There is a price to pay for skinnydipping in Laurentian lakes in springtime, and I’m paying it today: the black fly bites are soooo itchy! Of course, the ferocious little beasts would have bitten me whether I was naked or not. As I wrote in my Gazette blog, black flies are the first line of defence for the Laurentians in the springtime, discouraging many people from coming up here to the mountains and lakes north of Montreal — which explains why much of the region is still quite pristine. Anybody who does venture into these parts knows they will have to give blood — in multiple instalments.

Still, I didn’t get bitten in any of the spots that would have been covered up by my bikini had I worn it. I’m sure, though, that it is only by chance: I don’t think the black flies and mosquitoes see a bare bottom as a delicacy any more than they see an arm or a leg as one. It’s all the same to them. Which, if you think about it, is what public nudism/naturism is about: we — and I say “we” now — naturists look beyond body parts in our public nudism activities. We accept people in whole, not in part. Of course, we naturists don’t bite each other (I think), so I am not going to point to any more parallels between us humans and them black flies except to say somehow we are all part of the One.

Sigh . . .

I am undeterred, though. I’ll be skinnydipping in the Laurentian lake again next weekend, though I think it will be a few weeks before I can sunbathe for any length of time on the shore afterward. I do not want to be an open buffet, after all.

Jillian