Pictured here are Clovis Frei, Jeremiah Voelz, Clay Rasmussen, and Michael Myers, current and past members of Boy Scout Troop 111 at their annual Polar Bear plunge event. Every year members of the Sandpoint community head out to the lake midwinter and jump through a hole in the ice. For the past five years Troop 111 has sponsored this event on January 1st.

Scoutmaster, Phil Voelz, has personally been participating in an annual Polar Bear Plunge for 20 years and wanted to get the scouts involved. Troop 111 decided to sponsor the event in hopes to create a series of troop traditions, including this and an annual Thanksgiving Feast. “The importance of continuing the tradition is the essence of a tradition itself; to ‘stick to it’ so to speak,” Voelz said. He says the events help foster camaraderie and create an opportunity for the troop to reach out and involve the community.

Troop 111 is sponsored by the Kiwanis and is the oldest Boy Scouts of America troop in Sandpoint and second oldest in Idaho, their original charter dating back to 1934. They have a rich history of traditions and invite the Sandpoint community to join one of them on January 1st at 11am. They will cut a hole in the ice at City Beach near the boat dock and provide heated wall tents for changing in addition to tea and hot chocolate.