Nadine is a cold, ice and marathon swimmer living in New Brunswick, Canada.
She started her swimming journey as an age group athlete, and discovered her passion for distance open water and chilly swimming later on in life as an adult. She's not particularly fast, and doesn't much care...she just wants to swim!
This website is her way of sharing what she's learned along the way, and to track her progress and growth as she heads out in search of wilder swims to adventure. It's also a place to explore communities, bodies, neurodiversity, inclusivity.​
Documented marathon & ultramarathon swims​
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2025 Sep 13 32km (20 miles) Willoughby Lake 4-way, Westmore VT (women's distance record)
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2024 Jul 27 10km (6.2 miles) Kingdom Swim, Lac Memphremagog, Newport VT
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2023 Sep 5 40km (25 miles) In Search of Memphre, Newport VT to Magog QC (first Canadian woman)
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2023 Jun 17 14km (8.7 miles) Clubhouse Swim, Newport VT
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2019 Aug 12 14 km (8.7 miles) 5:08 - Lac Massawippi single crossing, Hatley QC
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2019 Jul 27 25km (15.5 miles) 11:03:49 - Border Buster Lac Memphremagog, Newport VT
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2017 Jul 29 25km (15.5 miles) 9:17:28 - Border Buster Lac Memphremagog, Newport VT
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2016 Aug 22 14.5 km (9 miles) 5:55:06 - Lac Massawippi single crossing, Hatley QC
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2013 Aug 11 10 km (6.2 miles) 3:00:21 - MSO Provincial Champs, Welland ON (age group provincial record 2013-15)
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Documented ice swims​
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2018 Nov 11, IISA ice mile 1.18 miles (1.90 km) 00:41:31, 4.53C(40.15F), -14C(6.8F) windchill - Meech Lake, Chelsea QC
(first Canadian woman to complete an ice mile, 9th in top 10 records for longest worlds women distance 2018 - 2021)
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2018 Nov 18th, extreme (sub 2C) ice km 1.06km 00:21:02, 1.82C(35.8F), air -6C(21.2F) - Meech Lake, Chelsea QC
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2018 Nov 25, IISA ice mile 1.03 miles (1.66km) 00:33:45, 4.10C(39.38F), 2.8C(37.04F) windchill - Lake Ontario, Mississauga ON
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2018 Dec 2, IISA ice mile 1.05 miles (1.69km) 00:34:49, 3.93C(39.07F), 4C(39.20F) windchill - St Lawrence River, Prescott ON
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Volunteering and community
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IISA Canada, Media Coordinator 2025-present
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Riverkeeper 4km, Ottawa ON - Race Director 2019
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King Wolf Swim 5km/11km, Ottawa ON - Race Director 2017 to 2020
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Vampire Swim Blood Drive, Ottawa ON - Organizer, Head Vampire 2015-2020
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Technosport Swim Club, Ottawa ON - swim camp coaching 2016-2020
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Bring on the Bay, Ottawa ON - Swim Angel 2016-2018
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Articles and interviews
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CBC, article One cold-blooded New Brunswicker's love affair with ice swimming
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Radio-Canada, La Néo-brunswickoise Nadine Benett pratique la nage en eaux glacées
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WOWSA, Breaking Distance in the Ice
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Ottawa Citizen, article 'Calm, quiet and cold': Frigid winter swims part of pair's routine
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Ottawa Citizen, video 'Calm, quiet and cold': Frigid winter swims part of pair's routine
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LOST Swimming, Three LOST Ice Ladies!
My swim story...
I love being in water.
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The freedom, fluidity, tranquility.
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My swim story starts very early on, my parents instilled in us kids a love of water early on and we grew up as joyful water babies. The pool, water parks, local lake, or a backyard hose...it didn't matter, water was playful, fun. I'm really grateful for those experiences.
And as we grew older, my sisters and I became competitive age group swimmers with the Dartmouth Crusaders Swim Club (Nova Scotia, Canada). My specialty was long distance freestyle and butterfly, the longer, the better. My favorite event was a fundraiser we held each season to raise money for the club, we collected pledges and got to swim continuously for 2 hours. That's when I felt most in my element, moving along freely at my own pace. But I was shy and awkward, I didn't fit in well and I knew it. And open water swimming wasn't a thing back then, not really. At 15, I decided to step away from competitive swimming, and barely touched water for 19 years. I had no idea of the joy that was waiting for me when I would eventually came back...
Time moved forward, I moved to Ottawa Ontario, married an amazing guy, found a great job. I was happy with my life, but I wasn't taking care of myself very well. So I joined the local community gym, which had a cardio room full of treadmills and stair climbers that overlooked the pool. The masters swim club would be running their practice while I was doing my cardio workout, and watching the swimmers go up and down the pool got me thinking about my early years as a swimmer and how good it had felt to be in the water. I wondered if it was something I'd even be able to do again, and maybe I could sign up and join them. But it also brought back difficult memories about not fitting into spaces easily, and I hoped the swimmers would be friendly, welcoming, supportive. I took a deep breath, I joined, I swam, I thrived. And I ended up making some really amazing friends, they loved being in water too.​​​​​
Finding my way to open water and swimming in events took some time. Even though I loved being in water again, I still didn't see myself as an athlete. Under it all was probably lost confidence that came from stepping away from the pool for good as a kid. My friend and club mate Lois suggested we sign up for a 4km race at a local lake. It sounded terrifying, but I figured, what's the worst that could happen, I'd have to stop if I couldn't finish the distance...not the end of the world. It ended up being an incredible experience, I was delighted to move so freely through the water. But I was also terrified and swam really hard, every shadow was a shark, every weed a lake zombie's arms reaching up to get me. I was raised on horror movies in the 80s, I couldn't help my big imagination. This experience awoke a new joy in me, I kept thinking about that swim, and coming back to the sense of freedom and fluidity I had felt being out of the pool and in nature. No lanes, no lines, no limits, as they say.
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It wasn't long before I craved more. I started logging hours outside of club time at a pool nearby, building up my distance. I signed up for a 10 km (6 mile) provincial championship and set a new age group record that stood for a couple of years. ​My next swim was a 14.5 km (9 miles) swim, followed by a 25 km (15 miles) where I placed 10th out of 18 women, not bad at all for a first-timer. Then I swam my first ultra distance, a 40km (25 miles) crossing from Newport Vermont, USA to Magog Quebec, Canada. Getting to the start of that swim was an epic journey, both in my personal growth and my swimming life. I worked hard to accept and manage an an ADHD diagnosis, work to build confidence, love and honour myself as I was. And I did. But I stepped out of the water at the finish convinced it wasn't my distance ceiling, my heart told me that I could still do more, and so the journey continues...
And then came cold...
Swim friends in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont did a callout for Vampire Swims all over the world, and I put my hand up immediately to organize one in Ottawa Ontario. A Vampire Swim is an organized chilly swim at Halloween, to promote blood donations and fund-raising for local blood banks. People swam in their Halloween costumes, we had a blast, it was silly fun at about 10C(50F). And then sometime later, I was flipping through my socials and noticed the very same swim friends cutting a hole out of Lac Memphremagog, hauling out chunks of ice to form a 25m swimming pool. Hmmm, I thought, what foolishness are they up to and how do I sign up? I trained for the year that followed, and the next year I showed up in Vermont, ready to ice swim my happy little heart out. Ice swimming is an entirely different sport than marathon swimming, and yet so many marathon swimmers were there, maybe it's the swim crazies that bring us together. And access to water, no matter how cold.
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In the years that followed, I kept training cold water distance as the fall and winter came on, swimming pretty much every month of the year since 2015. Training went longer and longer over the years, and I found myself able to stay in for really long periods of time. I did my first ice mile in 2018, the first Canadian woman to successfully complete one, and I actually swam a full 1.9 km (1.18 miles), which ended up on the International Ice Swimming Association's top 10 international women's distance record list. I followed with 2 more ice miles that season, in close succession, which only a handful of people had ever done. I'm not a boastful person, I swim for the love of water and what I get to explore about myself in it, but I'm really proud of these accomplishments.
Chilly, cold, ice, I love it all...
There's another side to all of this for me - volunteering and community building. Organizing and leading the Vampire Swims was my first leadership role on the water. A couple of years later, I took over the role of Race Director for the King Wolf 5km Swim in Kingston, Ontario. Over the years, we built up the event by adding an 11km marathon distance, enhancing safety requirements and protocol, and enlisting the local Navy and Coast Guard to support the swim. I also stepped in as Race Director for the 4km Riverkeeper swim in Ottawa, Ontario one year at the last minute when they were in need. It's an amazing feeling to sit high up on a patrol boat and watch swimmers make their way across any body of water, it's an honour to get to watch people pushing their boundaries and achieving personal goals...
In early 2021, we moved from Ottawa to a small rural community in the southeast of New Brunswick. I grew up in the maritimes, I feel like I'm home again and not too "come from away". We live in a beautiful spot overlooking Baie Verte, a small sub-basin on the eastern shore of the Northumberland Straight. And, gasp...ocean swimming, a whole new set of challenges.
More adventures to come...
