Frog Follies festivities jump into action

Youngsters can now challenge for the top spot for frog jumping in St.-Pierre-Jolys at this summer’s Frog Follies, after going years without children in the official contest.

To mark the 55th year of Frog Follies, Roxane Gagne, programming director and former festival president, said children ages five to 12 can register Sunday to see who can make a frog jump the furthest. The St Pierre Jolys Agricultural Fair, which combined with Frog Follies in 2009, is celebrating its 129th year.

This year Frog Follies will run from Aug. 7 to 10. People can register their children at 12:30 p.m. inside the festival’s beer garden.

“A lot of people are excited to come back and get their kids to do something they used to do when they were kids,” she told The Carillon. “It’s a really good thing.”

While children could try spurring the frogs to hop last year, it wasn’t an official competition, Gagne said. It was previously put on hiatus due to changing festival dates and concerns for the frogs’ treatment.

This time it’ll be an organized tournament that requires registration. Gagne is hoping to have up to 25 kids in the challenge.

To address the environmental concerns, she said a designated frog-catcher goes into the community’s ditches and marshes three days before the festival to select the frogs. Each location where frogs are caught are tracked with a GPS marker, so they’re released into same area. The frogs are fed flies and kept in a barrel with logs, leaves and water before the competition. The frog catcher was hired for the first time two years ago.

The festival launched in 1970 as a celebration for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles when they visited St-Pierre Jolys. Since then, its become the Canadian National Frog Jumping Championships.

Local politicians and returning champions will take part in the official showdown to show off their frog-spooking skills, Gagne said.

“It’s just a way for the community to really band together and relive this tradition that’s been around since the 1970s,”she said.

Festivities kick off Thursday night with Bingo. Besides the frog jumping, a watermelon eating contest, bubble soccer, and inflatable axe throwing will happen throughout the weekend.

Gagne said making the festival free was a major priority to make is as accessible as possible for families. She said funding from the province and local sponsors helped make that goal happen.

Bands like The Incredibly Hip and Mulvey Street Maniacs will perform on the main stage, which Gagne hopes will draw more crowds.

“The lineup this year is just incredible, and we brought in a lot of artists that are playing in different communities around where people actually have to pay big amounts of money,” she said.

The full schedule can be viewed at www.frogfollies.com