{"id":25073,"date":"2019-10-25T16:25:29","date_gmt":"2019-10-25T20:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25073"},"modified":"2019-10-31T14:48:30","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T18:48:30","slug":"spooky-saturday-as-haunted-forest-takes-over-sheppards-bush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/spooky-saturday-as-haunted-forest-takes-over-sheppards-bush\/","title":{"rendered":"Spooky Saturday as Haunted Forest takes over Sheppard’s Bush"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do you think you have what it takes to walk the scariest\ntrail in Aurora this weekend?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Put on your boots and grab your flashlight for the Town\u2019s\nannual Haunted Forest, which takes over Sheppard\u2019s Bush this Saturday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Featuring a kid-friendly trail and another for those who\naren\u2019t among the faint-of-heart, this year\u2019s favourite Hallowe\u2019en event will\nfeature all new chills and returning favourites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along the trails, young ghouls and goblins will find\ntheir favourite haunted houses, which take over the log cabins within\nSheppard\u2019s Bush, but there will be more this year than ever before. Dotting the\ntrail will be several wooden huts, created last year for the Aurora Christmas\nMarket, which have had spooky makeovers for the occasion \u2013 well, one or two\nmight be a little less spooky as The Auroran has it on good authority that one\nmight be a magical fairyland complete with princesses \u2013 and organizers have\nshaken up the traditional trail routes to keep people on their toes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve changed our trail configurations and that always\nthrows people off,\u201d says Shelley Ware, Special Events Coordinator for the Town\nof Aurora with a laugh. \u201cYou can tell when you see those who come back year\nafter year because you hear them arguing about the routes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will any of those arguments give way to blood curdling\nscreams? You\u2019ll have to find out for yourself, but Ms. Ware says even if you\nthink the scarier of the trails might be too much for you, it\u2019s worth giving it\na shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA person should push themselves to go outside their\ncomfort limit,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is for our community, everything is replicated,\nit\u2019s definitely not real, but you would be surprised how much of a thrill you\ncan take. New this year, we have a baton club performing with glow batons\npositioned throughout the trails to keep people going further and further.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whichever trail you ultimately decide to take \u2013 that is,\nif you don\u2019t decide to do both \u2013 at the end is a community bonfire, which Ms.\nWare says is always a highlight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSomething as simple as the bonfire really brings people\nof all ages together,\u201d she says. \u201cYou see hundreds of people, adults all\ntalking to each other, all recognizing someone coming out of the trail, and a\nnew connection is made. In a strange way, Haunted Forest is definitely a\ncommunity gathering, but it is also like a homecoming for people who don\u2019t\nreally see each other too often during the year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But people come to the Haunted Forest from well beyond\nour community \u2013 thanks in part to it being recognized once again this year as\none of the Top 100 Festivals & Events in Ontario, an honour decided by\nFestivals & Events Ontario. (FEO)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a huge surprise and honour to be able to make that\nlist,\u201d says Ms. Ware, giving kudos to all the community partners \u2013 dozens \u2013 who\ncome together each year to ensure the event\u2019s success. \u201cWe have won this\nhand-in-hand with our community. With all our events, we try to make each\nyear\u2019s experience unique and new so you will be motivated to return year after\nyear. Because we are pulling together with community partners over 40 displays,\nthere\u2019s a lot of innovative thinking, creativity and actual sweat pulling\neverything together, but we\u2019re also trying to balance out the subject matter\nbecause some people who have never been to the event don\u2019t know how scary it\nis, or they think it is too scary. Meanwhile, we really are catering to all\nmembers of the family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Community organizations, even if they\u2019re not part of the\nplanning process, are also set to benefit from the Haunted Forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although admission is just a $5 wristband per person\nwhich can be purchased in advance from the Aurora Family Leisure Complex, Town\nHall, or the Stronach Aurora Recreation Complex (SARC), donations of\ngently-worn winter clothes are also encouraged to be brought along for those in\nneed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the time of year that people are going through their\nclosets and piecing together their winter wardrobes, thinning out what they\ndon\u2019t want and what might not fit anymore. Bringing what you\u2019re thinking of\ngetting rid of this Saturday will be a way of paying it forward and ensuring\nthat items end up in good hands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe will be collecting gently-used winter items both at\nSheppard\u2019s Bush and at the Aurora Family Leisure Complex and these will be\nredirected to associations and groups that can make great use of them,\u201d says\nMs. Ware. \u201cWe will happily take them off your hands so we can get them into\nother hands who greatly need it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also might be a good idea, she adds, to bring a\nflashlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSheppard\u2019s Bush is a gorgeous property but people need\nto be mindful it is a natural trail. Having said that, there are roots on the\nground as you\u2019re walking. It is very bumpy and dark at night for three quarters\nof the event, so we encourage people to bring flashlights to see the ground\nthey are walking on, and also to be mindful. They are not walking across a\nsoccer field, it is an organic, natural trail system. We want people to have\nthe thrills and enjoy themselves, but we also want people to be mindful of the\nground they are stepping on so they don\u2019t trip and fall.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aurora\u2019s Haunted Forest takes over Sheppard\u2019s Bush this Saturday, October 26, from 6 \u2013 9 p.m. For more information, including wristbands, visit aurora.ca\/hauntedforest. Shuttle buses to Sheppard\u2019s Bush will be running between the Aurora Family Leisure Complex and the Conservation Area.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Award-winning Haunted Forest offers new thrills and chills for young ghouls and goblins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2019-10-24-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6wp","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-24 18:08:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}