diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index a5b750ffe..040d95986 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -1293,6 +1293,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "tracing",
  "tracing-subscriber",
  "uv-cache",
+ "uv-fs",
  "uv-interpreter",
  "which",
 ]
diff --git a/crates/gourgeist/Cargo.toml b/crates/gourgeist/Cargo.toml
index 91e6b5bd6..2edd705d5 100644
--- a/crates/gourgeist/Cargo.toml
+++ b/crates/gourgeist/Cargo.toml
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ workspace = true
 [dependencies]
 platform-host = { path = "../platform-host" }
 uv-cache = { path = "../uv-cache" }
+uv-fs = { path = "../uv-fs" }
 uv-interpreter = { path = "../uv-interpreter" }
 
 anstream = { workspace = true }
diff --git a/crates/gourgeist/src/bare.rs b/crates/gourgeist/src/bare.rs
index 9c368f460..aff617b70 100644
--- a/crates/gourgeist/src/bare.rs
+++ b/crates/gourgeist/src/bare.rs
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ use camino::{FromPathBufError, Utf8Path, Utf8PathBuf};
 use fs_err as fs;
 use fs_err::File;
 use tracing::info;
+use uv_fs::Normalized;
 
 use uv_interpreter::Interpreter;
 
@@ -183,9 +184,16 @@ pub fn create_bare_venv(
     // cross-platform.
     for (name, template) in ACTIVATE_TEMPLATES {
         let activator = template
-            .replace("{{ VIRTUAL_ENV_DIR }}", location.as_str())
+            .replace(
+                "{{ VIRTUAL_ENV_DIR }}",
+                // SAFETY: `unwrap` is guaranteed to succeed because `location` is an `Utf8PathBuf`.
+                location.normalized().to_str().unwrap(),
+            )
             .replace("{{ BIN_NAME }}", bin_name)
-            .replace("{{ VIRTUAL_PROMPT }}", prompt.as_deref().unwrap_or(""))
+            .replace(
+                "{{ VIRTUAL_PROMPT }}",
+                prompt.as_deref().unwrap_or_default(),
+            )
             .replace(
                 "{{ RELATIVE_SITE_PACKAGES }}",
                 &format!(