SWIM PARTNERS.
Joy Jarvis is seen with her husband Bill. Jarvis has been swimming across Lake Rosseau for many years to raise money for charity.
MUSKOKA -- Joy Jarvis may have made her last swim across Lake Rosseau, where she has been raising money for Camp Oochigeas since 2001. But just because her journey for the children’s cancer camp has come to an end, it doesn’t mean the 52-year-old is done swimming.
Over the years, Jarvis has raised about $150,000 on behalf of Camp Oochigeas.
Annually, she swims 12 kilometres across Lake Rosseau, after taking pledges for the camp. With her most recent swim, she raised about $2,000. The money is still coming in.
“I felt that it was time to move on and help another organization, which I will be doing next year in Huntsville,” she said. “When I started to swim for Camp Oochigeas in 2001 they were at Rosseau Lake College, so they were just starting out. They’d rent the college out for the summer, take everything back to Toronto and bring it back again.”
A 400-acre parcel was later purchased by the camp on Highway 141.
“I started (swimming) originally in 1995. My godmother’s granddaughter was diagnosed with an incurable leukemia and that gave me the incentive,” she said.
Jarvis originally swam for another camp for five years in Rosseau before aligning with Oochigeas.
She is now in negotiations to swim for Hospice Huntsville, which is under construction.
“A friend of ours (Gloria Johnston of Burk’s Falls) passed away two years ago in January. She had cancer. She was doing her second battle with cancer and she was in the hospital,” said Jarvis. “She kind of got the ball rolling with hospice, saying she would prefer to be somewhere else rather than taking up a hospital bed.”
When Jarvis heard the hospice residential facility was due for construction she knew she wanted this to be the beneficiary of her next swim.
Jarvis trains during the colder months in Huntsville, but the moment the weather changes she moves her training to Clear Lake. This year she started into the lake with her wet suit in June and by the beginning of July she was swimming in just a regular bathing suit.
“The training that I do for the big swims surprises people. I’ll do a mile three to four times a week in the pool. We get in the lake and we might do one to two kilometres,” she said. “Then I get in Rosseau and there I go.”
During her marathon swims, Jarvis stops every two hours, has something to eat, then carries on.
“In the early ’80s I was going to swim Lake Ontario, but after Rosseau, the swims that I’m doing next year are the lakes in Huntsville,” she said. “I think Lake Vernon is a little over nine kilometres.”
Jarvis says she plans on swimming until she is no longer able to.
“My swims have been a dream. I tell everyone, if you have a dream or a goal in life, don’t let it pass you by. Live each day to the fullest,” she said. “I hope to swim as long as I can, whether I’m 70, 80. If I’m able to do it, I’ll do it.”
Donations for Jarvis’s Oochigeas swim are still being accepted at www.ooch.org/joyjarvis or by phoning 1-888-GO4-OOCH.