River cruises, visits to the workshop and unusual outings along the water in the Audomarois marsh
By canoe, rowing boat or electric boat, set off on an adventure in the Audomarois marsh
Vegetable meals at the water's edge and gourmet cruises to get a full taste of the St-Omer marshes!
They loved it!
Our cruises and visits to the Audomarois marshes? Our visitors talk about it best!
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
We had a great time at the boat builders. I highly recommend this activity. The guides are passionate and friendly. It's interesting, enjoyable, and the smell of boat wood and the natural marshland is wonderful. I plan on sending my friends and family there!
Sophie - May 2025
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
It was great, the children had "the best day of their lives" in their words. The team is very attentive and educational, the explanations and demonstrations are very well thought out, which allows the children to learn a lot of things! The walk is also very relaxing, I highly recommend it.
Fabien - April 2025
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
A great experience! The meal on the water is an extraordinary experience: the marsh is magnificent, the products fresh and of high quality! Armelle was a remarkable guide! Truly a wonderful experience! To do without hesitation!
Matthieu P - June 2025
Since 2011, our workshop has come a long way. Our site in the heart of the Lyzel marsh now includes:
We offer unusual guided tours of the Audomarois marsh along the water. Authentic walks accompanied by local children.
We offer for rent on our best circuits traditional rowing boats and electric motors as well as Canadian canoes.
On site, visit our shipyard and discover our exhibitions on our history, ancient tools and the life of our market gardening ancestors
Around our quays extend 6000 m2 of organic gardens dotted with beehives. This is where Loic Boulier grows 40 varieties of vegetables
Les Faiseurs de Bateaux is also an open-air bar/restaurant dedicated to regional cuisine and local products. A place conducive to relaxation, at the water's edge.
In the heart of the suburbs of Saint-Omer, Rémy and Vincent Colin are the heirs of a unique and ancestral know-how. Indeed, these two children of the country are the last boat builders, in other words, the last manufacturers of escutes and bacôves, traditional oak boats, used for centuries by the market gardeners of yesteryear... Even today, they build these wooden boats and boats with love and invite you for a guided tour of the Audomarois marshes full of authenticity!
Located in the Brockus (House of the marsh in Flemish!), in the heart of the Lyzel marshes and the suburbs of Saint-Omer, come and discover this atypical site! What is the history of the escute and the bacôve, the two traditional boats of the Saint-Omer marshes? What is the story of these two flat-bottomed oak boats? The boat makers open their workshop to you and reveal their secrets...
Accompanied by a guide who knows the marsh like the back of his hand, criss-cross the rivers to understand this extraordinary natural environment and its history! Unless you want to go alone, with your family, or with your friends on an adventure? We also rent canoes, wooden boats or escutes!
Accompanied by a guide who knows the marsh like the back of his hand, criss-cross the rivers to understand this extraordinary natural environment and its history! Unless you want to go alone, with your family, or with your friends on an adventure? We also rent canoes, wooden boats or escutes!
A cook by training, Loic Boulier worked for 10 years behind the stoves of Parisian restaurants before starting a second life. By dint of simmering small dishes while preparing vegetables, he was tempted in 2011 to give up everything in order to become a market gardener in the north of France. This is how he settled in Brunembert in the Boulogne area before joining the fertile lands of the Audomarois marshes in 2017.
Working around our quays in the Lyzel and Brockhus marshes, Loic now indulges his passion on Ecocert certified land. He now grows around forty vegetables and edible flowers which he sells at the St Omer market on Saturday mornings. Its lush fields, on which Eric Barrere's beehives are enthroned, are thus like a little paradise that everyone can discover around the workshop.
In Flemish, Brockus means "the house of the marsh". The latter now has its own small market garden in addition to fields that stretch as far as the eye can see.
The Audomarois marsh, also called “Saint-Omer marsh” or “marsh of Clairmarais", constitutes a natural space full of surprises! It is made up of various parts and offers us varied landscapes: wild marshes, inhabited marshes, cultivated marshes, breeding and holiday lands... In terms of figures, this wetland recognized as a "Biosphere Reserve" by UNESCO includes 700 kilometers of waterways, 170 navigable kilometers, around fifty ponds, old polders... Spread over 3700 hectares and located across the departments of Pas-de-Calais (62) and Nord (59), we find within fifteen communes all linked together by this great labyrinth of rivers.
And the water from the Audomarois marsh in all this, where does it come from? Crossword enthusiasts know the name of this river well. This is theAa. The small coastal river in the North of France in 2 letters has its source in Bourthes and flows into the North Sea at the level of Gravelines, cheerfully watering the Audomarois marshes.
