A Blog of Personal Thoughts

Swimming Icy Passage

July 2026

My sister-in-law, Connie, walking the Gustavus beach at low tide, 2004, Pleasant Island in the background.

I am an author, not an open water swimmer. Yes, I did it once when I was 10. I swam across a quarter mile inlet at West Falmouth on Cape Cod. I was a lousy swimer then, afraid of the water and only doing the dog paddle, but I loved that swim. I remember asking my parents’ friend, Ginny Hastings, if I could swim the small bay. Yes, I’ll keep an eye on you, she replied. Great swimmer that she was, I would have drowned before she could have reached me.

I finally learned to swim and swam a mile a day before work for 16 years. Moving to Gustavus, Alaska, I stopped these daily swims—no pool. To practice for the low tide mile swim across Icy Passage, I decided to swim a few times off the beach. Meadow loaned me her dry suit and went with me the first time. It was late March and a windy day with surf. I tried the crawl, side stroke, and back stroke. My favorite was the side stroke for it gave me the best view of Excursion Ridge.  I'd seen it from the beach, the Park road, Pleasant Island, from a boat, a kayak, the dock, but never from the water. From a seal’s eye view, the Ridge loomed like a mountain range.

I continued swimming as Meadow walked along the beach with a life ring and rope in hand. We noticed someone jogging down the dock. As the jogger came back, Meadow and I approached him. Steve Anderson, two and a half days in town, was a triathlete and new employee at Glacier Bay National Park.  'Oh good.  Maybe you'd like to raise money for the clinic and swim to Pleasant Island.'  He was game, even excited about the possibility, although he'd never been in water this cold.

Easter Sunday afternnoon, Steve, Sue Christianson, our psysician’s assistant, and I went for a practice swim. Our aim was to swim from the beach to the float dock. Steve, Sue, and I agreed to meet for another practice swim. We met at the end of the dock on a beautiful, calm afternoon, when suddenly the wind kicked up and the waves drove east to west. What to do if we ended up under the dock? Easy, swim and get out on the beach west of the dock. Steve and I jumped in off the float dock and swam straight toward the beach. The wind and surf gave us no problem. What a glorious feeling!  He went back and Sue jumped in. Afterwards, the three of us sat on the dock, Steve in a wet suit, Sue and I in our dry suits, chatting.

The Gustavus Fire Department, the Coast Guard, Glacier Bay National Park rescue section, and Sue had three evening meetings to discuss safety, logistics, dock set-up, and other details.

There were many naysayers chatting the day or two before the swim—on the deck at the Park lodge, at the airport café, or visiting around town. They'll never make it all the way there. They're crazy to try. That water is heart attack country. Not one of the Coast Guard rescue crew in the area had ever swum a mile in open water. This, said Meadow’s husband and one of the swimmers, Chris Smith, may be a first fundraiser swim in Alaska waters.

In May snow still covered the ground. On the day before Mother’s Day, the water temperature in Icy Passage was 42 degrees F. Sill, it was the day we had planned for the first swim from Gustavus Beach to Pleasant Island, 1.11 miles at low tide. It was our first sunny day in three weeks.

The water was flat calm and conditions ideal. The eight float dock jumpers, six swimmers, and most of the community gathered at the dock.

The swimmers Steve, Sue, Mary, Chris, and I, were local Lindy, one of our clinic doctors, came over from Juneau. For the swim, Lindy and Steve wore wet suits, the rest dry suits. Each swimmer had to have a boat with two people in it—a driver and a spotter. The spotter's job was to keep an eye on the swimmer at all times. A Park Service boat was off Pleasant Island's northwest corner with divers in gear in case anyone needed help. GER (Gustavus Emergency Response team, all volunteer) was on the dock, ready and waiting.

Lindy was the only swimmer who came in costume—his wet suit fixed with white objects on his lower ribs and a single wooden orca fin on his back. A wet suit is made of Neoprene and allows the water to enter between the body and the suit, the body then heats that water to a temperature warmer that the water. A dry suit is made of Neoprene with a huge zipper diagonally across the front, has cuffs tight at the neck, wrists, and ankles with no water allowed in.  Each swimmer with a dry suit also had Neoprene hood, gloves, and booties. The community, sitting and standing on the dock, sent off each swimmer with a rousing cheer. Although it was not a race—the purpose was just to get to the island, Lindy had the best time swimming from the float dock to the island in 37 minutes. Chris and Steve both had very respectable times of 40 minutes. Sue wasn't sure of her time. Mary swam the distance in an hour, doing the elementary backstroke the entire way. I was the slowest--an hour and fifteen minutes.

Each person had different reactions to the swim. Steve felt really happy to make money for the clinic and saw the swim as a great feat. As a triathlete, however, he felt unfinished at the end, expecting to follow the swim with a bike ride and a run. He was happy to complete the swim as he was concerned about his first venture in cold water and a little fearful whether there would be any whales around. On arriving at Pleasant Island, turning and looking at the dock, he announced next year the swim needs to start from Pleasant Island and end at the dock. The dock crowd agreed saying the swim would be more exciting if it started from Pleasant Island and ended at the dock or beach where they could greet us with cheers.

Sue said  "I loved it!".

Mary made a last minute decision to swim, so glad she did as it was an incredible experience. It turned out to be not as hard as she had thought.  The great community effort of this event impressed her.

Chris Smith also said it was easier than he thought. The dry suit offered buoyancy and warmth, but its restrictiveness reduced mobility and made the swim a little hard. The fins, however, made the swim easy.

I ranked it as one of my best five life experiences. I never got a runner’s high, but a swimmer’s high, oh my, and this was the ultimate. What are the other best experiences, some asked—having my son, summitting mountaintops, getting my Ph.D., holding my first published novel in my hand, and, now, swimming to Pleasant Island. Several aspects made this so special. The weather was incredible, a sunny day. Swimming on my back or side I saw Excursion Ridge, Glacier Bay’s Bear Tracks Mountains, and the Fairweathers from a new angle, a seal’s eye view of the world. Feeling like a seal broke the landlocked barrier we humans have, gave me new perspective on our Icy Passage. Swim to the buoy, we were told. I could see it from the dock, but once in the water, thanks to the Great Circle curve of the planet, it disappeared. All I saw was a large expanse of water, sky, and land masses.  Two years ago I walked around Pleasant Island late one March. What an incredible feeling to swim to the island now, walk up and stand on its shore—a twofold sense of accomplishment. What an rich feeling to look at the parhelion, the sundog, while swimming in Icy Passage, to have my son, Seth, and his partner, Kezia, be my boat people, and hearing the cheers from the dock.  It didn't matter what the cheers were for; I took each one of them personally and felt great about the community support for the whole event. 

Why did I do it?  Because I love to swim, knew it would be fun, and I wanted to celebrate my sixtieth birthday. Worth every stroke and worth every dollar this community gave in support. Will I do it again next year? You bet! I never miss an opportunity to swim. Did I get cold?  My feet did. Having frost-bitten them once, it does not take much for me to get cold feet. Was I cold when I got out of the 43˚ water? No, but when I walked the quarter mile length of the dock later, the bottoms of my feet felt numb. Did I get cramps? Once, in my right calf. Kezia and I chanted, to the tune of Frère Jacques, “Warm legs, warm legs.  Legs are warm, legs are warm…” and the cramp went away. I smile when I think I used to be afraid of the water, of swimming, in open water or a pool, even afraid once in the shower. My husband had gotten out of the shower and, surreptitiously, turned off the hot water. When that cold water hit me, I came flying out of the shower, ripping the curtain off its rings in one motion, and physically attacked my very surprised husband. On hearing that, my brother apologized to me for throwing me off the dock at Learnerd Pond in his naïve effort to teach his four-year-old sister to swim.

As I fly in and out of Gustavus now, I look at the dock and the island, amazed the six of us swam the 1.11 miles. Look at the distance the next time you fly. Ponder it and know six people found it exhilarating.

As a then-unincorporated community, almost all services here depended on volunteers—the library, the Gustavus Emergency Response team, firefighting, library staffing, the landfill, and our Community Chest—the only clothing-furniture-household-book used store in town. We raised almost $10,000 for the clinic, money coming from Juneau, California, England, and other places but the majority of the money came from here, from our local folk. And it was a lot more fun than paying taxes.

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Pleasant Island from the Gustavus beach. The black object on the right is our 1/4 -mile long dock. This was the distance of the exhausting tide-driven 2-mile second swim. The sand in the foreground was under water.

The next year on 17 August 2002 we swam at an outgoing high tide. This increased the distance and the current. Four people—Chris and I again, Julie and Ingrid swam about 2 miles from Pleasant Island to the Gustavus Beach; however, with the tide ripping out and not wishing to end up between the Salmon River and the entrance to Glacier Bay National Park, we all fought the tide as we swam. Four of the town’s children swam the quarter of a mile from the float dock to the beach—Delphine, Monica, Janice, and Abe. Each of the adults wore dry suits; the children went in swimsuits or shorts. Delphine wore a swimsuit and was not cold. Janice wore a velvet get-up for the walk down the dock to the plunge-in spot. Water temperature was about 56 degrees, 14 degrees warmer than last year. Andrea and Angela jumped of the end of the dock. We probably had fewer this because we were not as well organized the second time around. The second year we raised about $5,000 for the Gustavus Community Clinic with contributions from Australia, England, again, and several locations all over this country. But again, most of the money raised came from our small community.

Again, all swimmers called it fun. I found it more meditative and spiritual than last year’s sunny swim, a swimmer’s super high. Ingrid said it was one of the more novel and unique things she had done in her life. Julie, who made the decision to swim the night before, scrambled even at the dock to pull all elements together. Hurray for her fortitude—she won the grand prize, a raffle drawing of the Alaska Airlines tickets for two. While last year’s swimmers did not mention any stiffness the next day, this year all four os us were stiff four days after. Perhaps it was the high tide, swimming to a specific spot, the greater distance, or the three inch chop. Trust us, when swimming in tidal waters, three inches is chop. It certainly made the swim more difficult; occasionally even a six-inch wave splashed us in the face.

Although I spent less time in the water, by eight minutes, and had a wonderful welcome by a flock of seagulls flying low over me and a flock of 20 people coming to where I came out of the water, I did feel cooler, perhaps because it was a harder swim. I have a hot dog about once a year. This was my once and it was the best hot dog ever!

Never give up the oportunity to do something radical; you might succeed and it may be a lifetime opportunity.

Checking the Internet to see if anyone had swum Icy Passage before or since, I found: ”Yes, people have swum the waters of Icy Passage and the broader Icy Strait in Alaska. While it is esceedingly rare—and highly dangerour due to extreme hypothermia risks—it has been done. Known Swimmers: Author and open water swimmer Abigail Calkin famously swam Icy Passage, an arm of Icy Strait located just outside Glacier Bay, on two separate occasions.” I laughed. My three swims does not make me an open water swimmer; I’m no Lynne Cox. I jusst love the high of a swim. I craved the water. Still do.

We had one more Pleasant Island to Gustavus swim. I didn’t swim but coordinated it. We had 12 swimmers that year. Another very successful swim!