From the small castle he had built on the Red River, Jacques Grève reigns as king of tubing. Or rather, as a King’s Fool: that’s the name of his campsite.
Every summer for the past 24 years, the 57-year-old former nurse and his team have welcomed thousands of holidaymakers who come to drift along a long stretch of the river. A good hour and a half of going down on your buttocks on a tube, following the current.
“It’s the perfect place: it’s not deep, in the summer you have water up to your knees practically all the way. The bottom is sand,” explained Mr. Grève, accompanied by his two Dobermans. “For 15 years, we did it without life jackets, nothing. Never had an accident.” They are now mandatory.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
The Fou du Roi campsite offers inflatable boat trips on the Rouge River, in the Laurentians region.
The 57-year-old man claims to have started this activity in Quebec, which has since spread to several rivers. He himself used to go tubing down the Red River on “car tires” in his youth, but it was while tubing down a river in Ontario that he realized his old hobby could become a business opportunity.
“In 1999, I bought and started the campsite,” he explained. “The following year, we started the tubes. There was no activity in the area, so it didn’t attract a lot of people to my campsite. I said to myself that I had to find something.”
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Jacques Grève, owner of the Fou du roi campsite
The beginnings were artisanal. “They were old truck tubes that we took, with covers that we had made ourselves.” Then the activity grew over time, to the point of sometimes becoming more important than the management of the campsite itself: “That’s what brings in the most money. It’s hard to beat.” Some 300 to 400 tubes are available.
Adrift
Kim Vezeau and his small group go down the river with their two dogs, named Esteban and Zia, “like in The Cities of Gold “Under a blazing sun, the Australian Shepherds have to make a visible effort to remain still on their floating buoy. The water is quite translucent.
“It trains them to stay calm and enjoy the moment. That’s not their style,” she said. Their owners also have to slow down. “It’s our time to be together and relax. We have to let go; you can’t go faster than the current.”
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
It’s not just humans who can enjoy the Red River.
Most of the “tubers” (that’s their nickname here) stop along the way to swim and cool off a bit.
The Mendez-Perez and Figueroa-Quintero families drift peacefully along the water, their tubes attached to each other. Too peacefully for some people’s tastes. “I could use an oar,” one of them says to an employee of the operation, who is traveling in a canoe. Without convincing him.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Several beaches line the route.
Samuel Thibault, the employee in question, takes advantage of his outing on the river to make sure everything is in order on the section of river where he sends clients. “Technically, everything that is on the sand is part of the river, so the owners can’t really stop us from stopping there,” he said. Some still express their discontent.
But the entrepreneur will not let anyone walk all over him: he is at home here. He grew up in the modest bungalow adjacent to the campsite with his 15 brothers and sisters.
“It’s a family curse!”
Jacques Grève believes he knows that Louis XIV confiscated the castle of his distant ancestors, in Languedoc, in the 17th century.e century.
These days, it’s the municipality of Rivière-Rouge that’s causing him headaches. The campground and local authorities are mired in a never-ending court battle, particularly because part of the riverside property is floodable. According to the person concerned, the demands of the municipal authorities are jeopardizing the future of the business.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
The Fou du Roi campsite and local authorities are embroiled in a drawn-out court dispute, particularly because part of the riverside land is liable to flooding.
The mayor of Rivière-Rouge, Denis Lacasse, did not want to comment on the situation.
“I said to myself: it’s not true that the City is going to take my castle again… This business is a family curse!” Mr. Grève said with a laugh. A trial is scheduled for September at the Mont-Laurier courthouse. “The land is floodable. I know it’s floodable, but it floods one day a year…”
Jacques Grève jokes, but the situation is eating away at him. Could this summer be the King’s Fool’s last? “I don’t know,” he replied, a cigarette hanging from his lips. “If the campsite closes, it will close. I’ll keep going” with the tube descent.
Once you get into the flow, it’s hard to stop.