7 athletes who swam across Lake Michigan: From Ted Erikson to Elizabeth Fry

Swimmers have attempted to cross Lake Michigan for years, and — for a while — some believed that it simply couldn’t be done. As an incentive to try and to get people excited about fitness, a Chicago car dealership owner, Jim Moran, began offering prize money to anyone who could.

Then, in 1960 — after teacher Harry Briggs, tried three times and failed before giving up his quest for good — a Chicago Tribune editorial called the Great Lake "invincible." To defeat the lake, the newspaper said, it would take "a rare degree of cooperation from nature."

More: 2 men aim to swim across Lake Michigan, an arduous adventure few have accomplished

Here’s a list of the men and women, however, who have conquered the lake since, including a father and son duo.

1961: Ted Erikson was the first to do it

Ted Erikson was the first. A member of the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame, he swam from McCormick Place in Chicago to Michigan City, Indiana. It reportedly took 36 hours and 37 minutes. The journey was supposed to be 37 miles but ended up being an estimated 43 miles.

He lost 17 pounds during the swim, according to Swimming World Magazine.

When he reached Michigan City, it was raining, but more than 10,000 people were there to greet him.

1963: Egyptian Abdel-Latif Abou Heif

Abdel-Latif Abou Heif, whose nickname was Crocodile of the Nile, won a 60-mile race across Lake Michigan, beating out Erikson, who did it again. The Guardian reported that if the achievement were in a pool, it would have been 3,860 lengths.

But with waves. Yes, the Great Lakes have waves, and the water was cold, and there was no shallow end.

1971: Jon Erikson beats his dad's time

Jon Erikson also swam from Chicago to Michigan City, completing the 37-mile swim in 25 hours, 22 minutes, 12 hours faster than his father's time a decade earlier. Junior went on to complete a double crossing of the English Channel in 1975, also besting his father's time.

1988: Vicki Keith swims the Great Lakes

Vicki Keith's swam Lake Michigan, and was the first person to swim all of the Great Lakes. Some consider her one of the most successful marathon swimmers in the history of the sport with 16 world records. She told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. the idea of swimming all the lakes, however, began as a joke.

"But I went out the next day and I bought a map of the Great Lakes and I nailed it to my living room wall and I drew a line across each one of the Great Lakes," she said, recalling that her friends thought it was a "ridiculous impossible goal." "I looked and 'I said I can do this.' "

1998: Jim Dreyer starts off in Wisconsin

Jim Dreyer, who became the second person to cross all Great Lakes, swam across Lake Michigan taking a new route from Wisconsin. When he arrived in Ludington, he kissed the shoreline and dragged himself to the beach. It took 16 hours longer than he had planned, but he made it.

2009: Paula Stephanson calls it 'torture'

Paula Stephanson, an Canadian teacher, plunged into the cool waters of Lake Michigan from Chicago and when she arrived in Michigan City and becoming just the third person to swim across all five Great Lakes, which was her goal, the Globe and Mail reported, since she was 17.

The final stretch, the newspaper reported, was "really kind of torture" as the water grew choppy, making the shore seemingly impossible to reach." But when she finally did it, she lunged onto the beach, grumbling, "I'm never doing that again."

2020: Elizabeth Fry's journey on video

Others started in Chicago and headed to Michigan City, but Elizabeth Fry appears to be the first to start at Promontory Point, a man-made peninsula in Burnham Park, jutting into Lake Michigan. Parts of her swim are strung together on a nine-minute YouTube video. It ends with her arriving at night: "Whoo!"

Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 7 athletes who swam across Lake Michigan