Skinny Dipping

Skinny Dipping

Dave Wright

“Splash another cup of water on the rocks!”

The water sizzled and hissed sending a plume of steam that stung our eyes and burned our lungs. “One more time.”

The six of us groaned with pleasure as we broke out in a unanimous sweat. “That feels great!” shouted one of my fraternity brothers.

Another sucked in his breath. “I wonder if my cardiologist would approve of this. If I survive, I don’t think I’ll tell her.”

It was spring break in the middle of March. While most college students migrated south to the beaches of Cancun or Miami, we followed the snow geese north to a church camp on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. A young couple who lived at the camp as winter caretakers were starved for company, so they agreed to host us. We slept in a single bunk house, dined at the camp cafeteria, and cross-country skied during the days.

One evening we fired up the woodburning stove in the sauna located on a small peninsula at the far end of the camp. The sauna looked like a small log cabin set among the pines with a stove that could be fed through an outside door. A dressing room with wooden pegs for our clothes separated the entrance to the sauna from the exit to the lake. A snow-packed path wandered between granite boulders and downed logs to the shore of the lake. Earlier in the day just before sunset, we had chopped a hole in the ice about the size of a bathtub. We found that a second layer of smooth ice formed a platform about two feet below the surface of the water. It served as the floor for our icy tub.

Inside the sauna, the six of us spread out on two levels of cedar benches, the higher level catching the brunt of the steam. Sweat trickled down my back. “Are you guys hot enough to take the plunge?” I asked.

“Not yet,” gasped one of my buddies. “I’ve got to be ready to die before I jump into that water!”

Nearly baked to exhaustion we fled the sauna and charged the lake. We wore nothing but our pack boots to protect our feet from the shards of ice on the path. A full moon lit our way. Faded stars and a silhouette of pines formed a natural cathedral. One after another we kicked off our boots and splashed into the icy water, then leapt out—every pore tingling. We stood naked and steaming, congratulating one another on completing the ritual. After a few minutes, the chill of the winter night sent us back to the sauna.

We soaked in the hot air and relished another cleansing sweat. Our conversation turned competitive. “Who can stay in the ice bath the longest?”

On our next plunge one fellow lasted but five seconds; another twenty; another thirty. I claimed bragging rights after sitting in the frigid tub for a full sixty seconds—long enough to document the story with an Instamatic photo.

The thrill of this experience inspired me to build a sauna at our cabin, which extended the swimming season year-round. Our family used to celebrate the day after Christmas by gathering at the cabin, cutting a hole in the ice, stoking the sauna, and polar plunging into the water. Each year the size of the hole expanded as our sons demanded more daring maneuvers, choosing flips and dives over cannonballs. We cut the hole with a chain saw instead of the old-fashioned spud bar. After attempting to lift the floating slabs out of the hole, we settled on slicing them into pieces small enough to push beneath the surface of the ice. Since these were co-ed events that took place in daylight, everyone wore suits.

The skinny-dipping tradition resumed the following summer. The cousins who joined us for Christmas returned to fill the cabin. Midsummer dusk slowly gave way to dim starlight that barely lit the deck outside the sauna. With embers fading in the stove, one by one the kids fled the heat of the sauna. The bold ones ripped off their suits at the end of the dock. If they hesitated too long, the mosquitos pushed them into the lake. They returned to the cabin towel-covered, dripping with excitement and a story to share.

The decision to skinny dip is always a balance between freedom and discretion. In canoe trips to the BWCA with a group of boys, we only worried about passing paddlers. As we aged out of guy-trips and began to go with couples and eventually with families, the adults suffered the confines of swimsuits.

Children feel no need for that kind of modesty. “Last one in is a rotten egg!” came the call from the water’s edge. Our youngest son ran out of his shorts leaving them like a puddle in the path. The other kids emerged from the woods. The younger ones vaulted off a jumping rock wearing nothing but a life jacket; the older ones wore nothing at all. The freedom of bobbing around in a clear lake, surface-diving to expose a tiny white rump is a joy our kids will always cherish.

Our nest is empty now, but we still enjoy an occasional skinny dip at the cabin. One night late in April shortly after ice-out we celebrated the beginning of the season with a sauna and a dip. It was a dark night without a breeze, the kind of night where the stars reflect so vividly that sky and water are identical twins. We sat in the sauna inhaling cedar and the fragrance of wood smoke. We stared at the lake in quiet reverence. When I finally needed to cool off, I slipped out the door, ran to the end of the dock and dove head-first for the first refreshing swim of the season. I surfaced to a terrified scream from the cabin next door. “What the hell was that?”

In a sheepish voice I called into the darkness. “Sorry.”

The picture of me in the northern Minnesota ice bath resurfaced years later in the form of a puzzle. It came gift-wrapped for Christmas. As I assembled it with the family, Christmas lights twinkling behind me, I related the story of basking in ice water under a full moon with my fraternity brothers. As I finished the puzzle, I found that one (very small) piece was missing.

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