A Parry Sound woman is setting out to swim Little Otter Lake on Sunday to raise money for a pool in the community.
Kim Magee says she’s lived across Canada in different places, but Parry Sound is where she calls home and also where her mom resides.
“I wait for summer because I don’t walk very well. I am waiting for knee surgery and I lost all mobility. It drove me to be very depressed over the last five years. I went up to 320 or 350 some pounds, and that’s just not who I was. And I was very frustrated. So in the summer, I went to the beach, I’ve been doing it since the middle of May and I ran into a lady who’s part of the committee trying to get the pool put in,” she says.
Magee says she asked what she can do to help, because she really needs swimming in the winter.
“I was going through my Facebook memories that day and a picture of Terry Fox popped up and I posted every year because I have a connection with that. When I was in Grade 6 in Sioux St Marie, Terry Fox ran through our town, and our class was all taken out to watch him go down the highway, and I took off running with him for a little bit. I mean, I got in trouble and pulled back, but it was the highlight of my life,” she says.
Magee says the picture inspired her to do something similar, so because she can’t walk or run comfortably, she thought. “I can swim,”.
She then called around trying to find out who was responsible, connected with the right people, and asked folks if they would like to help raise money for a pool.
“They got really excited, so I said, you plan everything, and I’ll show up and swim. I needed to do this because this community really badly needs a healthy activity like a pool for its people,” she says.
Magee says Huntsville is the closest public pool, but she can’t afford to go to Huntsville every second day.
So as a result, Magee says on the 27th (Sunday), she will be going out to Foley, Matheson Beach at 8 in the morning and will be diving in off the dock.
“There will be a couple of kayaks that have two students from Rosseau Lake College who volunteered. One in front of me, one behind me, and they’re both licensed lifeguards. Otter Lake Marina has donated a pontoon boat and all the necessary gas and I have a couple friends that are going to take the boat and position it between me and the open water and I’m going to swim all the way around the circumference of Little Otter Lake,” she says.
Magee says it’s about 3 1/2 kilometers, so it should take her between three and four hours.
“I am excited. I went out there on Monday just to kind of get a feel for the place and and it’s funny, you know, I’ve been swimming there for years and I thought that train bridge was so far away,” she says.
Magee says, however, now that she has been swimming two hours every second day to train for this, from the salt docks over to the Old Town beach and back, she went out to Foley, looked around and thought “I got this, No problem,”.
The Pool Committee is hoping to raise about $5,000, but Magee was told on Monday morning there’s already $2,600 in the account.
“I hope that we get as much as we can, but what I really want is the people of this community to be aware of this and to start voicing that opinion and calling officials to tell them we want this to happen,” she says.
Magee says on Sunday, she hopes to be back by noon. “I’m hoping that people will bring their families out. It’s a beautiful beach. Bring your friends and your families out to play in the water and in the playground and to cheer me back when I get close. There is going to be a BBQ out there that you can enjoy and it’s by donation only,” she says.
She also mentions that some people will be partaking in the swim with hers, at least for small parts of the trek.
“Some of the committee members, got a few grandkids that want to swim for the 1st 20 minutes to 1/2 hour and I’ve got a lady on the committee that’s going to swim with me for a little while. But I don’t do the front crawl so I do all kinds of other ones to keep my face out of the water because I have very bad lungs,” she says.
You can learn more about Magee’s journey and how to donate by clicking here; https://www.trellis.org/kims-swim