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One Minnesota man set a goal to go for a swim in the biggest lake in the state every day for a year-- even during the bitter cold of winter.

They say swimming is a fantastic way to get some exercise and seeing as Minnesota is the home to 10,000 Lakes, going for a swim every day for a year seems like a goal that makes sense. Until you consider that for nearly half of the year, temperatures here in the North Star State are brutally cold-- which doesn't necessarily make taking a dip in ANY lake seem like fun.

And it seems like even LESS fun when your goal is to go for a swim every day for a year in the biggest of the Great Lakes: the big lake they call Gitche Gumee, Lake Superior. But that's exactly what Scott Lucas of Two Harbors (located north of Duluth along the North Shore, about 4 hours away from Rochester) about set out to do last March. Boyd Huppert of KARE-11 featured Scott in one of his Land of 10,000 Stories features last week.

Scott set his goal on the first day of March, 2020, when the ice was starting to break up on Lake Superior, hoping he'd be able to get a swim in on the big lake once a day for the next 365 days. And, according to Boyd, he'd been doing pretty well, too-- until that deep freeze that hit Minnesota the past two weeks increased the ice coverage on Lake Superior and iced over his favorite swimming hole.

Just in care you're curious, according to Sea Temperature Info.com, the water temperature in Lake Superior right now is averaging just over 40 degrees-- which is dangerously cold to swim in. And because of the lake's size, even in the summer, the water temperature doesn't get much warmer than 65 degrees or so, making it a cool swim even then.

The story said the increasing ice coverage on the lake (which has increased nearly 40 percent in the last two weeks) makes Scott think he'll fall a days short of hitting his goal, though he DID use a sledgehammer to break a hole in the ice and go for a swim during that recent cold snap-- when the temperature in Two Harbors was a nippy -22.

Yikes. That's COLD. And even though Scott IS a proud Minnesota resident, swimming in Lake Superior during a cold snap is probably something every other Minnesotan would say you SHOULDN'T do, right? Keep scrolling to check 13 other things we know not to do when the temperature dips way below zero!

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and from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on 103.9 The Doc

13 Things Minnesotans Should NOT Do When It is Below Zero

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