Nudists find a place to call their own

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Sugar Mountain features, um, unusual snack foods.

Members who bitterly grieved the loss of the Crocus Grove nudist club after new campground owners discontinued nudism have landed on their bare feet. "We're building our new home -- our new playground! I'm champing at the bit to get there and see this place started," says longtime nudist Bob Migliore.

Many of the 60 members pitched in to help buy 80 acres of farmland with pristine trees, 10 kilometres east of Libau, renamed Naturist Legacy. (The new website is www.naturistlegacy.com)

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Bob Migliore

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Fred Squire and Kate Maki to perform at ‘The Studome.’

This summer, they'll be working on infrastructure for the tent and mobile unit lots, a new pool, hiking trails, volleyball courts and a rec centre. "It's not likely we'll have the pool finished this year," adds Migliore, wistfully. "This summer won't be for brand-new nudists, unless they're willing to work," he says. "But we've already had some surprising offers. People who are non-nudists have even volunteered! We had some ladies say, 'We'll come by with a shovel and an axe if you'll just let us tent nearby.' " Nothing like a work site with a view.

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BUG CANDY RAGE: Clear candy suckers with REAL tequila worms and scorpions smothered in chocolate are the big rage at Sugar Mountain store on Corydon Avenue this spring. "I go through a couple of cases a week," says 38-year-old owner Sherritt Sobey.

White and regular chocolate-covered ants are also popular -- and then there are the crickets. "They're not chocolate-covered; they're have a sour cream flavour," he says. You know, like chips. "The crickets are super-crunchy -- and there's also larvettes now, with Mexican spices on them." As for the Mexican worm, "I've eaten the tequila worm myself. It was sweet (because it's candy-covered) and moist. Sobey says the bug are "not at all poisonous. Anyway, no one's died on me yet!" Though scary candy is not easy to find, he reveals, "I get them from a supplier in Chicago called Hot Lix." Sugar Mountain attracts funky types, kids of all ages and party types with the munchies.

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BLOWN AWAY: People are talking about the amazing experience they had at the Camerata Nova concert last weekend at the Circle of Life Thunderbird House. "People were just overwhelmed," said Camerata's executive director Sally Sweatman of the show Directions: A Day in the Life of Mother Earth.

"It felt like something had happened deep in your soul," she added. The choir, with its string quartet led by Claudine St-Arnauld and percussionist Alain Guilmette, simply stunned the audience. Thunderbird House is the sacred place designed by Douglas Cardinal on Main Street. The concert started with everyone's shoes off and a smudge ceremony, plus a chanted Muslim call to prayer. Performers moved four times to face each direction, led by Cory Campbell, a youth-care practitioner/ manager at Project Neecheewam.

Campbell, 41, is of Cree, Ojibwa, Scot and Irish descent, and a drummer and singer of traditional songs for 20 years. Spotted: filmmakers Elise Swerhone, Norma Bailey, Tina Keeper and Noam Gonick, elder Larry Monkman, CBC producer Sandy Thacker, Plug-In and WAC's Marlene Stern, plus Tara Brousseau, executive director of Mood Disorders, and writer Jake MacDonald.

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CITY FOLK HUFFING: In Wednesday's The Insider, I mentioned Mitch Podolak's exploding brainchild Home Routes House Concerts, which start with one concert in the city and then performers hit many rural spots in a 14-day route. City readers huffed: "What about us? How can we go to house concerts?" Good news. CKUW's Stu Reid is playing host at The Studome (his name for his house in Crescentwood) with three upcoming house concerts. "I'm not a musician, I just wish I were," says the 48-year-old host.

"I'm hopeless. I can blow a harmonica and that's it." He has three fun acts coming up in the warm weather -- starting with edgy singer/songwriter Kate Maki with Fred Squire on May 15, two Toronto bands, Warped 45s and Joshua Cockerill and friends, plus Chuck Prophet "whose style is punk roots Americana." Get tickets fast through website www.twangtrust.ca, as you can only put so many people in a house. Reid's radio show is on CKUW 95.9, the University of Winnipeg radio station, Wednesdays from 6-8 p.m.

Got tips, events, sightings, unusual things going on? Call Maureen's tip line at 474-1116, email Maureen.Scurfield@Winnipegfreepress.com or send mail to The Insider c/o The Winnipeg Free Press at 1355 Mountain Ave. Winnipeg R2X 3B6.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 8, 2011 B2