Whether it’s under the cover of the night sky at your local pond, at the cottage or at one of the country’s two legal nude beaches, for many summer-loving Canadians skinny dipping is often a rite of passage.
A recent online study of the world’s most popular skinny dipping spots by MyDatingAdviser discovered that Canada actually boasts six of the world’s best skinny dipping locations.
However, neither Lake Nipissing nor Trout Lake made the list of the best places to take a dip in your birthday suit. Also, the City does not have a designated nude beach.
To determine the best skinny dipping locations, they compared 100 nude beaches across the globe to determine the best places to enjoy a skinny dip and then ranked the top locations in Canada.
The study considered “seven key metrics of skinny dipping friendliness,” including pollution, Blue Flag status, weather, air temperature, water temperature, safety, and hotel costs. Each location was given a ‘Skinny DIpping Index Score’ using the data points. representing the quality of the skinny dipping experience a person could have at the location.
Lo and behold, Lake Simcoe topped the list, which also included Hanlan’s Point Beach on Toronto Island, the Bruce Peninsula Grotto near Tobermory, Sauble Beach on Lake Huron, Rock Point Provincial Park on Lake Erie, and Wreck Beach in Vancouver, B.C.
"Spectacular Lake Simcoe is one of the most visited vacation spots in Ontario’s south-central region," says the report. "Just over an hour north of Toronto, Lake Simcoe provides 287 square miles of water surface and 118 miles of shoreline, guaranteeing plenty of space for every type of water-based amusement visitors could want. The foundation of Canada’s original ‘cottage country,’ Lake Simcoe, has been drawing visitors since before European settlement."
Although Orillia resident John Cropper has never skinny dipped in Lake Simcoe, the feeling of being in the water with nothing but your birthday suit is second-to-none, he says.
“It’s the feeling of total freedom,” says Cropper, adding he has gone swimming sans suit many times over the years, but mostly in Lake Huron and Georgian Bay in the Wasaga Beach area.
“A lot of the beach where we used to go, which was at the far west end, it’s overgrown now and a fence has been put across … (so) it’s not the spot it used to be. I prefer to walk around the trails in Orillia.”
Cropper also isn’t shy about sharing the benefits of life as a naturist, and encourages others to give it a shot.
“Just do it. You’d be surprised how accepting most people are," he says.
Stéphane Deschênes, owner of Bare Oaks Naturist Park, located about an hour south-east of Barrie, is a longtime naturist. He tells BarrieToday that although he agrees there are a lot of great spots to skinny dip in the area, he tends takes these kinds of surveys with a big grain of salt.
“The methodology is questionable in many of these surveys, and it’s such a subjective thing as to where your favourite place is and what’s nice," he says. "It’s part of being Canadian to go skinny dipping and any place you can find a quiet spot is a spot for skinny dipping.”
A survey they completed several years ago found that upwards of 700,000 people living within the “greater, greater GTA” were implementing naturism into their lives in some way or another.
“It’s always been a part of the culture," Deschênes says. "That’s how I got involved in naturism. We’d go camping, we’d go skinny dipping. People do it at the cottage all the time, while they’re camping, and if they find a quiet spot why wear a bathing suit? It’s so much more comfortable."
Deschênes says Bare Oaks sees visitors from all over the province, including many from Barrie and around Simcoe County.
“Unfortunately, it’s one of the few places where you can be comfortable in your own skin," he says. "That is a very restrictive, anti-social behaviour for most of society for reasons that don’t make a lot of logical sense. Somehow we are taught from birth that we are supposed to be ashamed and embarrassed and offended by our own image.
"Naturism has been around for over a century and it fights that idea, but it’s a very deeply held idea and people are not comfortable with themselves and their bodies,” Deschênes adds.
