Fort la Reine opens first-ever corn maze

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This article was published 02/09/2020 (2040 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Prepare to be amazed while you wander through the latest offering at Fort la Reine Museum.

Located in Portage la Prairie, the museum launched its first-ever corn maze on Aug. 14 on nearby land seeded by local farmer Kevin Yuill.

Executive director Madison Connolly had been thinking about the possibility of a corn maze ever since she found out the neighbouring field had been used by the museum in the past.

“I thought it would be great to bring people in for a corn maze, since the nearest one is about 40 minutes away,” she said.

“With everything that’s going on this year, we thought it would be the perfect year to try it as an experiment. If it’s successful and the farmer who seeded it is willing, then we would love to do it again.”

Connolly created a map of a potential maze and began to tackle the task when the corn was about six inches off the ground.

“Within 15 minutes, that went out the window. It’s really hard to get dimensions and ratios, so a lot of it was spur of the moment when we were making the maze,” she said.

“Every week for the last two months, we’ve been mowing it to make sure that nothing was growing in the aisleways. The grass and the weeds started picking up on the fresh dirt, so it still involves constant mowing. But it worked out well and the community seems to be really enjoying it.”

So far, the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

“The first weekend was really rainy and we didn’t think we’d see any people, but we had about 150 people come throughout that weekend,” Connolly said.

“The great thing about the corn maze is that it’s pretty accessible to the community. If you visit the museum during our hours of operation, the corn maze is included. But even when the museum is closed, the corn maze is open in its own right.”

That’s because the corn maze operates on the honour system by donation.

“We’re really trusting our community. We have a wooden donation box right at the archway to get into the maze,” Connolly said.

“We check it twice a day and it’s optional. You don’t have to donate to enjoy the corn maze, but it helps us with the maintenance fees in order for us to do it again next year.”

Ideally, Connolly is hoping that the maze will remain open until mid to late October.

“It really depends on the crop because it still will be harvested,” she said. “So if it needs to be harvested before that, then it will be. It depends a lot on the weather and how things are looking in October.”

Fort la Reine Museum has been closed from Aug. 31 to Sept. 3 for a general museum cleaning. It will be open for fall hours from Sept. 4 to Nov. 1 on Fridays to Sundays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Private bookings can also be made for other time slots.