SANDPOINT — The annual New Year’s day polar bear plunge will be taking a different turn this year to increase safety for its participants.

Phil Voelz, scout master for the Boy Scouts Troop 111, which runs the event, said it would not have been possible to hold the event at its usual location at City Beach while also following the city’s COVID-19 safety guidelines.

“We weren’t going to be able to pull off,” he said. “How do you get 100 freezing people to stand six feet apart?”

Last year, he said, there were around 75 active participants, and roughly 100 people total present.

“We give everybody a hard time that doesn’t jump,” Voelz said with a chuckle.

Usually the troop would provide a changing tent for men and women and gas heaters, he said, however that would not have been possible in current conditions.

Instead of holding the event at City Beach, the troop will hold the polar plunge at Camp Stidwell, which is run by the Kiwanas Club.

Although Voelz oversees the troop, it is mostly the members themselves that made the decision, he said.

Neal Causey, a senior patrol leader, said he’s been a scout for seven years and participated in the polar plunge for about five.

This year, he said, the group made the decision to hold the plunge at Camp Stidwell about a month ago when the issue came up in order to stay in compliance with current state guidelines.

The main people doing the plunge this year will be roughly 10 members of Troop 111, and a few family members, Causey said.

The troop started the tradition around ten years ago, Voelz said, and has done it ever since. He himself became polar plunging decades ago, he said.

“I said here’s something that I’ve done my whole life,” he said. “I used to go water skiing on New Year’s.”