The Weechi-it-it-te-win Family Services (WFS) fourth annual “McTavish Haunted Woods” was another frightening, yet fun success!
The haunting event was once again held on the twisty wooded trails at WFS Family Healing Program location on McTavish Road in LaVallee Twp. on October 29th and 30th.
There was something for every age group and the younger children had a separate Children’s Trail which consisted of fun Halloween themed inflatables, straw bales and photo stand-ins. There were numerous family-oriented costumed characters including Scooby Doo, Sponge Bob Squarepants, Superman, Batman and characters from Monsters Inc.
The main trail featured a “Soft Scare” from 4 to 6:30pm and the “Hard Scare” was held from 7 to 10pm. The trails were decorated with frightening displays and various lights and scary sound effects. The Fort Frances Muskie Boys and Fort Frances Lakers Junior A hockey teams joined the WFS staff and volunteers wearing a wide variety of scary costumes lurking in the haunted woods to scare the brave souls walking the trail. Costumed characters roaming the trail were a large Sasquatch, ghouls, zombies, Micheal Myers, clowns, aliens, a werewolf and a chain-saw toting Grinch!
Special Projects Coordinator Danielle Bruyere had planned activities for all age groups and she was very pleased with the number of families that came out to enjoy the event. “We estimate we had close to 2000 visitors of all ages over the two nights” she said. “We were so happy to see all the families engaging and creating fun memories together.”
She said they had 1500 people pre-register and hundreds more show up. WFS staff, the Muskies and Lakers collectively served up 1000 hamburgers, 1200 hotdogs, 1000 candy bags, over 1000 soft drinks and 50 gallons each of hot chocolate and soup.
WFS said they are very appreciative of the support of local businesses and organizations. Tom Veert Contracting Ltd. donated tower lights for the parking lot and gravel for the haunted trail. Dennis Robinson Ltd. donated the use of their property for visitor parking. Kitchen Creek Golf Club donated hot dogs and soft drinks. In addition to scaring visitors young and old in the haunted trail, the Muskie Boys and Lakers hockey clubs had players helped WFS staff serving food, collecting non-perishable food donations and parking cars.
Danielle said they are just finishing clean-up of the Haunted Woods and she has already been planning for the Christmas Trail that will be held in December with more information to be released soon.
