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Members of naturists federations from coast to coast took part in a collective nude swim in an attempt to beat the Guinness World Record Sunday.
Last year’s event set a record, as 13,674 people at 139 locations across the continent went skinny dipping at the same time.
Diane Archambault, one of more than 60 people who showed up for the nude swim at Oka Park, north of Montreal, said menacing clouds kept skinny dippers away until the last moment.
"At first there weren’t many people because the forecast predicted rain. People arrived slowly and we thought it might be a total flop," she said.
"But when three o’clock came and we shouted, ’It’s time!’ there ended up being more people than we thought."
Seven other nude swims in five provinces were planned as well.
The activity was part of an entire week of nude activities organized by the American Association for Nude Recreation.
Organizers are still tallying this year’s number of nude swimmers from coast to coast, but Archambault said at least one record has been confirmed.
"In Quebec we know we beat the record because we didn’t participate last year," she said, with a laugh.
Meanwhile, nudists in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey said they were threatened with arrest by an RCMP officer at a remote beach.
“We’re tired of being the victims of prejudice and intolerance,” Don Pitcairn, president of Surrey’s United Naturists, said Sunday. “A lady who came by was calling us perverts and child molesters.”
“We were doing nothing wrong,” he said, adding that the nudists were several hundred metres away from more popular bathing spots.
RCMP spokesman Steve Wade said police were acting on a complaint from a man about “public nudity.”
Surrey has a history of opposition to skinny-dipping.
In 2008, the Skinnydipper Recreation Club won the right in B.C. Supreme Court to hold private swims in public pools following a secret council vote to ban the activity in 2003.
In 2006, Mayor Dianne Watts came out against nude sunbathing on the beach, but relented when she found out the area was outside the city’s jurisdiction. Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Province
