A woman born and raised in Saskatoon is about to embark on a bucket list swim and one of the toughest in the world.

Aerin Bowers left Friday for Dover, England to get ready to swim the English Channel.

Bowers is the daughter of Saskatchewan sports icon Kelly Bowers and says she had planned the swim for 2024, but her effort was scuttled by the weather.

Her longest swim to date was Lake Zurich which was 28 kilometres in 2022. The English Channel will be about 35 or 36 kilometres depending on the tides.

She has to swim like you would when the first swim of the English Channel took place over a hundred years ago. She can’t have a wet suit. She is allowed a swimsuit, goggles and a swim cap. She also does not stop, and her food is liquid, feeding every 30 minutes for about 20 seconds.

She will swim alongside a boat that she booked many years in advance and the pilot is responsible for her safety as well as protecting her from something like the wake from larger vessels. The English Channel she says has a lot of challenges including being the largest shipping lane in the world.

There is multi-day window she has been allocated for her swim which is weather dependent with an opportunity she hopes materializes before the window closes July 10.

Bowers says she swam as a child with the YMCA Saskatoon Lasers but lost touch with swimming until her daughter took up the sport in the early 2000’s. Now she swim’s Masters and is involved in the open lake swimming community in British Columbia.

The trip to England and her pursuit of a goal to swim the English Channel is entirely self-funded but she has set a goal to raise $10,000 for Jumpstart. She points out that it has helped over 4 million kids in Canada have access to sport.

“I know that Jumpstart grants are really easy for kids and easy for families so I wanted to choose a charity where, you know you’re asking people to donate money so having something where that impact can be felt without very many barriers was important for me.”

You can listen to the entire interview with Aerin here.