La Mer de Sable: how a dune became the Wild West

Among the pine trees, the view suddenly opens onto a stretch of sand crossed by a train, horse riders and, since 2025, a large wooden roller coaster. This meeting between a real landscape and performed adventures captures the character of La Mer de Sable. The park has changed greatly since 1963, yet its identity still rests on the same foundations: the dune, movement, animals, live entertainment and an adventure designed for families to share.

A sea without water, long before the park

The sand was not brought in to create scenery. Ermenonville’s sandy expanse is the result of a long geological history and became more visible as forest cover receded. Before saloons and teepees arrived, the place was already unusual enough to have its own identity. Its natural origin still explains the sense of space felt when visitors leave the wooded paths and step onto the dune.

Jean Richard imagines a park as a live show

Jean Richard already knows Ermenonville when he opens a zoo there in the 1950s. An actor, circus director and animal enthusiast, he does not see the dune as land to be filled with machines. He sees a natural stage able to evoke the Sahara, Asia or Texas without enclosing visitors inside a building. His project brings together what he already practises elsewhere: performers, horses, animals, scenery, humour and direct contact with the audience.

The initial construction lasts only a few weeks and the resources remain modest. On 6 June 1963, several thousand people attend the inauguration, with Maurice Chevalier among the most prominent guests. Two days later the park welcomes its first visitors. France already has leisure grounds and amusement parks, but La Mer de Sable stands apart through a new ambition: organising the entire site as a coherent journey through narrated worlds.

A living journey before the era of major rides

The first La Mer de Sable begins in a European village before leading visitors to a Saharan oasis, an Asian pagoda and a Texan territory. Camels, ponies, exotic animals, games, simple rides and live scenes create an offer very different from a modern park. Some of Jean Richard’s ideas never progress beyond the drawing board, including a ski slope, a giant Gulliver and a futuristic pavilion, but they reveal the scale of his desire to surprise.

In 1965, the Enchanted Forest extends the visit beyond the sand with animated fairy-tale scenes. The train installed to reach this new area quickly becomes much more than transport. It crosses the scenery, carries visitors into the action and gives rise to the Train Attack, one of the park’s defining stories. Bandits, stunts, riders and horses turn the dune into an open-air stage that mechanical rides never completely replace.

When rides become scenery in their own right

From the late 1980s, La Mer de Sable has to respond to a new generation of parks with larger installations. It does so in its own way by integrating machinery into the terrain. La Rivière Sauvage opens in 1988 within western scenery. La Clairière des Chikapas follows in 1990 with around one hundred plush animals animated by simple mechanisms before boats are added. In 1996, Cheyenne River uses the natural relief to provide a twenty-metre drop without filling the landscape with visible supports.

Daily management passes to Élisabeth Richard in 1980, but the park remains in the founder’s family for another twenty-five years. This continuity does not prevent unusual experiences. In 2001, Gérard Majax installs his Hallucinoscope in the Chinese pagoda to create Le Temple du Mystère, an illusion based on mirrors rather than electronic excess. The small Chika’tchou train then complements the offer for younger children.

Changing ownership without becoming Astérix’s neighbour in miniature

On 25 July 2005, Compagnie des Alpes takes control of Les Centres Attractifs Jean Richard. For the first time, La Mer de Sable leaves family ownership. Joining a group that also operates Parc Astérix creates investment opportunities but requires a clearer role for the Ermenonville site. Only a few kilometres from a stronger national destination, La Mer de Sable chooses to reinforce its position as a regional park primarily serving families with young children.

The most visible transformation arrives in 2007 with ten new rides, five renewed shows and an organisation focused on adventure, desert and jungle themes. Ageing activities or experiences that no longer fit disappear, including camel rides. The change disrupts long-established habits but preserves the park’s pillars. Tiger Express, opened in 2011 after transfer from Walibi Holland, then seeks a precise balance: providing a more substantial coaster for growing children without leaving family territory.

Looping restores a steady rhythm of new additions

In 2015, the Looping group takes over La Mer de Sable. Investment returns in stages rather than through a single revolution. Bandidos, Simoun and Aquasouk arrive in 2016. Halloween becomes a lasting event in 2017 with Épouvantable Mer de Sable. In 2018, the former eastern entrance world gives way to Mexico: El Condor and Tornado open, while Simoun becomes Disco Loco and Aquasouk becomes Chiquit’O. The transformation gradually brings rides, colours and stories together within one broad western universe.

From disrupted seasons to the return of memories

The health crisis delays the 2020 opening by almost three months and forces the park to operate under new constraints. Silver Mountain, planned for that season, is postponed. The roller coaster finally opens in 2021 at the highest point of the site. Its mine train, buildings and sound design reconnect with more developed storytelling. Despite the shortened 2020 season, visitors return quickly and the park passes 400,000 guests for the first time in 2022.

The sixtieth anniversary in 2023 is more than a celebration. Le Ranch de Lilly Bell reopens in the historical continuation of the former Enchanted Forest, the real Train des Sables returns to a central role in its attack and the entrance receives a stronger western identity. After several years of investment, the park treats its past as living material: not to rebuild 1963 exactly, but to give a present purpose to the train, horses, animals and stories passed between generations.

Wild Buffalo makes wood a new symbol

Construction begun in 2024 leads to the largest ride investment in the park’s history. Wild Buffalo welcomes its first visitors on 26 April 2025. The wooden course offers five hundred metres of track, a twenty-metre elevation change and speeds close to seventy kilometres per hour while remaining designed for families. Its structure changes the dune’s horizon without turning away from it: wood, the story of the escaping bison and the low-running layout continue the idea of a living Wild West rather than an isolated machine.

A park that moves forward while keeping its traces

La Mer de Sable is no longer the animal journey around the world of 1963, the independent Richard family park or exactly the young-children’s park redesigned in 2007. Yet each period has left a visible layer. The sand remains natural. The saloon, train and horses maintain the link with Jean Richard. Water rides from the 1980s and 1990s still structure the canyon. Looping’s investments have strengthened the roller coaster line-up and brought themes together around the Wild West.

This ability to change without completely erasing what came before explains much of the park’s longevity. Visitors who knew the camel rides, the Enchanted Forest or Le Train du Colorado now return with children drawn to Silver Mountain or Wild Buffalo. Between one generation’s memories and another’s first sensations, La Mer de Sable retains a distinctive place: a pioneering park where the landscape is not merely a background but continues to tell the adventure.