MECHANIC FALLS — Jeff Strout hit Google to find the things that scare people most and designed The Gauntlet around exactly that.
Spiders. The dark. Crazy men. Clowns. Clowns with chainsaws.
Then he added the Lady in White, a local legend of a hitchhiking bride sometimes spotted along Route 26. He even built her a church.
The Gauntlet is the newest attraction at Harvest Hill Farms, a haunted night ride through the woods, by tractor, that “spook meister” Strout and owner Peter Bolduc have aimed at teens and up, a sort of hardcore hayride.
The Gauntlet joins Pumpkin Land, the Big Corn Maze Adventure, a farm stand, a petting zoo and Farm House Pizza & Deli already at Harvest Hill. Bolduc’s future plans: adding a haunted house, haunted corn maze, disc golf and weekend barn dances. It’s about bringing the 240-acre farm back to life and “agri-tainment,” he said.
“My goal is to create an agriculture-based Disney World North,” Bolduc said.
The Gauntlet opens Sept. 18. Work has been under way for weeks.
Strout pointed to a 5-foot-tall dog house that will hold an animatronic junkyard dog tethered in the woods. He held his arms out from his body in a giant hoop and said that’s the size of its head, then added something about oozing blood.
“He’s going to be named Fluffy,” Strout said.
Bolduc teamed up with D’Arcy Robinson, theater director at Poland Regional High School, to hire 14 actors and actresses from local schools for the woods work. Robinson has a script and she’ll coach the kids. Bolduc has promised to donate money to the students’ drama departments.
He said he isn’t positioning his ride to go head to head with Haunted Hayrides in Scarborough: “We’re doing our own thing.”
“I think we’re going to draw from a more horror-oriented group of people,” Strout said. “Our haunted ride is going to be scary. It is not going to be for the faint of heart.”
T-shirts that say “I survived The Gauntlet” are already on order.
Bolduc said he’ll still offer a gentler, kid-friendly hayride during the day.
As he readies the new thrill ride, he’s also adding to Pumpkin Land and the Big Corn Maze Adventure, which this year is shaped like a lobster. At the entrance to each next month, customers will find a new 13-foot-tall pumpkin and 32-foot ear of corn. Bolduc believes the fruit and veggie, made on steel frames and sculpted insulation, might be contenders for the world’s largest.
“We’re going to submit to Guinness,” he said.
The Gauntlet will be open Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights from Sept. 18 to Oct. 31. Tickets for the roughly 20-minute ride cost $17.50. The last tractor leaves at 11 p.m.
kskelton@sunjournal.com
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- Claire Lachance, Dana Brousseau and Don Dufour build a 32-foot ear of corn at Harvest Hill Farms in Poland on Friday. The steel-frame sculpture will mark the entrance to the Big Corn Maze Adventure, one of many new attractions at the farm.
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- Jeff Strout, left, and Peter Bolduc have designed The Gauntlet, a haunted night ride through the woods at Harvest Hill Farms.
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