Conference moira::naturism

141.0. "Need for more beaches in Ontario" by KAOFS::D_BIGELOW (Life's a beach!) Tue Feb 28 1989 15:56

From FCN, Fall 1988, Volume 3, Number 4

			Bare Boating - Bare Beaches
			    by Thomas Legrady
	
	I write this in 1988. In the whole world around us--Europe,
America, Asia, Australia --  there are many free beaches.  Yugoslavia's 
tourist trade skyrocketed when Tito permitted them; the same in Greece.
In Canada, from Wreck Beach in Vancouver to the forty places in "holy"
Quebec, everywhere you may find places to swim in the nude.  But in 
Ontario ?

	A few years ago, the "Globe and Mail" carried an article about 
nude beaches around Toronto.  It mentioned Hanlan's Point on Toronto Island, 
where a 50 year old man was arrested for sleeping in the nude.  There were
also letters in the "Toronto Star", one written by a Polish girl, another by
a French-Canadian, both of whom had been fined for being topless.

	All this happened during the term of the Conservative government.
But times have changed, and now there is a majority Liberal government in 
Ontario.  If they were really liberal, they Would at least tolerate, if
not accept, that in some remote places one should be able to remove his/her
swimsuit.  

	If there were such beaches, and there were at least signs "swimsuits
optional", there would at the beginning probably be some gawkers, but with 
time everone would get used to it.  And those pious old ladies would not have
to go there at all.

	In the meantime, Canadians who have spent their vacations in the
Caribbean, or in Europe, have started to realize this feeling of freedom and
their need for it.  According to an article in Canadian Yachting magazine,
in the Muskokas, around Parry Sound, and around Georgina Island in Lake 
Simcoe, boaters are taking off everything to gain this feeling of freedom.

	Last year at Georgina Island, I counted 60 boats, an average of 120
pwersons, seeking this freedom.  Fortunately, the police in the only partol
boat on Lake Simcoe are concerned more about boaters in trouble than about
nude people.

	I once took out a nudist family to the lake, and the police boat
passed by us at a distance of about 60 metres (180 feet).  They did not say
a word to us.

	The late science fiction writer, Robert A. Heinlein, wrote in 
"Expanded Universe (page 382), that, "soon swimming with clothes on will 
be proposterous to the modern mind."

	I feel that it is now the time to approach the authorities to under-
stand, accept, or at least tolerate the existence of free beaches in Ontario.
The Muskokas, Parry Sound, Georgina Island, and maybe a part of Chicken Bay 
in Lake Simcoe, are predestined to have free beaches.   If the mayor of
Pointe Taillon can put on his dark suit and his official neck-chain and 
cut a ribbon to open a free beach in Quebec (after that did he take every-
thing off?), why not here in Ontario ?