12/99

Just east of Quebec City on the St. Lawrence River is a place called Parc de la Chute Montmorency (Montmorency Falls Park). You can't miss the falls, since it's 1-1/2 time as high as Niagara Falls.

Randy and I stopped by a few years back and took the path back to the falls. It was a very hot day, and there were 40-50 mostly young people under the falls or laying out on the rocks, enjoying the cooling mist and catching some sun. All the French Canadian guys were wearing skimpy speedo swimsuits or tiny thongs, and some of the women were wearing even skimpier G-strings!

I wasn't the only topfree women enjoying the cooling mist of the falls. Besides me, I counted five other women who were topfree, before I took my glasses off at the end of the paved path. Out of about 15 women lounging nearby on the river, that made about 35% of the women being topfree!

[A French Canadian we met there] told me that although topfreedom was very tolerated, that sometimes the police would ask women to cover up if they got a complaint.

I finally got the nerve to stand under the falls, but couldn't take it for long. It was like being in a hailstorm, the water was so cold and hit so hard. I don't know how anyone could stand the force of the water drops from such a high distance.

The wind was shifting and the mist wasn't so bad where the parents were, so I put my glasses back on, and was surprised to see an almost endless stream of tourists, mostly European, walking back to the end of the paved trail. It turns out that this is a regular stop for all the tourist busses and we had come during a break between busses. Many of the tourists had brought their cameras and were taking pictures. Not one of the tourists seemed to mind seeing women topfree, or so many people running around in thongs. While I didn't see anyone aim his or her camera directly at a topfree woman, or a guy in a thong, they also didn't seem to try to avoid getting these people in their pictures.

This was probably the most tolerant place I've ever bared my breasts. Randy thinks it's like you would expect Europe to be.

--Traci, Ohio