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    "headline": "Canadian cliff diver Molly Carlson becomes first woman to dive off an iceberg, off Newfoundland",
    "description": "The roughly 15-meter backwards dive off Twillingate happened on June 11; a 30-minute documentary released on October 22 shows how ice climber Will Gadd got her to the top.",
    "datePublished": "2026-10-26T05:53:10+00:00",
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    "keywords": "cliff diving, icebergs, Molly Carlson, Newfoundland, world firsts",
    "articleBody": "Canadian high diver Molly Carlson stood with her back to the edge of a free-floating iceberg off Twillingate, Newfoundland, on June 11, 2026, and pushed off into the North Atlantic. The backwards dive of roughly 15 meters (about 49 feet) made her the first woman to dive from a free-standing iceberg, according to the energy-drink company that organized and filmed the project. The footage stayed under wraps for four months: a 30-minute documentary about the attempt went up on YouTube on Thursday, October 22, and the clip has been circulating ever since. “This is definitely the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” Carlson says in the film. When she surfaced, the first thing on her mind was distance from the ice. “I remember coming up out of the water and thinking, ‘Swim! You’ve got to get away,'” she recalled. Back on the boat, in tears, she called it “the best day of my life.” Why an iceberg is harder than a cliff On paper, the height was modest for her. Carlson competes from platforms of 20 to 21 meters, so the iceberg was around 6 meters (roughly 20 feet) lower than her usual take-off. Everything else was harder. The water was close to freezing, so she wore a wetsuit, which cliff divers do not use in competition. The white surroundings gave her very little visual reference in the air. And the take-off point itself could move: ice climber Will Gadd, who guided her, put it bluntly. “The biggest hazard is that icebergs can roll over,” he said. “When they roll over, it’s super violent.” It was also, by the organizers’ account, the highest backwards dive Carlson had ever done. For scale, the US National Ocean Service only classifies floating ice as an iceberg once it stands more than 16 feet above sea level. Divide 49 by 16 and her launch point sat about three times higher than that minimum, on a block of ice that could split or tip without warning. How the dive was put together The project took months. Carlson first had to learn to climb ice, which she did with Gadd in Canmore, Alberta, starting on a 10-meter training wall before graduating to a 20-meter pitch in the Ghost River Wilderness Area, close to the climb she would face on the berg. In Montreal, her home base, she tested the wetsuit and built up from low jumps on an indoor platform to 15 meters. In Newfoundland, where thousands of icebergs drift south each year, the team scouted the coast around Twillingate and turned down most of the candidates. Carlson listed what they needed: “good boat access, a sheer edge to dive from, with a clear landing zone, and a climb that is actually doable for me without putting Will at risk.” The berg they picked, which they nicknamed “No Name,” met all four tests. Gadd climbed it first and fixed a temporary line and platform. Carlson followed in crampons, crossing the uneven surface while the ice shifted, then stripped off her climbing gear and winter layers at the top before diving. Local marine specialists from Ocean Quest Adventures and Crosby Marine Film Services monitored swells and ice movement, and the Canadian Coast Guard supported safety planning and communications. Who Molly Carlson is Born: September 23, 1998, in Fort Frances, Ontario; raised in Thunder Bay. She turned 28 last month. Early career: competed in the 3-meter event at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games, then dove for Florida State University from 2017 to 2020, graduating in psychology. High diving: entered the Cliff Diving World Series as a wild card in 2021 and finished second overall in 2022, 2023 and 2024. She also won world championship silver medals in high diving in 2023 and 2024, and was runner-up in the 2026 World Series. Online: about 3.9 million TikTok followers and 2.88 million YouTube subscribers as of February 2026, and founder of #BraveGang, a community built around facing fear. That community is the reason she gives for the stunt. “There’s something really powerful about an iceberg,” she says. “You only see the small part above the surface while so much is hidden underneath.” In the project’s announcement she summed up her view of bravery: “not about getting rid of fear but about not letting it decide what you’re capable of.” Her support team was blunt on one point for everyone else: icebergs can roll, calve or move at any moment, and visitors who see them along the Newfoundland coast should keep a safe distance. The full documentary runs about 30 minutes on YouTube. Further reading Wikipedia: Molly Carlson NOAA National Ocean Service: What is an iceberg? Image: Eduard47, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. How we work.",
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