Bright's Grove, Ontario, Canada. A small community on the shores of Lake Huron. Last year, 2005, while hanging out at the beach, I discovered that there was a huge clay bed about 20 feet of shore. One thing led to another and myself, Patti Barker and Jim McDonald became the first official Mud People ( Lake Huron Chapter ) soon there were a small group of us regularly getting covered in clay, exfoliating, is what we called it. The clay apparently is mostly quartz, with quantities of illite which, they say, stimulates self-healing as well as action on remote infections. I have not been able to find any official analysis of our clay, what I know comes from an old geological survey of an area twenty miles from our beach. Anyway, without making this any longer a story than it has to be, the gang somehow came up with the idea of having a mud festival. The rest is history, we had the first Mud People Event in 2005.

Mother nature threw us little curve on the day of the Mud People Event 2006. The previous afternoon Patti, Jim and I had dug up about 100 lbs. of clay and stashed it high on the breakwall for the next day. Sunday morning came along with 50 km/hr winds and huge surf. All of the clay had been washed away by the pounding waves. Jim and I managed to fight the waves and gather enough for the event.

The clay is also excellent for sculpting, so I added a Sculptors Theatre which was great fun and led to some unusual creations. After the drumming and dancing, the day was to be completed by a "driving golf balls into the lake" event. Doing this in a driving wind with spray in your face turned out to be a "no go".