Words, Photos and Captions: Jean-Sébastien Chartier 2023-01-23 10:35:27
JF Houle built his rope tow platform from scrapyard material. It was the most complex part of the whole project but gives the place a real ski hill feel. String lights hanging from trees provide the night’s only illumination and the buzzing of the tow rope cuts through the dark. A skier hits the kink rail, emitting a familiar metal-on-metal clank before heading to the next feature. The rails and boxes are carefully interwoven between spruce and birch, offering a complex setup befitting a well-appointed ski resort. But before the next lap, the house next door lights up, the back door opens, and a voice cuts through the cold air: “Time for dinner.” Even globe-trotting skiers need a place to call home. For 2011 X Games gold medalist and Quebecois street ski legend JF Houle, that home was a family condo near Stoneham Mountain Resort. The resort’s terrain park has produced some fine freestyle skiers over the years, including JP Auclair, Philippe Belanger and Alex Beaulieu-Marchand. Living at the foot of Stoneham was natural for Houle, but as the 36-year-old moved away from competition, he wanted his idea of home to evolve as well. So, in 2020, Houle and his girlfriend Laurie Blouin bought a house on a quiet street in a tiny village where the old trees grow taller than any building. Sainte-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier is only 20 minutes from Stoneham and 40 minutes from Quebec City, but doesn’t have that ski-town energy. Hidden deep in the gorges along the Jacques-Cartier River, the region is dotted by farms on steep, wooded hills. Houle’s house has a modular, modern feel to it, a cozy ship in the middle of a sea of trees. It wasn’t the house that attracted Houle, however, it was the potential for a skier’s dream backyard. Like a well-kept garden, the kickers and landings are freshly shaped and dispersed all over Houle’s sloped forest. At the top of his one-acre backyard, a straight line cut into the woods allows the homemade rope tow, built from of an old electric motor, to freely carry skiers up a wood platform. From there, they can drop to gain speed and choose their path through the 300 feet of features. One of Blouin’s wishes for the design of the slope was to be able to hit at least two features in a single run, so Houle dispersed the myriad jumps, boxes and rails strategically throughout the clearing. Houle built the setup as a family affair in April 2020. His dad taught him the chain saw skills necessary to manage the forest. His brother Nic, who manages the terrain park in Stoneham, helped build the rails and boxes out of scrap and recycled material. Blouin’s brother Sam managed the excavation. Houle’s tight-knit ski community has been part of the place ever since. His backyard park has a lot of hands in it, and hard work is normally rewarded with beer, hot dogs and hot laps. Raking, grooming, resetting features—the park is constantly under construction, but once the right flow is dialed in, the payoff is a unique and intimate backyard session with a select inner circle. Fueled by Houle’s creativity, this isolated playground is a freeskier’s paradise and a continuation of his decades-long ski dream. With total control over his domain, Houle has found the freedom to try new tricks at every hour of the day and established a place for his crew to train and perform without pressure. The next chapter in the story of one of street skiing’s original guard is no longer about pushing the sport further, it’s about bringing it to his own backyard.
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CLOSE TO HOME WITH JF HOULE
https://digital.theskijournal.com/articles/close-to-home-with-jf-houle