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Tourist farms great throwbacks to how child's play used to be

By: Bill Redekop

Posted: 09/10/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

RUTH.BONNEVILLE@FREEPRESS.MB.CA Enlarge Image

Ty Penner demonstrates riding on the zip-line, which is just one of the many activities for kids at Scarecrow Forest.

NEAR STEINBACH -- Amanda Pelland nails it with her explanation for the proliferation of corn-maze farms and their popularity with young families.

"It's kind of getting back to how kids used to play," said Pelland, an employee with one of the newest agri-tourism farms, the Scarecrow Forest near Steinbach, where kids can run safely in wide-open farmyards and farm fields. "This is a more wholesome activity than playing on the computer or playing video games."

Bingo.

On any fall weekend, the parking lots at tourist farms -- they're actually parking fields -- are packed and even require attendants to guide cars like at the Winnipeg Folk Festival.

That's to accommodate people going to tourist farms like Boonstra Farms, A Maze in Corn (Manitoba's first corn maze), Steinbach Corn Maze and Adventures, and newcomers the Scarecrow Forest, and the Meandher Creek Pumpkin Farm near Virden. There are likely others but Manitoba Agriculture does not keep a complete list.

For people who have never visited one, the tourist farms have gone way beyond corn mazes. Almost all offer petting zoos, hayrides, bush trails, bonfires, and some have private bonfire sites for roasting hotdogs, along with pony rides and miniature golf. Places like Boonstra Farms are also U-pick operations.

Then there are places like the Steinbach Corn Maze that has pedal go-karts, air hockey and foosball. At the Scarecrow Forest, there's a 67-metre-long zipline (Meandher Creek has one, too) and a giant slingshot that requires a person's entire body weight to fire.

If they are trying to pass this off as typical farm stuff, we can only surmise farm kids today zip-line from chore to chore, and slingshot their dinner to the kitchen.

Then there's the lure of plain old straw. Straw bales are like catnip to kids. One of the most popular features are structures made from bales, like the hay-bale mountain at Boonstra's.

And old tires. The Scarecrow Forest has several structures made of old tractor tires bolted together and it's a rite of passage for kids to snake their bodies through every tire at least once before going home.

And, of course, all the tourist farms gear up for Halloween.

The key is it's all outdoors.

Agri-tourist ventures tend to be converted farms. Boonstra's used to be a dairy farm. Some used to be hog farms but you'd never guess today. Meandher Creek is a cattle and grain farm.

How do such ventures start? It just starts, and then it's one thing after another, said Shirley Penner, who runs Scarecrow Forest with husband John and son Ty.

The Penners began by growing pumpkins for their kids. Then they had too many and started selling them roadside. Families would scramble out of the car but there was nothing for the kids to do. So the Penners started making things. By and large, the people who run these things love people and are just brimming with ideas to engage kids.

The Penners are trying to find a niche catering to the younger set with their Scarecrow Forest. Scarecrows with basketballs for heads won't scare even the youngest child.

Neither do they have a corn maze, per se, that you can get lost in, but they do have a very narrow and winding walking trail through tall corn that is as claustrophobic and Hitchcockian as any maze.

This is the Penners' second full year with Scarecrow Forest. On a busy weekend, six people run the tour farm, mostly family members. They have hosted up to 150 people at one time. That's peanuts compared to tourist farms closer to Winnipeg.

"We really have no idea where it's going," said Penner. "It's a lot of hours (like any tourism-based business) but we all really enjoy it."

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 10, 2010 A11

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