Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.

Marilyn Bell Di Lascio currently lives in New Jersey. The Canadian swimming icon, who was the first person to swim across Lake Ontario, is showcased in Laura Young’s new book, In Solo, Yet Never Alone: Swimming the Great Lakes.

“Marilyn is a warm, wonderful person who genuinely cares about swimming and all swimmers,” recalls Young. “We spoke over the telephone several times in the process of the research [for the book]. Once I got over my feeling of wow, ‘I’m talking to Marilyn Bell’, we had great conversations about success, failure, women in sport, training, and her iconic status in Canadian history.”

Young writes about Bell and 74 swimmers who successfully made 66 crossings of Lake Ontario, 19 of Lake Erie, 5 of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay, 2 of Lake Michigan, and 2 of Lake Superior. Each of them has an interesting story to tell.

These adventurers – a few pros, but mostly amateur and mostly Canadian – opened up to Young who spins a fascinating story of their successes and journey to swim from shore to shore.

Solo, Yet Never Alone: Swimming the Great Lakes was released in bookstores on May 15th and can be purchased online from the publisher Scrivener Press.

 Copyright © 2014 by World Open Water Swimming Association