Following instructions, we haul the long canoe to the icy edge. Shoving it forward would be easy on a lake or rink, but river ice is chopped, gnarly, jagged and thick enough to splinter wood. Our navigator must constantly adjust our direction to avoid hazards, a difficult task considering there are hazards everywhere you look. Once we push off, I instantly appreciate the kind of physical shape one needs to be in to do this sort of thing and that our pint-sized female guide has the strength of sixteen men. The official race does not discriminate between genders, and all-female teams are among the best outfits. Suddenly, the ice gives way, and I feel the shock of ice-cold water flood into my boots. Now we must transition into rowing mode, quickly hop into position, and, just in case I wasn’t getting enough exercise, heave our paddles against strong tides and slabs of ice. The fact that I’d given myself four out of five for fitness on the waiver form appears outrageously optimistic. Our spiked paddles often crack thin ice to enter the water, an effective reminder of how easily they can crack a skull if we’re not careful. Just as we get into a rhythm, we hit a hefty chunk of solid ice. Now we must hoist the canoe up, throw paddles in the middle and start scootering again. This lasts seconds or minutes, and suddenly we’re in the water again. The process repeats over and over again during the hour-long excursion, but since we’re not racing, there are plenty of rest breaks, hot chocolate, and opportunities to ask, not for the first time in my Canadian bucket list adventures: “how is this a thing?”