Taking a walk in some corn, no big deal

Sauvie Island, just a 15-minute drive from downtown Portland, is popular in the summer time with all demographics, from sandcastle-building tots to midlife-crisis nudists. The agricultural isle now proves to be a hit across seasons, as it encapsulates the spirit of autumn fittingly with ghoulish frights and orange delights.

Immediately after crossing the bridge, one unearths aesthetic euphoria with Dr. Seuss-like fields housing whimsical pumpkins more fanciful than any carriage Cinderella ever had. A U-Pick patch brings the family together, strengthens our connection to the earth and supports a custom promoting local and seasonal produce-buying. Indeed, Sauvie is a retreat into something quite magical and isolated as the detached land mass seems to have its own special aura.

After finding your soul-mate pumpkin, embrace further traditions of fall by eating a caramel apple, sold from the Pumpkin Patch Market, or nibbling on an ear of corn. Unlike your local grocery store, it is primarily produce-filled from front to back (though it does also sell decorative gourds and marketable honey sticks).

Now off to the corn mazes, officially and cleverly dubbed corn MAiZEs. This year the main MAiZE, five-acres huge, is in the shape of the Heart in Oregon symbol while the haunted MAiZE, just having opened its doors last weekend, is designed as a scarecrow. Craig Easterly, owner of both mazes, explained that every year he looks for the main MAiZE design to be “something that resonates with Portlanders,” while the other takes on a Halloween theme.

To clarify, there are two mazes, one that is haunted and one that is not. Do not be confused as I was, thinking that the regular maze, which took me an hour and a half to get through, was going to be bustling with zombies at night.

No, it’s a little less horrific than that, as the Haunted MAiZE is more of a walk through than a labyrinth, which takes roughly half an hour at most. In the beginning, you’re bunched together with a group of 15 or so in a large room that is a mixture of the Twilight Zone Library and your neighbor’s porch on Halloween.

Then, you are ousted from the room and left to walk the fallow path. Most of the corn is held upright by wire paneling that suggests that no human could be behind it. That is why the first Einstein-esque zombie that pops out at you is by far the most frightening. After that, it becomes unapparent whether the corn is just rustling in the wind or whether something is preparing to spit itself out of the stalks and start crab walking in fast motion.

While they can’t touch you, there is something very hilariously uncomfortable about their close proximity, not to mention the initial indication of their existence that will either produce smiles or screams. Although it seems to be for the younger crowd, I found myself at multiple times literally being clutched by the little girl as well as her mother following behind me. A colony of strangers at first, we came together like the Breakfast Club under these aMAiZEingly scary conditions. ?