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Edward Bionic's avatar

As a frequent visitor to Wreck Beach since 2018 (and infrequent from 2006) I have a number of thoughts on this.

First, my thoughts on the municipality. They do indeed have a point, and I've witnessed multiple occasions of regulars on the beach not only constructing unsafe structures from the logs there, but creating their own ecological issues by 'building' where they weren't supposed to, off the beach and into the surrounding wilderness, increasing chances of landslides and other disruptions. The structures on the beach were known to be safety hazards as well.

There is also a few people that were using these structures to 'wall off' sections of the beach for their own personal use, disallowing people they didn't know or like from using it, which goes against the general understanding of how Wreck functions, although this part doesn't really play much in Vancouver Parks decisions.

So I can understand a little why they would want less material on the beach to provide for certain things.

However, the implementation was definitely a little strong and for the first year went overboard. My latest visit was in May of 2024 however, and I have to say that I didn't witness any of the concerns being talked about in this petition. There were still quite a lot of logs, plenty of places for privacy if that's what you wanted, and since 2018 I've seen very little evidence of 'hordes of clothed men taking pictures.' In fact, that whole aspect of things has me scratching my head a little. Families on Wreck almost never used logs to hide in. They are far more likely to camp nearer the water with umbrellas or shade tents. The aspect of voyeurs is never going to be fixed with logs. That's a community effort issue. The nudists on Wreck need to continue to self-police as they've done for decades, and no amount of log structure on Wreck is going to do anything about it.

The one aspect I'm fully on board with, however, is the uniqueness of the culture. The logs definitely helped lend an air of uniqueness to the beach, and when peoples' builds were subtle and safe, it gave a sense of community and belonging. Thankfully, you still see this happening, just on a little bit of a lesser scale.

I'm also happy to report that on my last trip there the nudists were out en masse. By the time I left for the evening, I'd say there was a 60% nude to clothed ratio, and that's pretty strong in this day and age. Especially with the apparent death of the Wreck Beach Preservation Society. The word is still getting out.

This petition seems strong handed, but it's clear that it's impassioned and passion is what is need in a big way. If it helps bring attention and help and nudist numbers, then I support it wholeheartedly, even if it's not... Entirely... Accurate.

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Anton's avatar

"... Create open space for the public"... That wording is too vague to be acceptable. Honestly, it's usually used to hide something.

As for Mr. Barr's comment about lifeguards 'educating the public', gawkers do not stop gawking unless they have nothing to gawk at or there is some sort of negative consequence every time they gawk.

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