MyWestworld

Wild Wreck

Posted on 02. Apr, 2009 by Kerry Banks in BC

I did a bit of time travel last Sunday–I made a trip to Vancouver’s Wreck Beach. I went there to take photographs. My teenage daughter informed me that the people down there wouldn’t appreciate the fact I was toting a camera. She was referring to the nudists, the major feature of North America’s largest “clothing-optional” beach. Considering the chilly weather, I said I didn’t think that would be a problem. (I left the house wearing a toque, a lined leather jacket and several layers of clothing.) However, I was surprised to learn that my 17-year-old daughter had already been to see Wreck. I asked her if she took her clothes off. “Noooo,” she replied, scrunching up her face.

I rode a bus to the University of B.C. campus and then descended down Trail 6. There are several routes that will get you to the beach, but Trail 6 is the most spectacular. I remember taking Trail 6 back in the late 1970s when I first came out to Vancouver from Toronto and being blown away by the massive trees and the first breathtaking view of the vast expanse of sand and the crashing waves. It was like stumbling into a secret world. Of course in those days, Wreck Beach was something of a secret world, and one that aroused considerable suspicion, and perhaps a little envy. Some Vancouver politicians wanted to shut Wreck down. The most vocal anti-nude campaigner was a deep-voiced Pentecostal preacher and alderwoman named Bernice Gerard, who claimed that the naked sun-bathers would have a detrimental moral effect on students at the nearby University of B.C. I guess she wasn’t familiar with the school’s Engineering Department.   

In those days there were no apartment complexes encircling the crest of the hill and no picturesque wooden stairway to guide you to the bottom. You had to clamber down an overgrown dirt trail and, if I recall correctly, you also had to swing on a rope to traverse one section. It’s much more civilized today. There is a large coloured map at the top of Trail 6 that tells you “You Are Here,” and other signs telling you what you can’t do, such as walking your dog on the beach between March and September. There’s even a sign posted at the halfway mark that tells the people coming up when they have to put on their clothes.

I was introduced to Wreck Beach by my friend Mike, another transplanted Torontonian, who went there virtually every day during the summer. It was like a religious act with him. He would take a journal and scribble his thoughts. He called the beach “his office.” I didn’t go down to Wreck to write. I just loved the atmosphere. This was the best beach in the city: big waves, big sand, big sky and big blue herons. In fact, when you were down there you never felt like you were close to an urban centre. Wreck Beach was a place that simply couldn’t exist anywhere else in Canada and most definitely not in uptight Presbyterian Toronto. It was part of the frontier feeling that still existed in Vancouver back then. The beach epitomized a sense of freedom that I found completely captivating.

Then again, Wreck Beach boasted other visual delights beyond the local flora and fauna. (Actually, there were probably more visual horrors, but I have erased those from my mind.) One sight that still occupies a prominent place in my memory was the mirage-like appearance of a beautiful tanned and topless brunette strolling up the beach with a tray of aquamarine-coloured drinks in her hand. The blue drinks were catchy, but even more intriguing was the fact that she wore a leopard-skin bikini bottom. Somehow, that lone scrap of clothing made her appear a lot sexier than if she had been totally nude.

The jiggling vision of leopard lady selling alcoholic drinks from atop a tray was certainly a novelty. I’m not sure that would be the case today. In mid-summer, the beach is a buzzing outdoor emporium. There is an entire area known as Vendor’s Row, where people sell postcards, massage oils and suntan lotions, clothing, gourmet snacks and various intoxicants. If you are so inclined there are also tarot card readings, henna tattoos, body painting, wood carving, energy healing, portrait sketches, casino games and umbrella rentals.

Vendors Row was empty when I arrived this time. But to my surprise there were a couple of dozen nude or nearly nude people bivouacked in the sheltered section of the bay. Some of the men were playing Frisbee and an impromptu jam session was underway. A hardy tribe, this lot. No one seemed to mind that I had a camera, but then I didn’t linger in the nude section. Instead, I got blissfully lost in space taking photos of glittering shells, seaweed-draped rocks and the graffiti-covered searchlight towers that were installed during World War II to keep a lookout for invading Japanese. Thankfully, the old hippy haunt had not yet succumbed to gentrification. The afternoon sun was glorious and the salt air was invigorating and the hours just melted away. Seduced by the beach’s wild beauty, I stayed to watch the sun burn into the sea.

When I finally made my way up the 436 wooden steps and back to the real world, I felt just as I had 30 years before–grateful that Wreck Beach exists and glad to be living in Vancouver.

Photo Credits:

 #1, 2, 3, 4: Kerry Banks

Tags: Beaches, Vancouver