BY SEAN HEATH – Anthropologist Sean Heath is an outdoor swimming and cold-water dipper. He has recently moved from coastal Vancouver, Canada to inland Leuven, Belgium. Excited to explore the land-locked options for outdoor immersion, he was confronted with a blanket ban on all outdoor swimming outside of designated swimming spots within the Leuven municipality and Flanders region. Problematically, the only outdoor sites where swimming is allowed, outside of open-air chlorinated pools, are all closed during the fall and winter months. What is a swimmer/dipper to do? Why is there a ban? And how might avid swimmer/dippers use the waters they so crave? He explores these questions in this blog.