Winter Swimming

Get used to cold water

The best way to get started is to simply continue the summer open water swimming as the water gets colder and colder. You can already get used to showering cold in the summer, which can also be a complement all year round.

Open winter water and ice holes in Luleå

There is an investment here in Luleå in creating a cold bathhouse. It has started with a Facebook group Vinterbad i Luleå. From it, you can find current places in Luleå for ice swimming and ice bath.

Norra Gäddviksströmmen

When the water has frozen, the back stream in the northern Gäddviksströmmen is usually the only place to swim. It can vary from year to year how long it is open. Read more...

Brinkvaken

Utilizing a smaller ice hole is a way to get used to cold water as you do not have access to continuous open water that you can swim in. For this purpose, we have built a wake on Svartöbrinken. We call it Brinkvaken. Swedish vak means ice hole. Read more...

Other ice holes

There are additional ice holess in Luleå, such as Oscarsvak, Björksvaken and Notvaken. For information about these, we refer to Vinterbad i Luleå.

Cold water swimming: your questions answered
What does hypothermia look like? And how to rewarm
Cold water immersion: kill or cure?

There’s something about the nature here. Standing there with the tall forest around you and the clear river in front of you, it's a great place to be. Here we can really wake up, as Johnny says. You must be here and when you’re in the river, feel how senses opens up and your entire body comes to life. When you step out of the freezing streams, you carry a warmth within you. You feel life inside. You are. The warmth lingers in your body for a while. Then you make a fire. If someone asks us why we do what we do, the answer may be "because we can". It’s not meant to be complicated, and it doesn’t get any easier. When you come down here in the morning and the sun shines upon Luleå's beautiful spring-winter, when the snow sparkles and the river flows, then you just feel it. This is how it should be. This is exactly how it should be.