Pumpkinferno is an event held at Upper Canada Village for the fall season. The event runs from Thursday to Sunday during the month of October. Described as a walking tour, the 1 kilometer walk of 7,000 pumpkin is well known for being a family friendly event and also the perfect spot to take an Instagram photo.
Since this event is advertised to families primarily, I decided to bring my mom on a family date with me. To start the evening off, I let all of my Twitter followers (just kidding, I have one follower and it’s my mom) the plan.
While on the way, I found a guide for this event to help us understand what we were going to see on the tour.
Once we passed through South Dundas, we followed the long line of cars to the entrance of Upper Canada Village. When I say long, I mean LONG.
Wearing my winter jacket, winter boots, gloves, etc. I was relieved to see that there was no snow. The night that we visited had the perfect weather to stroll.
When we walked up to the ticket booth lines, we were glad to see that the online ticket line was significantly shorter. We didn’t have to wait at all to enter the village.
The excitement was real when we entered.
After only being in the tour for maybe 2 minutes, I literally could not understand how they were able to carve that many pumpkins for this event. So, I asked one of the workers and he told me…
After passing a few exhibits, I found one of my early favourites. Right beside a semi-frozen pond, the pumpkin hockey players played.
Just a few steps away, the sound of giant dinosaurs could be heard, along with screaming kids that thought the pumpkins were real.
If Dinosaurs are too prehistoric for you, the 60s exhibit may just be more your speed. Tye-dye, peace signs and the sound of The Beatles were brought to life with pumpkins.
Even the bathrooms got a makeover during the Halloween season!
This next display was another favourite. When you got close, you could hear the waves of the ocean and bubbles came flying out of multiple machines.
From there, we entered a semi-circle of art history. Historic art as pumpkin art.
Side note- One thing that we found to be super helpful was the visual light guides. It made the walk very easy to navigate.
WARNING: Very creepy video ahead. Well I thought so. This was the Jack In The Box Jamboree display and it certainly had many spooky boxes.
This entrance was beautiful and certainly Insta-worthy. This was the entrance to the interactive games area.
The games area had a great atmosphere. However, no cash= no fun at this exhibit, so we weren’t able to experience it. This was definitely the busiest area of the village.
Back to the tour, another beautiful display was right around the corner. This exhibit used coloured lights all throughout. This added a very beautiful touch and it was unique in the tour.
One of coolest aspects of this tour, in my opinion, is that no detail was missed. Throughout the tour, carved pumpkins could be found everywhere, even in the trees! It really made us feel like we were in a different world.
Done! The tour took us about 50 minutes to complete. For the Sunday before Halloween, it certainly wasn’t as busy as we anticipated. Although it felt like there were a ton of people initially, we never felt crowded.
Is a visit to Upper Canada Village really complete without a visit to the gift shop? The answer is no. The gift shop was full of Halloween treats and costumes, along with seasonal snacks to really top it off.
If you ever get a chance to visit this event, do it! Overall, our experience was one-of-kind and very unique. If you aren’t into scary Halloween events, this is certainly the event for you.
Brianna Hayley 