Ice Diving Festival makes a splash at White Bear Lake

BY RANDY PAULSON STAFF WRITER

WHITE BEAR LAKE — Divers from around the globe are getting ready to suit up and submerge themselves beneath the frigid, ice-covered surface of White Bear Lake near Ramsey Beach.

Billed as the largest ice-diving event on the continent — and one that just might set a world record this year — the 2023 North American Ice Diving Festival will start at 9 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 28. The spectacle is open to members of the public to watch.

IF YOU GO:

What: 2023 North American Ice Diving Festival

When: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 28

Where: Ramsey Beach near the White Bear Lake County Park boat launch, 5050 Lake Ave.

Details: At least 100 scuba divers will plunge beneath White Bear Lake’s frozen surface at the 2023 North American Ice Diving Festival. Members of the public are invited to venture out onto the ice to witness the action and meet with various scuba manufacturers who will be showcasing their products. Profits from the festival will be donated to Veteran Scuba, a nonprofit that works with disabled veterans for certifications and scuba therapy. For more information about the festival, email info@mwschoolofdiving.com or call 651-653-1174. Find the Midwest School of Diving and the North American Ice Diving Festival on Facebook, too.

Spectators will know where to go, thanks to a red, 25-foot-tall inflatable scuba diver figure that will be set up by the site.

“You're going to see it from a mile away, and we're about 250 yards off the beach boat landing on White Bear,” said Mark Dugger, owner and instructor at Midwest School of Diving.

Dugger and his diving school started the annual ice diving festival a few years ago, though it originally began as a much smaller event intended to get people ice-diving certified.

“It's blossomed into this event that now we're drawing people from all over the world. I've actually cut off the number of people diving. I actually have about a 40-person waiting list,” he said.

More than 100 divers from at least 26 U.S. states, two Canadian provinces, North Africa, Europe and South Asia are expected to take part in this year’s festival. By comparison, the 2022 festival held at Square Lake in May Township attracted 57 divers from 15 states and one Canadian province.

With so many divers expected to be under the surface at once, event organizers are submitting details of the festival to Guinness World Records as the largest, one-day event with the most divers under the ice.

Last year’s event with 57 divers may have been a record, but festival organizers didn’t submit the information to Guinness. That won’t be the case this year, as Dugger said they’ve already been in contact with the world record organization and plan to send all the supporting documents needed for record consideration.

“We have somebody identified as a nonparticipant that is a senior instructor to also verify that everything that is being submitted is correct,” Dugger added.

Major U.S. scuba-diving certification agencies will also be at the event, as will Divers Alert Network. The latter is a group of nonprofit organizations that seek to improve diving safety. Divers tatives from several diving and scuba gear manufacturers, who will showcase their products.

Diving seminars and equipment demonstrations as well as a demonstration from a master free-diving instructor are also scheduled for the day.

About half of the divers who will attend the festival will need to become ice-diving certified — which they’ll do at White Bear Lake — while the other half are already certified and will be participating for the fun of it.

Seven triangular holes will be cut into the lake surface, and each hole will have its own warming tent. The holes will be spaced apart from each other by about 180-200 feet.

Underneath each diver’s scuba vest will be a harness with a locking carabiner attached to it, which will be secured to a rope that’s anchored to the top of the surface ice. The divers will be connected to one another through the rope and will communicate to each other by tugging on it.

A rope “tender” on the surface will also hold one end of the rope in their hands and will similarly be in communication with the divers every few minutes to make sure they’re OK.

Ice diving has been growing in popularity in recent years, according to Dugger. Part of the appeal of diving in the winter is the absence of algae bloom, which happens mainly in summer. That means divers get a clearer look at the lake this time of year.

“The clarity and the visibility is pretty phenomenal, so that's one of the things that brings people into ice diving,” Dugger said. “And really, if you dress appropriately, you're really not even going to feel the cold.”