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A Capital Idea
October in Ottawa offers a crowd-free, fall-foliaged, blue-skied and bugless mecca of museums, trails and — if you can score some tickets — Sens seats
By Alec Ross with photography by David Trattles
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IT IS AFTER DARK, and my wife, Vicki, daughter
Maddy, 10, and son Noah, 7, step cautiously with me
along a dimly lit pathway in the Field of Screams
behind our guide, Dave Hale. In ominous tones that
complement the creepy music being piped in from
somewhere, Hale, 20, informs us that a mass murderer
named Billy has escaped legal custody and is
reputed to be in the vicinity. “You guys better watch
out,” he says. “Billy’s sneaky, and he’s mean.” I’m
holding Noah’s hand and feel his grip tighten.
Suddenly, something reaches out from the bushes
and grabs my ankle. I yelp and jump about three
feet in the air. Almost immediately, a white-faced
figure in tattered trenchcoat leaps from the bushes
howling, bloody fangs bared and arms waving. We all
scream in unison. The zombie roars again, then
disappears back into the bushes. Once our hearts start
beating again, we start howling — with laughter.
A few metres down the path, my left foot squishes
into soft, springy ground that throws me off balance
and induces another quick adrenaline rush.
“Amazing what you can do with an old mattress
and some dirt,” deadpans Hale.
It’s a week before Halloween and we’re on a threeday
getaway in Ottawa from our home two hours
away in Kingston, Ont., and the setting for our
frightfest is Saunders Farm, located in the tiny village of Munster,
about 45 kilometres southwest of the national capital. The
Saunders family has converted their 40-hectare property into a
sort of rural theme park where daytime guests can wander
through 11 hedge mazes and labyrinths — North America’s
largest collection. But the serious entertainment, known as “Haunting Season,” starts in October, when the farm becomes
the nightly stomping grounds for a crew of Munster-area
teenagers, costumed as an assortment of witches and ghouls,
and doing their best to scare the life out of visitors. A quaint log
cabin has been converted into the “Barn of Terror” and a
squadron of tractors pulls wagons through the “Haunted
Hayride,” where giant spiders drop out of the night sky and a
goalie-masked villain gives chase with chainsaw in hand. They
do a brilliant job too. Our family has experienced the
über-commercialism of Disney World and we all
agree that this place is every bit as fun.
Saunders Farm is new to us, but this is not our
first excursion to the Ottawa region. I was a university
student here in the 1980s, and in recent years
I have returned with my family several times to take
in most of the many kid-friendly museums and
attractions. This time, we’re
coming in late October because we’ve found it to be
the ideal time of year to visit: the biggest tourist
hordes are gone, the heat and humidity of July and
August has dissipated and the Gatineau Hills north
of the city in Quebec are bug-free and gorgeously
ablaze with fall colours. Perfect.
ALTHOUGH WE’VE DECIDED TO EXPLORE parts
of Ottawa we haven’t already seen, for me, some
attractions are unmissable, regardless of how many
times you’ve experienced them. And so we find ourselves
on Parliament Hill, the most recognizable of our
national icons. Picnicking on the expansive front
lawn, we plan our day. While Maddy and Noah toss a
Frisbee and play tag, we realize that of all our visits to
the Hill, none have included the Peace Tower./p>
“Do they have guns, Dad?” Noah asks, slightly concerned,
during our 20-minute wait to pass through the airport-like
security at the base of the tower. A specially designed elevator
that conforms to the tower’s internal construction whisks us up
at an unnoticeable angle of 10 degrees off vertical to the observation
gallery about 48 metres up. The vista from here is fantastic:
the squat copper spire of the Library of Parliament on the
north side of the building looms below us, and peering up
through the narrow roof windows, I feel like I can almost touch
the giant black hands of the Peace Tower clock. The city spreads
in every direction with civic landmarks — the curvy stone layers
of the Canadian Museum of Civilization across the Ottawa
River in Gatineau, Que., the glass galleria of the National Gallery
of Canada, the vaulted roof of the Supreme Court of Canada — sprouting like exotic mushrooms among the workaday office
blocks of the bilingual civil-service brigades. We see exactly
where we want to go.
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