Sask. woman set to swim across English Channel to celebrate late father's memory

Aerin Bowers often jokes that she's half person and half fish after being thrown into the water with her sister as children in Saskatoon "almost as soon as we could breathe."

The daughter of beloved Saskatchewan sportsman Kelly Bowers, she grew-up competing as a speed swimmer with the Saskatoon Lasers and then fell in love with open water swimming in her late thirties.

Bowers will puther nickname to the test later this month when she attempts to swim across the English Channel in honour of her father's memory. Her father, a member of the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame, died in 2019.

Bower said she has dreamt of making the grueling 34-kilometre crossing between England and France the "crown jewel" of open water swimming since she was 12 years old.

"I'm a person with a big imagination and just dreaming up things that would be cool to do in the future," she told CBC News. "And the English Channel sort of came up and ever since then it's been in the back of my mind."

Bowers, who turns 50 next week, said she has been training at least six days per week since January to prepare for the feat, which she has been approved to attempt between Sept.23 and 29, just days after the five-year anniversary of her father's sudden passing from a heart attack.

If successful, she will become the 28th Canadian to successfully make the swim including Marilyn Bell, who also made history when she became the first person to swimacross Lake Ontarioin 1954at age 16 according to the Channel Swimming Association (CSA).

But it's not just the length of the swim that makes the route challenging. Swimmers also have to contend with strong currents, waves as high as two metres, cold water, high winds and as many as 800 tankers and other vessels passing through one of the busiest shipping routes in the world.

While shark sightings are rare in such cold waters, according to the CSA, jelly fish stings and other sea life encounters are still possible.

"TheEnglish Channel is a unique and demanding swim, considered by many to be the ultimate long distance challenge," says the CSA's website.

Bowers, who now lives in interior B.C., said her months of preparations in British Columbia's Okanagan region have focused on physical conditioning and mental strength, which many say is the majority of the challenge. A CSA pilot boat will accompany her and feed her at set intervals, Bowers said, but it will be entirely up to her to get herself across.

"You don't really know what you're going to encounter on the day. And it is a swim that could be 12 hours, but it could also be 17 hours so you have to kind of prepare your mind to be in that place of pain and impatience," she said.

Barring any hazards or interruptions, Bowers said she'll just be "concentrating on my stroke and keeping everything together and looking forward to landing in France and then getting back on the boat and heading back to England and going to the pub."

Bowers has a goal of fundraising $10,000 for Canadian Tire's Jumpstart, a program that helps children participate in sports across Canada, through her swim, which she is documenting on her blog.

She saidit's a mission her dad would support, just as he cheered her on at many races around the world before his passing.

"It's an opportunity to do something that he would really have been proud of me for. And he would have loved to have been on the boat with me had he still been alive at this time," Bowers said.