Wreck Beach and the Nude-In of 1970

Wreck Beach, this spot down the cliff from the UBC campus, is North America's largest clothing-optional beach. The Musqueam people, whose traditional territory this is, called the area things like "the nose," and for them, the beach and the forest were a place to collect cedar, kelp, and herring eggs.

Its modern identity really started in the 1930s during the Depression. Swimsuits were expensive, so men would come here from Siwash Rock at Stanley Park to swim naked. By the late 1960s, it was a countercultural gathering spot.

In 1970, after a police raid led to about a dozen arrests for indecent exposure, an underground newspaper called The Georgia Straight organized a nude-in protest. Around three thousand people showed up here. After that, the charges were dropped, and the police informally called it a "no-harm, no-foul zone."

A group called "Citizens Concerned for Coward's Cove" formed in 1977 to protect the beach from development. They became the Wreck Beach Preservation Society in 1983 and are still active, having fought off dredging, jet-fuel barges, condos, sea walls, and even a plan for an RCMP service road. Permanent outhouses were installed in 2012.

The provincial government made Wreck Beach a legally recognized nudist beach in 1991. Since then, it’s been a place where commerce, old rituals, and resistance all come together, with pharmacies selling sack lunches and sage burning. A whole community forms on the sand for a few months each year.