End Polio Now

It all began at 11:00 pm on September 8, 1954 when Florence Chadwick, an American marathon swimmer, began her attempt to cross the frigid waters of Lake Ontario.  Meanwhile, two Canadian female swimmers were “lurking” in the nearby woods.  One was the well-known local swimmer, Winnie Roach.  The other was a virtually unknown Toronto schoolgirl, Marilyn Bell, only 16 years old.  Marilyn waded into Lake Ontario at Youngstown, NY, at 11:07 p.m.

 

The water was chilly, the night pitch black and it wasn’t long before Miss Roach was forced to give up her attempt. And after just five hours in the water, Chadwick ended her effort, too.  That left just one swimmer, the young lady who almost no one had even heard of.  Bell swam for 20 hours and 59 minutes under gruelling conditions – cold water temperatures, waves almost three metres (15 feet) high, and lamprey eels attacking her arms and legs.

 

Then, at exactly 8:04 p.m. – as all of Canada took a deep breath – Marilyn Bell touched the Boulevard Club’s breakwall, just off shore of Sunnyside Beach in Toronto.  She had done it!  Marilyn had conquered what was now her lake, and over the next two years she went on to conquer two more ominous bodies of water, the English Channel and the Juan de Fuca Strait.