cabrillo Beach that included John Olguin and Jack Cheaney. They would take their annual casual plunge every January 1.
Exactly what year that first dip occurred is lost to history, but apparently the practice did attract curious onlookers who wanted to join in. So, Olguin and Cheaney formed the Cabrillo Beach Polar Bears. Olguin’s wife, Muriel, designed the club logo, still in use today.
John Olguin, 85, hugs a fellow swimmer during the 56th Annual New years Day Swim at Cabrillo Beach In San Pedro in 2008. Olguin helped start the Cabrillo Beach Polar Bears in 1953. He died on Jan. 1, 2011. (Daily Breeze staff file photo)
The new club decided to meet in the fall every year in order to elect a Polar Bear Swim King and Queen, who would arrive at Cabrillo Beach in a boat, disembark, and lead the hardy oceangoers into the drink at noon on January 1 every year.
Logo designed by Muriel Olguin.
The first official Polar Bear Swim took place on Jan. 1, 1953. Raymond Pearson and Marguerite Gardiner won election as the first King and Queen of the event. Royal duties of the king and queen include not only presiding over the New Year’s Day ritual, but also representing the club in the community.
The club has held the event every year since then. The 2020 iteration of the Polar Bear Swim, the 67th, will take place at noon on Jan. 1, as always. The pre-swim ceremonies begin at 11:30 a.m. Everyone is welcome to take part in the swim, and to join the Polar Bear Club itself if interested.
Polar Bear Queen Lori O’ Donnell, left, and King Richard Leach splash through the surf at the 62nd annual Cabrillo Beach Polar Bear New Year’s Day Swim and Dip in San Pedro, Wednesday, January 1, 2014. (Daily Breeze staff file photo)
In addition to the New Year’s event, Polar Bear members participate in additional swims throughout the year. They also help to maintain the historic Cabrillo Beach Bathhouse, site of their official clubhouse and meeting place since 1985, and to keep the nearby beach area clean.
The Cabrillo Beach event may be the oldest in Southern California, but it’s certainly not the only New Year’s Day swim. In 1991, Hermosa Beach resident Ed Kushins invited a few friends and neighbors to his 16th Street house for a New Year’s Day swim.
Participants jump into the Pacific Ocean on Jan. 1 for the 25th annual New Year’s Day Polar Bear Plunge in Hermosa Beach in 2015. (Credit: Beach Reporter)
Participants, mostly family, friends and neighbors early on, were rewarded with hot chocolate. Onlookers were intrigued by the goings-on, and began to join the informal ritual.
Over the years, Kushins and his wife added morel treats to the post-swim feast, which drew more swimmers. In recent years, as many as 70 people have taken part in the New Year’s Day Polar Bear Plunge in front of the 16th Street lifeguard tower, and enjoyed treats courtesy of the Kushins afterward.
Another longtime New Year’s Day swim takes place in Venice annually. In 1960, lifeguard Darrell Willey suggested that an informal group that took an annual Jan. 1 dip organize themselves into a club and make it an annual practice, and the Venice Beach Penguin Club Swimmers were born.
Some of the 75 members of the Venice Beach Penguin Club begin their annual New Year’s morning dip at Venice Beach on Jan. 1, 1964. (Credit: UCLA Library Special Collections, Los Angeles Times Photographic Archives)
In the early days, swimmers would head out to a buoy fifty yards offshore, read the water temperature from a gauge on the buoy, and report that information back to shore. Those who did became eligible for membership after finishing their swim.
Actor Dick Van Patten and his family were among the event’s earliest participants, and actress Farrah Fawcett Majors took New Year’s dips there in the late 1970s.
More recently, the Southern California Aquatic Club has taken over sponsorship of the swim. Signups for the 60th annual noon event begin at 11 a.m. at the breakwater near the end of Windward Ave.
Lake View Terrace in the San Fernando Valley hosts an inland annual New Year’s Day swim at the Hansen Dam Aquatic Center, a manmade lake whose water temperature often is in the mid-40s for the event.
The Hansen Dam Aquatic Center Polar Bear Plunge starts at 8 a.m. on New Year’s Day. Undated photo. (Credit: Los Angeles City Council, District 7)
The 8 a.m. Polar Bear Plunge in the 143-yard-wide lake has been sponsored by the City of Los Angeles Dept. of Parks and Recreation since 2000.
Orange County also holds several Polar Bear events.
In Huntington Beach, Mike Parks organized a New Year’s Day swim through his church group that took place in 1998 near the city’s pier.
A few years later, resident Lee Love took over the event, renaming it Surf City Splash. It now attracts hundreds of participants annually.
A group calling themselves “The Rainbow Friends” runs into the Pacific as part of the 16th Annual Surf City Splash in Huntington Beach in 2016. (Credit: Orange County Register)
Further south in San Clemente, the Polar Plunge has been attracting swimmers to Lasuen Beach at 9 a.m. every Jan. 1 since around 1980 to take a dip in the ocean.
Catalina Island also holds an annual Polar Bear Plunge sponsored by the City of Avalon and the Catalina Swim Club at the city’s Middle Beach at 11:30 a.m. on the first day of the year. A more advanced 1.5-mile Polar Bear Swim takes place at 7:30 a.m.
Certificate of completion for the Cabrillo Beach Polar Bears annual New Year’s Day swim for San Pedro musician Mike Watt.
Sources:
Cabrillo Beach Polar Bears website.
Daily Breeze files.
Los Angeles Daily News files.
Los Angeles Times files.
San Pedro News Pilot files.
