Vancouver's Wreck Beach Policed

End of Vendors, Clothing Optional Waterfront?

Development and intolerance are threatening Wreck Beach, one of Canada's most beautiful nude beaches. Just 15 minutes from downtown Vancouver you can enjoy the reclusive pleasures of Wreck Beach, but how much longer will this be tolerated by the University of British Columbia?

Their hopes for a ferry terminal that will one day expediently transport thousands of polluting tourists directly up to Squamish without having to go all the way around, through the city and across the bridge, could bring about its demise.

A new sea wall is looming and bathers are being forced from their natural habitat because some drank beer, smoked pot or peed in the bushes. Wreck Beach sunbathers are fighting for clean air and water, acceptance of all body shapes and states of dress, and the shunning of class systems that separate them.

Modern Conveniences or Future Polluters?

They see shunning clothing as the ultimate liberation from consumerism by bonding with fellow beach goers without the status symbols that separate people elsewhere. Peeing in the woods now constitutes mass pollution, despite more offensive crimes like big business dumping toxic chemicals in drinking water everyday.

The city threatens a road in and flush toilets to "save" the earth. Will they put a chain restaurant on the beach and run homemade food vagrants off the sand? A pageant of colorful vendors parade along the shoreline, bringing homemade refreshments, clothes and other unique art, but how long will this untaxable free enterprise still exist?

Food Vendors Replaced by RCMP Presence

Pizza, pina coladas, homemade trifle, chocolate, sunshine samosas, candy bars, and watermelon are sold by Irish bootleggers, Quebecoise girls in for the summer and other trumpeting vendors who patrol the beach to keep inappropriate behavior and cameras from ruining paradise.

These vendors clean up the beach, assuage violent tempers and generally make everyone forget for a time the hustle and bustle of the city life they left behind. Here high finance could be reduced to a haggle or a phone number.

Five RCMP officers have replaced the vendor patrol, positioning themselves 50 feet apart for 5-hour shifts. They lay in wait, much like the blue heron we see standing very still in the water, until tiny fish think they are a reed and swim close enough to be eaten. They are chaperones at a high school dance, making sure no one gets too close, or security guards at the mall with nothing to do but intimidate teens.

Now no new vendors follow in our footsteps, no new generation of entrepreneurs apply for these clandestine jobs. Enjoy Wreck Beach now, because it's time-honored tradition of autonomy and free enterprise is soon to be obsolete. Get back to your roots before they get paved over.