Mark Saunders welcomes guests to the bucolic farm he runs near Ottawa. Just beware if you remain after dark. -- Photo by Stephen Smith, Special to Sun Media

During harvest season, the haunted shenanigans at Saunders Farm are legendary.

The family-owned-and-run enterprise on Bleek Road in bucolic Goulbourn Township only sounds like the setting for a Hollywood movie.

It's actually a local fixture in the Ottawa area that attracts visitors from all around who have heard about the farm's fall spook-tacular and collection of hedge mazes -- said to be the largest in North America.

Since springing up on a former strawberry patch in 1991, Saunders' haunting season has evolved into a fun daytime outing suitable for the whole family. But at night, its Fear Factor-style entertainment is designed to scare the bellbottoms off an older crowd.

TEEN GIRLS

During an evening hayride with fellow revellers, we sped through narrow spruce groves in search of ghoulish figures.

Our wagonload of mostly teenage girls was a dangerous lot, screaming and bracing ourselves as the wagon screeched to a grinding halt at the edge of a pond.

"This pond is awfully deep," warns our driver as we spot Shrek-like figures bobbing in the water.

"Oh no, what caught my hand?" yelps a passenger before the ride continues through the deep forest.

Throughout October, the haunted hayride is part of the nightly fright fest, overseen by Mark Saunders, who says the gasps and groans are part of the old fashioned family fun.

"We are a Halloween Festival. (Visitors can) spend an afternoon with kids at our puppet show, parades and plays or in the evening adults can get scared. It's a great place (with) haunted houses, hayrides and our interactive mazes," Saunders says.

The farm's newest addition is the Great Canadian Experience Maze, which opened last summer.

Designed by maze master Adrian Fisher with Canadian geography and the immigrant experience in mind, Saunders says this is an evolving maze -- much like Canada's history.

'SETTLE DOWN'

The goal of the maze is for visitors to reach a destination, "settle down, build a log cabin and start farming like the immigrant experience at the turn of the century in Canada," Saunders says. "We used boulders, hundreds of trees and different elevations. You have to go through the Canadian Shield to find the prairies."

With the afternoon's children's activities in full swing, we climbed the observatory tower for a bird's eye view of the farm's 10 mazes and century old log buildings.

From that vantage point, I spotted the curvy cedar labyrinth of the children's Spiral Maze and the Mile Maze made of nearly 1,500 white spruce trees.

"You should think of the mazes as a giant board game. One you physically travel through. You get lost. You find other people," quips Mark as he disappears into the sprawling pumpkin patch ahead.

MORE INFORMATION

Saunders Farm is open daily through Oct. 31. Admission is $16 for adults, $12 for kids 4-10, and free for kids 3 and under.

The farm is at 7893 Bleek Rd., Munster, ON K0A 3P0. Contact saundersfarm.com or 613-838-5440.