Swimming in Great Slave The RC Sigs station at Reliance had a crib dock that float planes tied up to. Off the end of the dock the depth of water was 4-5 feet. This was a particularly warm day with a screen temperature of 79 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest reading that year. Our cook, Dave Carver, decided it was warm enough to swim. He swished his hand through the surface water off the end of the dock and pronounced it warm enough. He backed up to the landward end of the dock, wound up, raced out and dove into the bay. He came back out of the water so fast it looked like a reversed dive. He was blue with the cold.

Cpl. Joe Funfer took a spare met. thermometer and put it into the water off the end of the dock. Just six to eight inches below the surface the temperature was 38 degrees Fahrenheit - 6 degrees above freezing. The warm weather had raised the temperature on only a very thin layer of surface water. Great Slave Lake is not for swimming in as Dave Carver painfully discovered.